[ulterior epicure]

This from my blog post (you can find more, including link to photos, there):

Parkway Bakery & Tavern was the first of our two po’boy lunches.

Thanks to a few additions, this small, simple-frame house with butter-yellow siding fits a lot of people. When weather allows, there’s a huge outdoor patio that can accommodate even more people.

Seating here is communal, more or less. You pick your seat, you pick your neighbor. Or, when the place is packed, as it was the entire time we were there, your seat picks you.

The five of us split four po’boys:

The “Oyster Po’Boy” ($10.20 for the regular) was my favorite.

The oysters were plump, well-crusted on the outside, and garnished with a simple mix of shredded iceberg, tomatoes, and a slick of mayonnaise (the standard-issue garnishes on all Parkway po’boys unless otherwise requested). Pickles, which I normally don’t like in my sarnies, almost seemed needed here to complete the picture, giving each bite a nice zing. It was delicious.

Similarly, with a generous heap of tender, plump popcorn shrimp spilling out from between the bread, the “Shrimp Po’Boy” was quite good ($7.50 for the regular). It was well-made, but bit ordinary (I don’t know how many dozens of shrimp po’boys I’ve seen on menus across America). I preferred the taste of the fried oysters.

The “Home-Cooked Hot Roast Beef with Gravy Po’Boy” was a disappointing ($6.65 for regular). The meat was pulpy and bland – almost a mix of beef stew debris and gravy. The filling was so soft and mushy that it oozed out the sides; a mess to eat.

The unexpected surprise at this meal was my friend’s “Caprese Po’Boy ($6.35 for the regular).

This sandwich featured an impressive, vertically aligned row of sliced mozzarella and tomatoes dressed with a delicious balsamic-basil marinade that soaked into the bottom piece of bread, making it almost like a fat caprese pan bagnat. Dramatically constructed, a sight to behold, this po’boy had to be eaten open-faced.

Not only was it flavorful and the mozzarella buttery and soft, but the tomatoes were shockingly good for the middle of January. I know that winters are more mild in the South, but if this is the local norm for winter produce, then living in the South gets one more point on the scoreboard (n.b. the tomatoes on all the other po’boys were the typical, loamy, pink nasties you expect to find in the winter).

We also ordered a side of sweet potato fries, which were very good ($3.75). And a bag of Zapp’s “Cajun Dill ‘Gator-Tators’” for kicks ($1.15).

Parkway Bakery & Tavern is an efficient operation. We arrived around noon and had a five-minute wait in line, just enough time to send out a scout for an open table and decide on our orders.

Food came out somewhat haphazardly. Our first po’boy order was called right after we paid. Perhaps not surprisingly, they were two of the more popular (if not the most popular) po’boys: the oyster and the roast beef. They probably have a couple of hands in the back dedicated to making these all day long. Our last po’boy to be called – the Caprese – came out just as we were finishing the other three, about twenty-minutes after we ordered. Otherwise, the place runs on clock work. Tables are cleared and wiped quickly. Even the customers seemed mindful of waiting guests.

The stiff French-style bread (with a nice crust, if I may say) here serves its purpose well: a ready sponge for the sauces and juices that abound.

Although the restaurant was once a bakery, it now gets its bread from Leidenheimer Baking Co., a local bakery opened by a German immigrant at the end of the nineteenth century. They distribute their bread across the country.

The menu here is quite extensive. There are nearly two dozen different po’boys, including alligator sausage and grilled Reuben. And it seemed like the locals don’t come here just for the sandwiches. We shared a large communal table with a group of local regulars. With the exception of one oyster po’boy-eater, the rest of them nursed large styrofoam bowls of steaming turkey and alligator gumbo with a nob of bread on the side for dipping and scraping. I’d love to come back and explore the menu more.

Having ordered too much, we called up our cab driver, who picked us up and whisked us off to our next po’boy lunch.

To see all of the (disgracefully subpar) photos from this lunch, CLICK HERE.

[Ron Johnson]

I think the beauty of the roast beef po'boy is in the eye of the beholder . . . your description is spot on, but that is what makes it so loved by so many.

[joiei]

One of the measures of a roast beef po' boy is how many napkins did it take for you to finish it. It is supposed to be wet and sloppy.

[ulterior epicure]

I think the beauty of the roast beef po'boy is in the eye of the beholder . . . your description is spot on, but that is what makes it so loved by so many.

Texture aside, it was bland. That was the more troubling aspect of the sandwich to me.