The Promised Land of Pho and Banh Mi

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.

This is actually the ass-end of the building.

Lee's Bakery

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. 

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.

Buford Highway: El Rey del Taco

Buford Highway is the Chinatown, Little Italy, Tiny Tegulcigalpa, and whatever else Atlanta needs it to be. The real estate is cheap and savvy restauranteurs have snapped up the strip-mall fronts and filled them with delicious, ethnic eats that can't be found anywhere else in the metro Atlanta area. I love driving up and down this street, stopping at Lee's Bakery, and just making a mental note to check out the Pizza Patrons and Pho 24s that I pass. I intend to check them all out later but for now...

Buford Highway and some trucks.

El Rey Del Taco

I love Mexican food. And sometimes, I speak Spanish, although I find it funnier to speak it with an American Southern accent because, why not? But I couldn't call myself a true Buford Highway believer until I sampled the delights of El Rey Del Taco. 

Roughly translated, the name means The Best Cheap Tacos You'll Ever Eat. If you asked a native Spanish speaker to translate it, they might come up with something boring like "The King of Taco" which is not really what this is about. Situated in a wild strip mall that is also home to a ping pong bar, El Rey Del Taco slathers up delicious and insanely cheap food at all hours of every day, including Mexican Fourth of July.

J had talked about this place for weeks. She usually does that. Mentions a restaurant but we don't go there for a long, long time. She will continually bring it up in conversation, especially during our vanilla, white-bread-people sex. "Oooohhh... you're just.... Ah!... you're... just... ohhhh El Rey Del Taco." I felt cheapened by this comparison to my love and a taco until I was lucky enough to visit El Rey Del Taco.

The handicapped spot is open because these tacos are said to cure people.

I ordered a michelada using the Mexican PBR Bohemia as a base. That was my only mistake. Little did I know, I'm not too keen on Bloody Mary's made with beer. Or tons of limes. Or whatever else was in there besides tomato juice. It was extremely limey. Tart, in layman's terms. But whatever, it had alcohol in it so I'm not saying it was terrible. Just... you know, no soy mexicano.

The menu has a lot of stuff you'd expect to see at a Mexican restaurant: tortas, enchiladas, quesadillas, nachos, ensalada, bistec, and more refined flavors like cheeks and butts. Probably some wieners thrown in for good measure.

I blushed and decided to avoid all of the weirdness and dove straight into the taco section of the menu.

Goat. Beef tongue. And pork tacos. Side of beans and rice that were more expensive than the tacos, even with the handmade tortilla option... Either way, I thought I would order more because let's face it, tacos are for babies and toothless grannies that handmake tortillas in the back of a taco shop for gringos to write about online.

Beef tongue, goat and chorizo. Not sure which is which.

Chico, was I wrong! Not only was I full and satisfied and porked and cheeked up, but I didn't even finish my michelada (cause it was gross) or the beans! They were good, but I hadn't reached that point in my relationship where I was okay farting in front of J.

I had a moment to survey the bright colors of the dining room and in my taco coma, investigate my surroundings a little closer. On the table there are two different house sauces. The red, and a deceptive, friendly-looking green. The red one tastes like you'd expect. Blood. Not really. It's hot enough and peppery to add a little kick to your taco experience but it doesn't destroy your tongue. Now that's out of the way, the green sauce is a killer in disguise like Michael Moore. It has a sharp tomatillo flavor but adds fire and hatred to any dish you're smothering. Tread lightly with both sauces at the same time and your butt-tacos will shine. Bright like a diamond.

I went back two weeks later with my sister. There was an old guy going from table to table selling fresh churros. The smell was heaven in baked cinnamon bread form. He skipped us because we were gringos. I wanted to tell him "No no! Hablo espanol like a champ!" but then my tacos came out and I got down to business. 

Returned with the infamous Andrew the week after and had more porks and cheeks. Now he's obsessed with this place and gets all weird if I don't get The King of Tacos with him on Sundays. Ah, well. I live to break hearts.