Friday dinner at Joe's

This past Friday, the day before I started my current self-experimentation, Lig and I went to Joe's barbecue pub. I was surprised to see the place was almost empty at 7:30 in the evening, but within an hour, it had filled up nicely: as Joe noted (we saw him that night), the joint is a pub, after all, so it's inevitably going to attract a pub-crawling crowd, and pub crawlers tend to be night owls, not family-dining folks.

I had wanted to order a hot-doggy something-or-other that I had vaguely remembered from one of the earlier iterations of Joe's menu, but I didn't see it on that night's menu, and I didn't have the wit to make an off-menu request. Instead, Lig and I went with the Chickasaw Fries as an appetizer, and this time around we shared a large Taste of Alabama Platter, switching out the cole slaw for a side of Brunswick Stew, which ended up being tomato-y, sweet, meaty, potato-y, and all-around good.

The biggest surprise of the evening was how much food Lig ate, as she normally eats like a bird. We destroyed the appetizer and most of the platter together. Like me, she became an utter slave to the chicken, but by the time we had finished plowing through the food, there was still one breast-and-wing left over. I polished off the rest of the delicious sides (we also had the whiskey beans and the mac-and-cheese). The bird was wrapped up, and Lig and I played the game of You take it home—No, YOU take it home as we walked back to the subway station. (I won: Lig took the chicken home.)

So Joe got to meet Lig, who was her usual shy, face-covering self. Joe and I talked a bit before Lig and I left, and when we did finally leave, we were pleasantly full—no room for dessert. I told Joe I'd be back, and I will for sure. The food's just too good to pass up.


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