| rev:text
| - I have to come to understand and accept that I am probably the reason restaurateurs hate yelpers.
I just have no appreciation for atmosphere. I know this because during my 12-day stay in the Bay area, the word had to be repeatedly hammered into my brain, as the natives could not understand how I could merely judge a restaurant's merit based solely on their cuisine.
Eventually they wrote me off as a lost cause, chalking up my dis-appreciation of fine decor and tacky acoustic music as a symptom of being Phoenician.
For a while I was confused. I didn't know what was wrong with me. Was I just impossible to please? Had I no taste for aesthetics? Oh shit, I have no aesthetic sensibility. I'm an art major. What does that mean for me?
All I have is a clock radio. Who am I Mommy?
I was beginning to have some serious doubts about my aptitude for critique.
Sweet Zombie Jesus. Maybe I didn't know what I was talking about all this time.
After all, Angie and Jimmie's is as far from atmosphere as you could be. Like, as far as John Cage is from actual music, or Miley Cyrus from being talented.
Fun Fact: While in San Carlos we saw a guy parked underneath a Miley Cyrus billboard giving himself some of the old "self-service at the pump". True story.
There are no polished tables and cushy chairs at A&J's. No, instead they have those all-plastic all-purpose chairs that last you years and years sitting in your backyard until you invite that one plus-sized friend of yours who sits in it and bends it in such a way that is is never usable again.
And there is no ambient music. Only the sounds of the arcade machines and the TV, which no matter what time of day is always playing a crime drama. Or a Billy Mays infomercial.
"HI BILLY MAYS HERE BUY SOME FUCKING OXI-CLEAN OR I'LL SHOVE SOME MIGHTY PUTTY UP YOUR ASS WHILE I BANG YOUR WIFE!"
The staff at A&J care as much about presentation as Fred Phelps does about receiving a box set of "The L Word" for Christmas.
Their wings are not soaked in the sauce (BBW calls the process "spinning") like at other joints. No, the wings are cooked, and then, the sauce is poured over them. At first you're like "this is fucking shady, I am not pleased with this", but when you can actually taste the chicken, and dont' have to ask for like fifty extra napkins, you find you might actually walk away from the table with some dignity.
Try saying the same thing after paying 9 bucks for half a sandwich while ten pounds of bitch in a five pound bag asks you if you have room for dessert.
The subs are meaty and quite sustaining. So I've heard. I have a rule about ordering shit that isn't on the sign. I've never ordered a cheeseburger at Del Taco or chicken nuggets at a Red Lobster, and here I am, still alive and kicking. The system works.
The pizza is simply fucking fabulous. It's crispy but never crunchy, hot but never molten, and cheesy but never "hey, how long are you going to be on the toilet? I need to take a shower" cheesy. Honestly, the only pizza I've had in Phoenix that even compares to it is Pizza A Metro...which is another small independently owned pizza shop crammed next to a Circle K...
...
Maybe it isn't me. Maybe it's just Phoenix. Or just the west side of it. Everything's backwards here. It's like Bizarro world.
All the best food is located in these hole-in-the-walls, where the decor is haphazard the menus have to be laminated because people are always spilling shit on them.
There's still a pretty good chance that I'm a tasteless Philistine, but we're in Bizarro World and that makes me a learned connoisseur of wealth and taste.
I fucking love it here.
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)