Indianapolis, IN...DEE'S BAR-B QUE SOUL FOOD RESTURANT

Dee just delivered my food.
It's been a long week. Corporate held a regional meeting in my store for local delis last Thursday. I'd just come back from opening Hingham, MA. We worked our asses off crossing T's, dotting i's; corporate arrived followed by 75 of my peers and crucified our department. There's critique and then there's being kicked in the balls. So, now we're back on schematic, no longer rogue, the reigned-in maverick. So, now numbers aren't the bottom line; It's dog n pony show time.

Dee delivered my food. Stepped from her white car, "Honey, just sign here where I put the X."
It clouded up earlier, nothing on the radar for states around, but low ground coverage, breezy, whatever.
I closed the last 7 nites in a row, this morning was my first cook post-upheaval. I ran a training schematic plus adjustments.
Bending like the reed.

Dee's food is fucking incredible.
Holy fucking crap. And I ran with Stevie B's, and Smoke Daddy, and Hecky's? WTF is wrong with me?

Nothing on the radar for miles around, hell, this could've been meat jello and Sysco.
We did Dinners: me, ribs, hot sauce, mac n cheese, potato salad, coleslaw, cornbread, white bread
Him: rib tips(ahhh...Chicago boy!), mild sauce, mac n cheese, sweet potatoes, white bread

OMFG
yeah...pork's a bit fall-off-the-bone, but it's got that smoke ring and umami blitz...a sure hand with the cook...meat's doused in sauce(easily remedied)...and the sauce, oh my god(I like sauce, heretic, I am)...oh my god...an easy-enough reticule, tomato/vinegar in my case enough chile to send an afficianado of laab into a frenzy...

OMFG
A creamy coleslaw the right side of fermentation, tiny bubbles lazing about the mayo bath
A gilded macaroni, cheese and pasta are one, browned bits, crispy crunchies, crown
Cornbread more onion pancake than what I understand as corn bread(not oniony, more texture than anything), cornbread, flattened, crisped, wok hai, crunchy niblets of cornmeal warm from the skillet, hearth warmth
OMFG
OMFG
yeah, pork's a bit fall off the bone, but holy shit it's good; that li'l bit of tear, a tug between the teeth and the sauce's sweetness countermands that hardcore smoke, a cook that knows what she's about-you can tear this from the rib over the hoods of your cars or take it to go from her canary-yellow ply wood emboldened den of smoked meats and fried fish

Ensorcelled by meat smoke and the residual seduction of fried white fish, pulled pork, white bread, and fries; how can you escape, sadly, like I did for three years? Visiting the vet charity Value World(in the same parking lot) in vain search of work pants(no try-on rooms, here)...desultorily flipping though crappy sale cd's that might bring a better life online...all the while Dee's siren song eclipsed by peeling yellow clapboard...and wondering what if?


Tear Dee's from the bone, like I finally did; the crispy bits and cayenne burn; glee after a hard week and a big paycheck(opening new stores is lucrative). Glee, at the potential of an unexpected thunderstorm, love of the green erasing our backyard after another season of cold. Styrofoam-capped styrofoam tubs and greasy receipts make me happy. Dee's rocks.

DEE'S BAR-B QUE SOUL FOOD RESTURANT

5215 N. Keystone Court
Keystone Plaza OFF OF 52nd St.
Indianapolis, Indiana 46220
317-253-1549

"You Tried the Rest Now Try the Best"

HI,

I'm so glad you enjoyed your dinner. I am forwarding your over the top enthusiastic revelry to a friend who is heading there tomorrow.

Regards,

Good to know. I still haven't found
perfectly satisfying ribs in Indy.
Uncle Artie's used to have the right
amount of smoke and chew, but
they've moved or gone out of business.
King Ribs is near perfection 20-25%
of the time, really good 60% of the
time. GT South's does good pulled
pork, but their ribs are tiny and dry.
Judge's and BBQ Heaven are forgetable.
The 54th St. Farmers Market has pulled
pork that is moist and porky, but not
very smokey (but their salmon is the
best in town - topping any preparations
at Oakley's or Oceanaire, IMO). One
place I recently drove past on the
South Side is called Pork 'n' Shake.
How could anyone not be intrigued?

I commute back and forth between Montréal and KC twice a year and no matter which end I started from I ALWAYS end up late at night in the Super 8 on the east end of Indianapolis by the Waffle House. Why aren't any of these places open when I get there? Dammit CG, what am I to do about this?

Geo

Geo,

Why don't you linger for a day in Indy. The one trip with JimInLoganSquare impressed me quite a bit from food to culture.

Regards,

Geo:Indianapolis

I did my best not to nod off on my porch this afternoon. A lunch 6 hours into my opening shift after a deep clean close the night before. I walk home for lunch. I live a block away from my store.

I walk home for lunch and I walk to work and I walk back home; that makes a difference.

Geo: Indianapolis

A yawn, I imagine

I could be a Jarman film, maybe even Greenaway in his heyday; picture me raped and covered in soy.

Or, I'm Indianapolis, or, Indianapolis is a yawn, or I'm confused, or, it gets better, Indianapolis is a fugue of Indianapolis: remember, I first encountered this city when I was 16...traveling in a sedan with my typically auto-enucleated family on our diaspora from Houston to Southeastern Ohio.

Anonymous Kentucky Diner: I sit across from my parents and much younger brother:
Waitress: so's...this separate checks?"

I was sixteen and would have rather torn out my own eyes

Bataille approved the menu; chrono-cuisine being the new hot thing back then

and the eggs were PERFECT

but back to Indianapolis, that sad, soporific city

it's mostly made up of chains, yes;
these slimy memes dripping has-been scrotal glick
everyone loves ground beef steamed with raw cumin in a store-bought flour tortilla that hasn't even been offered the pleasure of a fucking dorm hot plate
but, wait! There's more!
chains erode eventually,

Hey! I had some damn good barbeque(and I'm not an expert)
Hey! Upon a friend's sister's birthday I got pirated past Saraga(a multinational grocery store)out to a really fucking decent Vietnamese restaurant that'd easily compete "authenticity"-wise with the likes of Argyle...and had a great time(kids running around, doing homework, being berated by their parents to do their homework)

and me chewing flowery tripe and mystery meatballs and American appetizers and fuck it whatever because in that moment I was with friends and the parents of friends and the darkness pressing outside was fucking palpable, almost edible, a grape popsicle, some stranger's tobacco...and just the scent insinuated, then it spat across the windows in dark, smeary crescents, but we were with family and every off, porky bit played like laughter...

and that's Indianapolis