Culture clash.

I'm back at the house after one of the worst meals I've had in a good long while. Some people I knew said they were going to a local restaurant for dinner after class, so I wanted to be spontaneously social and went with them. I liked chatting as we walked over, but as soon as we walked into the place I should've just had a water, stayed ten minutes, and left.

Ostensibly, the place is a Pittsburgh landmark, but I can't understand why. Pimanti Brothers is a sandwich-based restaurant, and the more I stayed, the more uneasy I got. Before the food came I talked to the other people at the table, remarking this wasn't a restaurant for a Jew at all, and found out one of the people - a smart, fun woman in an acclaimed library science program, in her early twenties - had never heard of lentils and didn't know what they were.

Every sandwich, every single one, had cheese on it, even the sardine sandwich. Every sandwich comes with potato fries and cole slaw on it, unless you ask for it without. That could be tasty, but the fries were large and soggy, and the cole slaw was too flavored with vinegar to taste like anything else, and the turkey I ordered had too much pepper to taste like the animal it came from. Terrible, terrible, terrible food. I'd have been happier going straight to the house and making a lentil-tofu dish I'd been looking forward to trying out for a while. So much happier. Now I feel like I should throw up and just go to bed hungry because what I ate was so bad. It's really, really tempting, and I know how much throwing up hurts and how bad it tastes.

They don't have places like Pimanti Brothers where I come from. I don't eat at places like that. When I cook for myself I eat bok choy and turnips and parsnips and fennel and sweet potatoes and organic meats and local milk and aged hard cheeses and good food. I should've taken everyone someplace that serves that.

Seriously, who the hell wants soggy french fries in their sandwiches?