Monday, November 14, 2010.
Poor Boy At Tracey's, In The Dark.
I don’t usually go into town Mondays, but it's an unusually busy week. Tomorrow is an Eat Club on the North Shore, Wednesday I have a speech right after the show, and Thursday the show is pre-empted by a basketball game. Sometime this week I must record commercials for next week's three days of vacation. That’s my least favorite job, enough so that I am reluctant to take vacation days to avoid it. Added irritation comes from addressing the task after three hours of the radio show, which leaves me nearly brain-dead. Sometimes I wish I had a job like that guy I met running a barbecue hut near Langtry, Texas, pretty close to the middle of nowhere. There’s no question that mindless work is easier than jobs requiring total concentration.
I got about a dozen spots done before I quit for the night. Then went to dinner at Tracey’s, a revived name from the Irish Channel past. Tracey’s is the new restaurant opened a couple of years ago by the former operators of Parasol’s, one of the greatest names in the annals of poor boy sandwiches. They fell out with the owners of their former building, and moved out. A new operator took over the old place and the Parasol’s name. And we now have two poor boy shops with claims to the spirit of Parasol’s instead of just one. There is some animosity between them, of course.
Atmospherically, Parasol’s was always at least as much a bar as it was a restaurant. That is also true at Tracey’s. The kitchen opens onto the dining room through a window where you order and pick up your sandwich. “Pay the cook,” the sign says, which doesn’t strike me as a good idea, for sanitary reasons--at least if you’re paying with cash. (They do accept cards.)
I set the process of making of a roast beef poor boy in motion, then went to the big antique bar in search of an Abita Amber. I found a table with enough light shining down to get a decent picture of the food, and to read up in the New Yorker on what might be going on in the Big Apple next week. As always seems to happen, the moment I started to read someone turned the lights down enough to make that impossible. The sound on the television screens went up as the lights went down. Monday Night Football.
The sandwich was in the old style, with a modest amount of tender, sliced pot roast and a good gravy. The bread was crisp and fresh but not warm or toasty. In the old days, not even the best roast beef poor boys were unfinishable, as many of them are now. More evidence that, no matter what we may think, we are eating much larger portions of everything than we once did.
The sandwich was about what I remember from past visits to Parasol’s. For reasons I’m at a loss to explain, I had an order of the stridently ordinary fries. I wouldn’t recommend those. I was intrigued by the board of specials, all of which were salads. Maybe next time.
Tracey's. Garden District: 2604 Magazine St. 504-897-5413.
It's over three years since a day was missed in the Dining Diary. To browse through all of the entries since 2008, go here.
