Man vs. Meatball Parm

Meatball Parm Sandwich at Sa-Zas

One of the grossest or, depending on your point of view, most wonderful shows on the Travel Channel is "Man vs. Food" where some overweight guy with curly black hair named Adam Richmond searches out and destroys the largest, fattest dishes served up by Hamburger King-like places all over America.  Tonight it was a "Double Judd" in Boise, Idaho.  A "Double Judd" is two one-pound cheeseburgers on buns the size of Frisbees. On other episodes you meet the "Ultimate Destroyer," "Burgersarus" and the "Big Ugly Burger."  All of which this Adam guy tries to devour in record time and usually does.

They look like this:

Big Ugly Burger: 2 lbs of meat

"Ultimate Destroyer": Seven kinds of meat on one sandwich

Two yahoos try to eat the "Burgersaurus"

Well today, at Sa-Za's during lunch, I felt like I was shooting an episode of "Man vs. Food." It went down like this:

I was in a hurry and wanted to walk. My options--in my pea brain--were a quick $5 sausage from "The Hot Dog Guy" street vendor or the other restaurants on Commerce/Tallapoosa.  Walking down Commerce I saw Joe DiMaggio sitting outside at Sa-Zas conspiring with what looked like partners or potential investors so I looked inside and saw that there were open seats at the chef's table.  Usually the place is too crowed for a quickie, but today I was in luck so I popped in and sat at the counter and chose the "Mama's Meatball Parm Sandwich" (or something close to that name.)


The service was quick but when the sandwich arrived I knew something was afoot. Surely they did not expect a human to be able to eat this as a sandwich?  Why, I couldn't pick up 1/2 of the thing with both hands and certainly never could have gotten even a corner of it into my mouth. It was huge.  Why, to give you the proper perspective, I submit the following photo with a live Chile Poblano from La Zona Rosa on the side:

The Meatballs dwarf a surprised adult Chile Poblano (shown actual size)

 I had to give up on the idea of treating this thing like a sandwich and began the humiliating process of simply folding away the top slab of bread and cutting the meatballs covered with sauce and cheese with a fork and knife.  Here's the good part, although I ate like a little girl, the meatballs--sans bread--were outstanding.  However, I had to admit that even by avoiding all the bread and the crisps, I was not able to finish the four meatballs on the sandwich. It was just too much.  Man-0/Food-1.

What was perhaps even more amazing was the price: $9.  Which by my count would be less than .50 per ounce of delicious meatballs. Terrific flavor and a reasonable price, but at a tremendous cost to the male ego for having to ponder asking for a "go box."

Incidentally, as I slinked away in shame with my little go box full of leftovers, I noticed DiMaggio in a vacant space on the inside of The Alley Station talking with the same group of partners/investors.  Could there be another restaurant in The Alley afoot?  One hopes so.