Food

Since I can't seem to think of anything else to blog about, I think I'll write about food.

More specifically "Squeelers" in Shingle Springs, CA.

I was on my way to the Nissan store in Shingle Springs, which is not really near anything (nor, seemingly, offering much of anything - sorry Shingle Springonions)(I didn't catch that til after I typed it - Pronounced Spring-Oh-Nee-ons, not Spring Onions), and I had driven up from south of Sacramento and I only had about fifteen or twenty minutes for lunch. As I approached the exit for the store, I punched "nearby restaurants" into the navigation system, and a Subway popped up. Not really a favorite place of mine, but it was right across the freeway from the store, and it was right there. So I pulled into the strip mall only to see a place called Squeelers two doors down. Well, you know me... I'll take the mom-and-pop place over the chain place any time, so I pulled up in front of Squeelers. It was a little after 1:00, so the lunch crowd had already died down. (I'm not really sure if they have a lunch crowd in Shingle Springs, but if they did, it had already died down.)

I walk in, and the place is about 10 feet wide from wall to wall, and there is a counter about 5 feet from the door, spanning from one wall to the other. There was one tiny little metal table on one side of the door, and two tiny little tables on the other, each with a pair of uncomfortable wrought iron chairs adjacent. Atmosphere - not really a strong point. Must have good food.

So the guy behind the counter greets me cheerfully, and asks what I'd like. So I look up at the white menu board fixed above his head with the little red plastic letters that you afix yourself, and saw that he had basically two things - a beef barbeque sandwich, or a pork barbeque sandwich. So I asked him which one was better. His answer was that the Squeeler was the more popular of the two, but that with either one you get a lot of meat on a roll. So I ordered the Squeeler (the pork sandwich).

I helped myself to a can of diet cola from the refrigerated case at the end of the counter and he handed me my sandwich. The Squeeler lived up to his promise - a lot of meat on a roll, along with a generous amount of barbeque sauce.

It is my experience that most barbeque restaurants don't give you nearly enough barbeque sauce on a sandwich. You always have to reach for those little squeeze bottles and squirt about half of the bottle on so you're not choking it down. I think this is the first time ever that I did not add any sauce at all to my sandwich. And the roll was fresh. That's another thing that I just don't get. Many, many places that serve sandwiches, serve them on bread that should have been thrown away days ago. (When I mentioned that to him, he said that's what he uses for bread crumbs for one of his other entrees. So I guess he had just more than the two sandwiches.)

Oh. And it tasted great too.

On a side note, sitting on the table in front of me was "The Ultimate Guitar Book" - one of those oversized paperbacks (8"x10"?) with lots of pictures of guitars and guitar history. As I thumbed through it, I told him about the boys, and how they had received acoustic guitars, then electric guitars before they turned five. So he went into the back and brought out his electric guitar to show me. He said when it gets slow, he breaks out the guitar and plays. Turns out, the restaurant was his, and he has been there about eight years. No employees. Low overhead. And sandwiches with a lot of meat on a roll. Stop by next time you're in Shingle Springs.