Dozen & A Half Best Roast Beef Poor Boys.

The universal sandwich of New Orleans has been for most of a century among the most cherished items on the menus of neighborhood cafes. Even though roast beef with in gravy doesn't much resemble anything else in the Creole cuisine, a good roast beef (you can leave the words "poor boy" or even "sandwich" out) is held in as high a regard as a great gumbo, shrimp remoulade, or, really, anything else. [caption id="attachment_10551" align="alignnone" width="400"] Roast beef at Guy's.[/caption] A roast beef is poor boy is made with around a foot-long piece of a long, narrow French loaf baked specifically for the purpose. After being sliced end to end, it's spread with mayonnaise , studded with pickles, and layered with lettuce and tomatoes. The roast beef itself goes down after a soaking in a thick brown gravy. The beef may be sliced, or shredded into "debris," or cut into chunks. The argument over which way the beef should be cut down is a matter of eternal debate. If it is to be a really great poor boy, the whole sandwich is popped into a hot oven to toast the exterior of the bread. The gravy makes the sandwich click. The local preference is for a roast beef to be “sloppy”--with enough gravy so that it oozes out all sides. This idea has lately been taken to ridiculous extremes. Tthere shouldn’t be so much gravy that the bread falls apart, but that is becoming the norm. [caption id="attachment_14666" align="alignnone" width="480"] An overloaded roast beef poor boy.[/caption] The poor boy is sandwich was invented during the streetcar strike of the 1920s by Bennie and Clovis Martin, the owners of Martin's Poor Boy Restaurant. They were motivated to help out the poor boys on the picket lines with a big, filling sandwich. It contained only scraps of meat for a low price—originally a nickel. Then and now, a roast beef's taste is distinctive. It's reminiscent of the Chicago Italian beef and the Philadelphia cheese steak, but neither of those have the same flavor as a genuine roast beef poor boy. The prospect of eating a roast beef brightens the eyes of any Orlenian. Indeed, my career as a food writer began when, at age eleven, I had my first poor boy. I have sought for that sensation ever since. Here are what I think are the dozen and a half best general practitioners of the poor-boy sandwich art. 1. Parkway Poor Boys. Mid-City: 538 Hagan Ave. 504-482-3047. The only way you could possibly not like Parkway is if you hate standing in line. Recently, this has been ameliorated by the addition of a new kitchen. All the roasting and other preparations are performed in house, with a degree of care and attention not often matched even in white-tablecloth restaurants. 2. Sammy's Food Service. Gentilly: 3000 Elysian Fields Ave . 504-947-0675 . Sammy's is, in addition to a great breakfast and lunch cafe in a part of town with few restaurants, a full-fledged butcher shop that cuts the meats for many another poor boy shop. The roast beef is supreme. 3. Johnny's Po-Boys. French Quarter: 511 St Louis. 504-524-8129. Johnny's makes all the classic poor boys, but their mammoth roast beef is close to the perfect poor boy experience. [caption id="attachment_46334" align="alignnone" width="480"] Roast beef poor boy at the Po-Boy Company.[/caption] 4. Liuzza's By The Track. Esplanade Ridge: 1518 N Lopez. 504-218-7888. Liuzza's bangs out variations on the classics throughout its menu. The best example of this is the "breathtaking roast beef poor boy," enhanced by the simple addition of a significant amount of horseradish to the mayonnaise. I thought it impossible to improve the basic roast beef poor boy formula until I had this. 5. Katie's. Mid-City: 3701 Iberville. 504-488-6582. Almost all the cooking is accomplished with better ingredients than the average at these prices. The roast beef--an item by which a lot of people judge restaurants like this--is as good as it gets. Katie's is famous for "The Barge," a poor boy made with an entire loaf of French bread. But you're better off getting the standard-size, still-enormous sandwich. 6. Giorlando's. Metairie 2: Orleans Line To Houma Blvd: 741 Bonnabel. 504-835-8593. Giorlando's opened in 1972 as a self-service poor boy shop, and became famous for its roast beef. It has a full menu of New Orleans and Italian food, while the roast beef is as fine as ever. [caption id="attachment_17144" align="alignnone" width="400"] Pontchartrain Po-Boy.[/caption] 7. Pontchartrain Po-Boys. Mandeville: 318 Dalwill Dr. 985-626-8188. A serious kitchen cooking all the important items (roast beef, red sauce, gumbo, red beans, etc.) The poor boys are classic, perhaps because the restaurant is a refugee from St. Bernard Parish--a poor boy haven--after Katrina. 8. R&O's. West End & Bucktown: 216 Old Hammond Hwy. 504-831-1248. R&O (for Roland and Ora, the founders) began in 1980 as a tiny cafe with pizza as the specialty, but poor boys being even better. The bread is offbeat, a light, seeded, Italian-French loaf. It's full at all hours. [caption id="attachment_18106" align="alignnone" width="400"] Katie's roast beef poor boy.[/caption] 9. Liuzza's. Mid-City: 3636 Bienville. 504-482-9120. Although Italian food dominates, Liuzza's makes terrific poor boy sandwiches of enormous size and the perfect consistency and quantity of gravy. 10. Bear's. Covington: 128 W 21st Ave. 504-892-2373. Bear's is a converted convenience store, a good sign. (Never trust a poor boy place built for the purpose.) It's always full of customers for their roast beef poor boys, whose beef is thinly sliced and tender (and cooked on the premises). The gravy is flavorful not too thick, and applied in the right amounts. And the bread is ideally fresh. 11. Frankie & Johnny's. Uptown 3: Napoleon To Audubon: 321 Arabella St. 504-243-1234. Frankie and Johnny's is a long-running (since 1942) neighborhood cafe in which the poor boy sandwiches come in second only to the work at the oyster bar. Here is the best version around of the chunky style of roast beef, with a great gravy. The new owner and chef used to be the go-to guy in Emeril's kitchens across the country. 12. Parran's Po-Boys. Metairie 2: Orleans Line To Houma Blvd: 3939 Veterans Blvd. 504-885-3416. Few old-style New Orleans neighborhood cafes exist in Metairie. Even though it's in a strip mall in the Veterans Boulevard sprawl, Parran's is a fine example of the genre. Indeed, it's been around longer than many shops in the old neighborhoods. The cooking, surroundings and prices are all reminiscent of the great old poor boy makers of decades ago. Recently, the owners opened a second location in Kenner. 12. Parran's Po-Boys. Kenner: 2321 W Esplanade Ave. 504-885-3416. 13. Parenton's Po-Boys. Jefferson: 4304 Ellen. 504-846-3545 . Those who get a charge out of finding good but little-known restaurants in inconspicuous locations will love Parenton's. It has served poor boy sandwiches in near-total obscurity for decades. That makes it a prime spot on the dining maps of their regulars. All you have to do is find it. (It's just off Jefferson Highway and Central Avenue.) 14. Sammy's Po-Boys. Metairie 2: Orleans Line To Houma Blvd: 901 Veterans Blvd. 504-835-0916. A tiny cafe in an old strip mall, Sammy's will not draw you with its looks. Chances are you have come for the first time because a friend it's good. In fact, it is very good. The roast beef is a such a superb poor boy that it's hard to pull away from it unless you eat here often. 15. Shortstop's. Metairie 3: Houma Blvd To Kenner Line: 119 Transcontinental Dr. 504-885-4572. The oldest continuously-operating poor boy specialist in Metairie not only makes great sandwiches, but does so in a unique style. The roast beef is cooked so long that it falls apart from its own tenderness. It would not be exaggerating to call this a beef debris poor boy. In a time when many poor boys have passed the $10 mark, you can still get a regular-size roast beef here for six bucks. 16. Guy's Po-Boys. Uptown 3: Napoleon To Audubon: 5257 Magazine. 504-891-5025 . Guy's is the kind of poor boy shop we don't see much anymore. It's basically one guy--Marvin, the owner--who makes all the sandwiches, one at a time, carefully but not too, while engaging in patter with the customers, most of whom are regulars. It's the kind of honestly utilitarian place that convinces a lot of people that this is the real thing. And it is. 17. Parasol's. Uptown 2: Washington To Napoleon: 2533 Constance. 504-302-1543. Parasol's is the cultural center of the Irish Channel, whose major contribution to local color is the street-jamming party all St. Patrick's Day. The place has also always been noteworthy for excellent poor boy sandwiches in the city. They are not quite what I remember from decades ago, but still the makers of good roast beef, with the added interest of the bar. [caption id="attachment_25896" align="alignnone" width="400"] Tracey's in the Garden District: roast beef poor boy.[/caption] 18. Tracey's. Uptown 1: Garden District & Environs: 2604 Magazine St. 504-897-5413. Tracey's is in a way the renaissance of Parasol's. The managers of that restaurant lost control of it some years ago, and opened a new place a couple of blocks away. (Under a name that used to be on Parasol's door.) You order at the counter and fetch your own sandwich, which will be very good. But it feels more a bar than a restaurant.