Blue Window

My boss walked up to my desk yesterday mumbling about a blue window. He'd had a rough week and it was only Tuesday so I listened with an expectant half smile while I tried to glean the point to his contextual-less words.

Then he handed me a menu.

Ah... Susan Feniger's place across the street. It used to be called Street. Before that it was The Dive. The Dive had the best nachos. A massive plate of nachos for $5. I miss The Dive. Anyway, Chef took over the space with Street, which was perfectly fine. I ate there a few times. Now it's the Mud Hen Tavern. Haven't gone myself since this most recent switch but friends had tried the Blue Window part and raved. The menu is sparse but changes theme every six months, enough time to get back again if you found something you like but keep it fresh and have folks coming back for something new.

The boss was thinking of ordering lunch for the office some time next week. Great! Always down for a free lunch! I tucked the Blue Window menu into my lunch folder.

This morning the boss shuffled over to my desk again, iPhone in hand. "I can't stop thinking about this." He held up his phone with a picture of Blue Window. He took a picture of the restaurant from across the street, probably for his Day One account, and obsessing about it since yesterday.

No problem. I break out the handy dandy lunch signup sheet and away we go.

By the way, they do make the entire menu available vegan. I could care less about that except that I work with the least self-righteous vegan on the planet. Not once, ever, has she gotten on a soapbox or preached about the virtues of veganism or the evils of everyone else. I find myself going out of my way to find vegan recipes and treats. Who'd a thunk it?

Anyway, I ordered the Fried Artichoke Po' Boy with Falafel Onion Rings covered in olive honey drizzled over them the a side of tahini hot sauce.

Everybody's food arrived in two giant paper bags filled with wax-lined paper boxes with all of our names written on them, easy to sort and everything was accurate. I was covering phones when the food arrived so I took my boxes to my desk. Something smelled fabulous! I opened one and it was a very basic looking sandwich. Not what I was smelling. The other box revealed this flaky mush of giant onion rings covered in brown gloppy weirdness with two souffle cups of the hot sauce.

So far this sound underwhelming, if not outright gross. But the smell, the smell called me. So I popped open one of the tahini hot sauce cup and dunked away.

I should say, for those who don't know, I don't do spicy. Favor, yes. Heat, no. I'm always wary.

For some reason I went for it and was rewarded with a crazy good sweet crunchiness. The olive honey sauce was freakishly good and the hot sauce had very little heat to add a perfect counter to the honey. I could not stop eating them. They were greasy and gloppy and wonderful. And gone.

On to the Po' Boy. I have no idea what qualifies it as a Po' Boy. The artichoke was crunchy with cornmeal with a pickle tartness on two thick slices of tomato in a soft roll. It would have disappeared as quickly as the onion rings except the phone rang. At work. Some guy in Canada wants to order a pen. Whatever. The sandwich was still good half an hour later.

The boss seems enamored with this place so I'm sure we'll ordered from there again. Yay!

Oh, pictures. Yeah, the phone call slowed me down, but this is all I captured.