Doors Wide Open

The warm weather is a game-changer.

Walk into a popular restaurant on a 75-degree December day and the silence will be deafening.

It was so quiet, so empty, that I stepped back outside to make sure they hadn't ceased Monday hours.

Nope. Open every day.

Back in I went, only to be greeted this time by a smiling face from the kitchen.

And then shortly thereafter, an affable server.

Turns out that they were only too happy to welcome me in on an unusually dead afternoon.

We agreed that any place with a patio was doing record business this Monday.

But Secco has no patio.

What they do have is two doors, front and side, so I immediately started a campaign to have them both opened.

The only downside was that the staff then realized what an exquisite day they were missing.

Given the unseasonable warmth, I decided to go with a rose from the chalkboard's secret stash.

The kitchen staff, with no one to cook for, was eager to have something to do.

I heard tell of a sandwich they were thinking of adding to the menu and volunteered to be a guinea pig for it.

The grilled sandwich of house-cooked pastrami, house-made sauerkraut, Swiss and whole grain mustard came on a Billy bread, although once it makes it on to the menu, it'll be on Sub Rosa's rye bread.

Even without the benefit of caraway, the sandwich was stellar - crispy bread filled with perfect pastrami, bits of fat still clinging to the meat, and and the ooze of kraut and cheese.

With no other customers to talk to, the staff was at my mercy for mealtime conversation.

Willingly (no doubt boredom) they obliged.

I got music talk, bread talk (it's everywhere these days), restaurant talk and (surprise) wine talk.

My sandwich came with a nicely dressed mixed green salad, an ideal way to mitigate the pastrami's heft.

And outside the open door, Caytown buzzed by.

A woman in work clothes and athletic shoes getting in some sunny exercise.

A couple with matching nose rings walking hand in hand.

Two moms with young 'uns soliciting donations for their children's school.

And yet not a one of them came in.

The loss was theirs.

The rose was drinking like a red, the sandwich was beautifully executed and the music (XX, Arcade Fire) was cranked just high enough to wash over me and float out the door.

Much as I loved being the star (read: only) customer in a restaurant, I eventually played lemming and followed everyone else out into the day.

But way better fed than they were.

Bombast at Balliceaux

Not having outdoor seating doesn't eliminate a restaurant from consideration for lunch on a beautiful Friday if there are extenuating circumstances.

Like if the front is all windows which can be moved, leaving the entire front of the restaurant open to the weather, which is the case at Balliceaux.

So I walked over to Stuart Circle to meet my friend at his office and then retraced my steps back to Lombardy with him.

We chose the table nearest the front so as to enjoy the glorious weather.

It was my friend's first time at Balliceaux, so we began with the grand tour so he could ooh and ahh.

The next 20 minutes were spent with the menu, trying to decide what to eat because it was all new to him.

Since I'd been there before, it was easier for me to at least eliminate the things I'd already tried.

I decided to get the hot house-made pastrami/choucroute/sourdough with potato salad, but only after asking the waitress if the pastrami really was made in house.

My friend ordered the fried oyster baguette/butter lettuce/remoulade with truffle fries without asking any annoying questions of her.

The pastrami shredded perfectly with each bite and the fatty, seasoned crust was heavenly.

The only problem was its enormous size, so I only ate half and gave the other half to my friend for dinner, although he admitted that, in all likelihood, it would turn out to be a mid-afternoon office snack.

He ate all of his po' boy except the last third of the baguette, but that may have had something to do with the truffle fries being so irresistible.

He insisted we share the chocolate coconut tart for dessert and it was denser and firmer even than fudge.

Midway through enjoying it, he broke a crown, took it out of his mouth and laid it on the table.

He didn't seem to be too bothered about it, so I wasn't either, and we went back to eating.

The funny part was, when our poker-faced waitress came over to see if we were finished and collect our dessert plate, he told her she could take the plate but to leave the tooth, which was right next to the plate.

"Okay," she said, without so much as a a smile or question.

Could it possibly be so commonplace for a customer to have a tooth on the table when she comes to clear? Based on her lack of reaction, we had to assume so.

The best laughs of the lunch came with a discussion of Tears for Fears' bombast and "Do Me" as a column name.

Fortunately, we were practically sitting outside, so it didn't matter how much we carried on...or how loudly.