Restaurant Review: Broke Eatery. Provo, Utah.

Across the street from Provo City Hall is a two story brick building that is undecided as to its purpose. It could be a bar, from the number of neon beer signs in the windows, or a ReMax office, or a modest bistro. Turns out it is all these things. The front of the ground floor is a new bistro, with only a half dozen items on offer.

Being a pleasantly dry day, after a night of cold rain, I was out ambling along, scuffling through the leaves with my Dr. Scholl's work shoes, enjoying what promised to be the last of a very sensual fall, when my eye fell on the Broke Eatery signboard. I was on my way to a Japanese restaurant, where I planned to do multiple gag photos of me struggling with chopsticks, but the signboard halted my progress with the announcement of a turkey pastrami sandwich and bowl of potato/sausage soup for a mere pittance. As I was contemplating a change in eating plans, the chef bounded out the door to give me a hearty greeting. I steadfastly kept my eyes on the signboard; unwilling to let his friendly demeanor sway my choice of cuisine. But I suddenly realized that sushi and tempura were not to be my fate today. An unpretentious combination of soup and sandwich sounded much better.

And it was much better. Partly because I dined al fresco on their sidewalk patio, where my waitress Nichelle smiled at me the way girls used to smile at me when I was a young shavetail full of wanton promise to the opposite sex:

Nowadays, alas, my creaky knees and billowing paunch mark me as a mere Pantaloon in some tawdry commedia dell'arte production -- a toothless and repulsive wreck of a man. But still, Nichelle smiled, the sun shined, and the food was good.

 In fact it was so good that as I was slurping up the last of the soup I realized I didn't want this brief idyll on the patio, with the Honda Civics whizzing by on the street and young couples with babies in strollers wandering past on the sidewalk, to end yet. So I asked for a half order of chicken jambalaya. The chef brought it out himself:

The chicken pieces were plump; the rice succulent; and the sauce of crushed tomatoes really didn't need the dash of Tabasco I carelessly flung on it.

And then the chef sat down to talk for twenty minutes. Gradually the unhappy realization dawned on me that he thought I wanted an interview. I had told him I was doing a blog about where I was eating lunch. He must have thought I was a reporter. But I'm not. I'm a blogger. And to my way of thinking a blogger is on par with a pickpocket -- you can't trust  either one.

But once he had launched into his story I didn't have the heart to stop him. It's a humdinger of a story, full of love and violence and tragedy and triumph; but, as I say, I'm no reporter, thank god, and so I'm not going to repeat a word of what he said.

The food was good. The weather was great. And the tables all had cut flowers on them. What more do you want me to write? This isn't the New Yorker . . .

I give Broke Eatery 4 Burps. My soup and sandwich combo, with a half order of jambalaya, cost $14.40. And yes, I did leave a cash tip on the table just as I said I would start doing in an earlier blog. That got another smile from Nichelle. I think I may be in love, but I'm going to take a nap first before I do anything drastic.