After Visit to "Cantina," Tojo Clings to Life

[Ed note: Cantina is kaput. Unfortunately their owner died and we wish his family the very best.  However, Jalapenos has opened in the space and they provide complimentary chips/salsa and fast table service.  Jan. 23, 2013]

So anyway, this morning the GumpPhone lights up and as usual it's the Cornbread Carp. Apparently one of the Guinea Pigs went to the new Cantina Tortilla Grill* in the Alley last week and lived to tell about it, so the Carp (who always gets his way) decreed that the Cantina was cleared for a full review by Lunch in the Gump.

Like so many redneck tragedies that start out "hold my beer and watch this shit," today's LITG review doesn't end well, and something tells me that a particular Guinea Pig, the one they call "Squeak," is going to lose his job over this. Yes, his furry little head is going to roll.

A gentle giant, when properly fed.

Thinking everything was safe, I grabbed my old pal Tojo Yamamoto and set off up Commerce Street to the Alley so we could check out our newest Mex joint. As loyal LITG readers know, Tojo is a man of very few words, and absolutely no articles, conjunctions or linking verbs. Tojo would sooner disembowel himself with a dull samurai sword than utter the words "and" or "the," or use a complete sentence, or speak in anything but the present tense, or refer to himself in the first person. But maybe that's why we all like Tojo so much... he uses his mouth as an insertion point for food and not for blathering on and on about meaningless crap like the rest of us do.

"Tojo hungry," he said. That's about all you're ever going to get out of Tojo.

We made our way past the intimidating pastel pink facade of the Rushton Stakely firm, walking in the middle of the street due to the never-ending sidewalk construction between there and the posh offices of 2WR Architects & Partyboys, LLC. This particular sidewalk project has been going on for so long that many of us downtowners wonder if it isn't really the Outer Loop, or a super-colliding superconductor, or maybe pyramids they're building. But I digress, as always.

Cantina is stylish & tasty, but over
the Tojo Line, pricewise.

Tojo was smiling, bowing to everybody and rubbing his impressive belly in anticipation as we entered the very stylish Cantina. He looked around. He sniffed the aroma. "Tojo like," he said. The Carp, Shadow Pup and Norm Peterson were already there and gave us the protocol. At Cantina, you order at the bar first, then find a seat and they bring your food out to you, pronto.

Tojo pondered the menu and as you might imagine, he was drawn to the category "Big Plates." His eyes narrowed at the $10.95 price tag, somewhat over the Tojo Line, but we all knew what was happening. If you bait a trap with something called "Big Plates" you will catch Tojo every time.

The big man ordered Cilantro Chicken from the "Big Plates" part of the menu. The dish was described as cilantro-marinated chicken breast with roasted corn, poblano peppers and saffron rice. Tojo was all over it. With tea and tax, Tojo's lunch tab came to $13.97, but since it came from the "Big Plates" category, he shrugged and forked over the dough.

About this time we all felt a strange rumbling, and the whole Cantina began to vibrate, as if a freight train was making its way through the Alley. Before the Cantina's patrons could panic, though, Tojo put them at ease. "Tojo miss breakfast, stomach empty," he said. We were relieved there wasn't a seismic event occurring in the Alley, but worried nevertheless because none of us had ever known our large Asian friend to miss a meal under any circumstances. Our boy was really hungry.

Luckily (or so we thought) they got the food out quickly and the gang dug into their excellent tacos, cuban sandwiches, garlic fries and such... but Tojo was crestfallen. Yep, it was a "Big Plate" all right. Big enough that the puny little dab of food on that plate looked like the Hawaiian Islands sitting in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, as seen from the moon.

Visibly distressed, Tojo looked around the Cantina in hopes that a server would bring the rest of his lunch but alas, it was what it was... a scrawny little boneless Paris Hilton chicken breast sitting on top of a couple spoonfuls of rice with a little canned corn and maybe six or seven small bites of bell pepper thrown in.

Running out of options, Tojo had no choice but to immediately ingest the Cilantro Chicken, a process which took maybe ten seconds. But the rumbling didn't subside. Near panic, Tojo ran back to the counter (to the extent Tojo can "run") and ordered chips and salsa. With tax, that was $3.30 more! DIOS MIO!! Three bucks for chips and salsa in a place called "Cantina?" Tojo was out-of-pocket $17.27 and hadn't even replenished the 300 calories he had burned walking his big ass two blocks up Commerce Street to get there in the first place.

Tojo went pale and his eyes rolled back into his head, then he slumped over. The Cantina fell silent, except for the lingering tremors of Tojo's hunger pangs and Shadow Pup's incessant yipping. The paramedics were on the scene in a flash, but damn if they didn't have to call in a second unit because it took two gurneys to get Tojo out of there.

One particularly quick-thinking paramedic ran down the Alley to Saza's and commandeered somebody's Rigatoni Bolognese (the $16 dinner portion, I think) and was force-feeding Tojo as they wheeled him out to the ambulance. Also, one of Jerry Kyser's crew happened by with a refrigerator dolly and helped load him up.

Anyway, Tojo appeared to be coming around when the ambulance pulled away on Commerce Street, narrowly missing a gaggle of Beasley Allen secretaries who were walking in the middle of the street because the sidewalk can't seem to get paved in two year's time. Sheesh, you can put a man on the moon but you can't pave a half block of sidewalk so that legal secretaries don't get run over by paramedics hauling ass to keep a Japanese rassler from starving to death.

Oh, and if anybody has seen "Squeak," tell him he needs to see Bidgood Bob ASAP.

[Ed. Note: 9/1/2011: Today the Cantina served a very nice chicken bisque which went well with the steak tacos.  Fine if you are not someone who needs tons to eat at lunch...like Tojo.]


* Footnote: Seriously, Cantina is a great addition to the Alley. The food was excellent, the decor is as cool as the other side of the pillow, it's fast and they should do a great business once the liquor license comes through. They need to work on portion size relative to price, in our opinion, or maybe it's just the early-stage baby steps. We'll be back... next time for margaritas, drunk-talk and secretary-chasing. 


Also, Tojo is recovering nicely. Luckily, Chris' Hot Dogs, Scott Street Deli and Hamburger King were all on the way to Jackson Hospital and it looks like our boy will be okay. The only problem was Blue Cross, which balked at Tojo's dietary needs... at first.

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.

Gird Your Loins: Sa Za's Outstanding

Justin Gaines

Something is amiss with Urban Spoon-Montgomery.  Mimerton, home from Ole Miss, wanted to try Sa-Za's for dinner Saturday night. Being an avid Urban Spooner, I checked it out and saw three "awful"/"terrible"/"disgusting" reviews of Sa-Zas posted this month (March 2010) and tried to talk her out of going there.  Thankfully, she was determined so, along with Toadpot and Tayteese, we made reservations, girded our loins and proceeded down to Gumptown and Sa-Za's Serious Italian Food. We were, simply said, blown away and now skeptical about the motives behind the recent terrible reivews. [I note that Araess--a very finicky eater--had given the place a good review not long ago].

Fortunately, many in the Gump ignored the negativity and joined the crowd at Sa-Za's for dinner Saturday night. The place was buzzing with energy.  The "alley" bar was open and high-tops outside and under the awning on the Commerce Street sidewalk were full of patrons eating and drinking in apparent satisfaction.

Our table, thanks to "Zeke", was waiting for us at 8:15 p.m. and we were seated and immediately greeted by Jennifer who was perky, cute and attentive.  There was no sign of poor service or a poor attitude by anyone I observed working the room.  There behind the "chef's table" was Justin Gaines fresh from winning the Choppped chef competition on the Food Network. Maybe he was not there when the Urban Spoon reviewers were eating, but he was there tonight and everything--I mean everything--was outstanding. 

I started us out with the peppers appetizer. Plenty for four and very tasty.  A bottle of the house pinot noir chased it as the girls discussed the men they saw at the bar who had dumped their friends. Women in the Gump protect their own.

I then ordered the pork loin covered in a white wine butter sauce with thin-sliced potatoes and peppers. I wanted to lick the plate. If I had not been seen by my probation officer, I would have.

Toadpot ordered the raviioli.  She allowed me to try one.  It was light and delicious.  She raved about it. I understand why.

Mimerton ordered some flattened chicken with pesto sauce and she loved it. She could not eat it all and, contrary to her usual position on "go-boxes", was not ashamed to take home lunch for Sunday.

Tayteese ordered something off the menu that came in a large bowl. It was a heavier pasta dish but extremely good.  Ditto for her on the "doggie box" no doggie would ever see.

The girls twisted my arm and forced me to order the cheescake and termasu (sp?) for desert.  Both were lighter than expected and devoured quickly.

I was happy to pay the $120 tab for four and left with the thanks of the group for a wonderful meal in a cool place where--when I could tear myself away from the remarks about men dating younger women--the NCAA tourney was on the flatscreen over the bar. (Did some nobody really beat Obama's pick to win it all: Kansas?)

The whole experience was so much better than average that I have to again mention that you cannot always believe the reviews you see on the Spoon.  Perhaps some have ulterior motives.  I, for one, can recommend Sa-Za's performance on this night without hesitation. This place deserves higher than a 69% approval rating (as of tonight).