Leftovers

Why does some food taste better the next day?

Pizza, Chinese, the sandwich I just ate... Days later, after marinating in their own juices, what might have been "eh" the first time around is positively delicious later.

My mother was not a good cook. I'm not saying she had no admirable features. She was a culture vulture, still is, where do you think I got it? She was a fan of Jolly Green Giant and Birdseye, you remember, those boil-in bags from the sixties, with the butter and the "freshness" that was one of the breakthroughs, like Pop-Tarts and Tang? Maybe not. We live in a health era right now, wherein if it's been pulled from the ground far away and flash frozen, we don't want it.

So, because she was so busy reading and watching, we frequently went out. Furthermore, my father was a gourmand. He was vastly overweight until he became ill and got what he referenced as a "gastric resection" which I didn't realize was a gastric bypass, i.e. weight loss surgery, until last year when my sister told me. Ah, the secrets that still emanate from the dead. Did you read that story in today's "New York Times"? (http://nyti.ms/1aBYPtK)

So every Sunday night we'd go out for dinner. Sometimes fancy, sometimes holes in the wall, and that's where I got my sense of adventure. Where we ate was just as important as what we saw. Lifestyle was everything to my dad.

Which is how Felice and I found ourselves downtown yesterday, eating at the Nickel Diner.

That was not our first destination. But we pulled up to the Eastside Market Italian Deli and found out it was already closed.

But employing the genius map app we found destination number two, because if you can understand downtown L.A. you live there, and nobody does other than the unbelievably poor and the unbelievably rich.

We found these places via Triple-D, otherwise known as Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. And Guy Fieri's restaurant may have been panned by the "New York Times" but he's a personal hero, because I too know the satisfaction of biting into something that's a ten on its own level. Yes, the food might not work at Per Se, but in the greasy spoon, the ultimate fry, the ultimate chocolate chip cookie, that's what I live for.

The Italian delicacies at the Eastside Market had pictures to die for. They looked like the grinders I grew up with in Bridgeport, a cornucopia of Italian delicacies.

As for the Nickel Diner... It was all about the bacon doughnut, the dessert.

But what to eat first?

I had a steak sandwich, with roasted peppers, pickled onions, mozzarella and dijon sauce... The problem with mainstream food is it's underseasoned. But go to the one of a kind place and they know how to spice it up. The steak sandwich was gooey and tasty, but the steak was not first rate, not tough, but not tender, unlike the dry aged wagyu ribeye I had at Flame in Vail where the bread was substandard but the steak was savory.

But really, it's all about the desserts at the Nickel. But by time we were ready the bacon doughnuts were gone!

So we settled for the chocolate potato chip cake. With peanut butter. And frosting. Salty and crunchy. That's the new thing, have you had salted caramel ice cream yet?

But overall, I would not give the Nickel Diner a thumbs-up.

No, that's wrong, I'd definitely give it a thumbs-up, I just wouldn't say it requires a special trip.

Until today. When I just removed the remnants of my steak sandwich from the fridge.

I have a hard time stopping. I eat what you serve. There are starving children in Europe, you know that right? My parents actually said that. And if you put something on your plate and didn't eat it you'd hear about it for weeks thereafter, that's the kind of guy my dad was, you obeyed the rules. I still do. Too often to my detriment.

But Felice's family was different. She can stop. And she did. So she was left with half a burger and I was left with...half a steak sandwich that I did not eat, realizing I could no longer taste it, why continue?

But as I'm watching the game right now, feeling guilty, because after all the NFL is just modern gladiators, much more dangerous than that TV show with that appellation, Felice entered the bedroom with a smile on her face and started to testify how good her half of hamburger was today.

Which reminded me... My steak sandwich!

Some people would heat it up. But somehow that ruins the effect. If you're not willing to endure the pasty, crunchy, past its peak crust of day old pizza, you're not a connoisseur. All stuck together it's something different. Yes, I don't want to separate out the flavors, I want them all together. That's what a day or two in the fridge will do. Sure, the bread is soggy, but now it's infused with flavors absent previously.

And I take one bite... DELICIOUS! BETTER THAN IT WAS ORIGINALLY!

And I'm wondering what's happening scientifically, but I'll leave that to Nathan Myhrvold. All I know is I'm sitting at the kitchen table reminiscing about pizza in college, Chinese food in Vail, and how when I dig into the carton and extract the remnants of what once was I'm exquisitely happy.

Nickel Diner: http://www.nickeldiner.com

Eastside Market Italian Deli: http://esmdeli.com

Nickel Diner pics: http://bit.ly/1ahXPAp

Eastside Market Italian Deli pics: http://bit.ly/1ahXKwu

P.S. What I hate about modern media is content providers' adherence to old business models, as in I was choosing a destination but all Triple-D episodes had been scrubbed from YouTube, so I'd be forced to sit in front of the Food Channel night after night to be edified. Why not make everything available and monetize it?


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