Roadfood_ Revised Edition - Jane Stern [55]
On the left of the aisle is a buffet counter where arriving customers stand and place orders. Here is how it works: Walk to the back with your eyes looking left. This allows a full view of what’s to eat, including pork chops smothered in gravy, glistening roast chicken, rice and beans, sweet plantains, and octopus salad. Place your order and have a seat. When it’s ready, one of the counter help will call you to pick it up, or on occasion, they will bring it to your table.
The octopus salad can be a meal or a lip-smacking appetizer: tender leaves of meat glistening in a garlic marinade. While daily lunch specials include such exotica as tripe and pigs’ feet (Monday and Thursday) and fried chicken chunks known as chicharron de pollo (Tuesday), everyday entrees include stews and chops and roast chicken that are beautiful to see and a delight to eat.
The Cuban sandwich is first-rate, a crisp-toasted length of bread enveloping roast pork, salami, ham, melted cheese, a surfeit of pickle slices, mustard, and mayo. Actually, any sandwich made on the good Cuban bread, then pressed and heated, is excellent. We love the plain roast pork that is anything but plain tasting.
On your way out, have a shot of espresso. It’s dark, syrup-rich, and delicious, just about the best cup we’ve had anywhere in New York.
McSweeney’s
535 N. Margaret St.
518–562–9309
Plattsburgh, NY 12901
LD | $
It was only recently that we learned about Michigans, thanks to Roadfooders David Scheinberg, who used to spend summers in the Adirondacks, and Adam Graham, and Cynthia Potts, all of whom alerted us to a style of chili dog unique to New York State’s northland. Michigans go back to the early 1940s and have remained very popular in and around Plattsburgh, but virtually unknown elsewhere. Each place that makes Michigans has its own formula, but the basic idea is a piggy pink wiener in a split-top bun, topped with dark-orange chili sauce in which the meat is sandy smithereens.
McSweeney’s, which bills itself as “Plattsburgh’s Red Hot Car Hop Stop,” is a relative newcomer to the area, opened in 1991 and now boasting three locations in Plattsburgh. We visited the one on Route 9 North (Margaret St.), which features old-time carhop service and an inside counter as well as comfortable sit-down tables indoors. Michigans are listed on the menu as chili dogs, but our waitress assured us they are indeed Michigans. She also explained the bun crisis of 2002, when long buns became unavailable, thus wreaking havoc on the eating habits of those who order their Michigans with buried onions. “Buried means underneath the weenie,” she said. “That makes the weenie stick up above the bun and the sauce will fall off.”
McSweeney’s makes excellent sauce: luxuriously beefy, flecked with pepper that kindles a nice glow on the tongue. The package is substantial enough that Michigans come with a fork. Looking around the dining room and at people eating off trays hung on car windows, it appeared to us that most customers forgo the utensil. A few people we observed had perfected a technique of hoisting the entire cardboard boat to chin level with one hand, then using the other hand to ease the Michigan from boat to mouth, bite by bite.
McSweeney’s sells Michigan sauce by the pint ($11.50) and offers a Michigan without the hot dog: mustard, onions, and plenty of sauce in the unique, hollowed-out bun. This configuration is known, strangely enough, as a sauceburger, and as much as we like the sauce, we much prefer it in concert with a weenie.
New Way Lunch
54 South St.
518–792–9803
Glens Falls, NY
BL | $
Hungry in Glens Falls, we pulled to the curb to investigate a storefront diner on South Street. “You looking for the hot dog place?” a pedestrian asked. “It moved.” He pointed up the street. Interesting as the diner was, we figured that the unsolicited tip was worth following. So we drove a few hundred yards to New