I used to be in a really kick ass stoner rock band. Aside from my guitar player, we never took it seriously and ended up only playing smaller clubs around metro Atlanta to the same thirty people every month. But we were a tight band--we never had to worry about onstage monitor mixes--because we kept a strict practice schedule that included smoking a lot and listening to Justin Bieber. One day after practice, the keyboard player suggested we try out a pho/banh mi place down the street from the studio, Lee's Bakery. I had dabbled in the banh mi at EAV's We Suki Suki and pho-ed at SoBa, also in East Atlanta Village, but had never had a true Buford Highway experience. Fast forward a few years and I'm no longer a Buford Highway n00b or in a kick ass stoner rock band, and I have made Lee's Bakery part of my circuit.
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| This is actually the ass-end of the building. |
Lee's Bakery
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| Monster is the premium beverage on display. |
J and I were in a hurry. My nephew's fifth birthday party had started ten minutes ago but we were starving and had a daunting thirty minute drive ahead of us. She looked at me with big and hungry, wolf-like eyes that said, "We need to go to Lee's Bakery and get some banh mis and iced coffees to go RIGHT NOW!" Her head began to spin around and the pea soup started. Luckily for the new jeans I was wearing, we were already in the parking lot of Lee's and I was snapping dumb pictures for this stupid blog while this was happening. I was getting a shot of the ass-end of the building when I heard a sound like a garbage truck dropped off the Empire State Building. J was rushing me. She scooped me up and tucked me football-style under her left arm, slammed through the glass doors and stiff-armed a nerdy, white neckbeard guy/buckle-y boot BDSM girl couple out of the way. The cashier lady wasn't at all put off by this and drummed her fingers on the counter as J dropped me, whimpering, in front of the nerd core/goth duo we had cut in line. The interior of Lee's dissolved and started whooshing past as J's eyes grew larger and she howled anime language at the cashier. The cashier calmly wrote everything down, handed it to a younger guy standing behind her and held her hand out for our payment. My ribs were broken and it made digging in my pocket for the ten dollars a little difficult. J, satisfied, went to rut in the bin of fresh baguettes while we waited for our number to be called.
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| Mmm...Head cheese |
Turns out the other couple had already ordered and were waiting for their food. I Wolverined-up through the pain and decided to investigate a display case full of dead things, pickled things and sprouts. It all looked disgusting. And delicious. I don't understand how that works but it does--I have a weird brain. J was at my side again, leaving the bin of baguettes behind and was talking about some Asian grocery stuff that was on a shelf behind me. I gave it a quick glance and began to count the number of quarters in a charity display on the dead meat case. Seems like $8.50 to donate to charity every few weeks is slow-going. And I was out of quarters.
Our number was called. We grabbed our iced coffees and our sack full of banh mis and raced back to my house. I was starving. J was starving. There are dogs in the desert, abandoned by their cruel owners, that don't get hunger pangs like the ones we were experiencing. And when we finally pulled the banh mis from the twisted, burning wreck...it looked like THIS:
J had her sandwich down in the time it took for me to grab a cup of water from the kitchen--I needed to swish all the sweetener off of my teeth from the iced coffee. She grinned up at me, no longer afflicted with the crazy eye.
I love Lee's. It's cheap. It's fast. They have delicious banh mis and decent pho and it's down the street from my house. I've only been there once when it was empty and have seen it packed more than a few times. Get the iced coffee. It is made with Cafe du Monde--a classic French chicory blend--and sweetened, condensed milk. It is thick, like a gloop of saltwater taffy, on your tongue and in your mouth hole. It is wonderful. I know didn't talk about the banh mis in depth but many many many other blogs have talked about Lee's Bakery and I wanted to tell a story about rutting in baguette bins and the ass-ends of buildings rather than rehashing old foodie trends.
If you haven't been to Lee's Bakery, go. And if you end up ordering some of the weirder things on the menu, eat it and tell 'em Large Marge sent ya.
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