Good story; close to pro literary. "Rich Thomas via Mercedes" <mercedes@okiebenz.com> wrote:
Back when there was a dive place called the No Name that was down on the fish pier where the boats came in, tied up right outside the back door of the place. It was just a door in the building, no sign or anything, hence "No Name." It was run by a bunch of crazy Greeks, usually a line out the door and down the pier. My mom and grandmother came to visit me once so I took them down there for lunch, was not too busy. You could bring your own beer and wine and such, but you had to watch they wouldn't take it and drink it. My grandmother asked if they had something or other that was on the menu, the waiter turns around and walks out the back door to where a boat was unloading and comes back with a fish and asked her if that one was OK. At that point she just sorta nodded, the waiter yells at one of the cooks in Greek, he turns around and the waiter tosses the fish to him, tells my grandmother it will be ready in a few minutes. She was pretty much catatonic at that point. So my mom and grandmother are sitting there eating, we ordered whatever, I had scallops I think. There were two people at the table next to us, they were ordering and one of them asked "How are the scallops?" The waiter grabs her fork, reaches over and stabs one off my plate, and gives it to her and says, "Try it." My mom and grandmother just about died, and I was like, this is just how it is. The waiter dropped a little plate of something on the table after, saying "Here eat this." I went down there with some girl once, took a big bottle of cheap wine, Gallo something that was in like a half gallon bottle. So we are sitting there, drinking wine waiting for our orders, the waiter walks over with a glass and pours one for himself, walks away. OK. Then he comes over a little while later with 2 glasses, refills his and fills another one and gives it to someone at another table. It was classic. When we left we gave him the rest of the bottle, the cooks were all over it like crazy. It was best to sit by the counter where the cooks were, you could sorta engage with them, most spoke only Greek, but they would give you small plates of stuff they were cooking. I went with a buddy once for lunch, it was closed, which was unusual. So we walked to the back on the water side of the pier where the boats were, and the door was open, a few people were in there so we went in and sat down. My buddy sorta knew the owner or manager or whatever as he had been going there a long time. He asked what was going on, the guy says Immigration had come that morning and rounded up all his kitchen guys to deport them. He said they would be back in a few days no matter what, so for now they just had the back door open and his cousin or something was doing the cooking. Legal was in an old ratty building in Inman Sq, the original caught fire and burned down. There was a newer one in Cambridge, when my wife was like 11months preggers with our daughter she was going crazy so on a Saturday night we went there for supper. I ordered the spicy calamari, which was awesome, we both had some. Next morning about 4:30 the baby announces herself, and off to the hospital we go. We always tell her it was Legal's spicy calamari that did it. That one and the one downtown were OK, all the others were just sorta franchise kind of places. --R _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com All posts are the result of individual contributors and as such, those individuals are responsible for the content of the post. The list owner has no control over the content of the messages of each contributor.
