Found a small slice of heaven on Saturday.

[Thumper]

I had an appointment at the VA hospital in Tampa on Saturday, so after I hit an early, local estate sale, I came back home to get Lynn and we headed for my appointment. Once finished, we decided to head on down to St. Petersburg to see if we might stumble upon someplace we could eat where we've never been before. Well, we did and it was fantastic! It proves the point, that many times, the best food can be found at a little hole-in-the-wall. And a hole in the wall this was!

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It's a little difficult to find good ... AUTHENTIC Laotian food, but this place did not fall into the old "if we want to sell this stuff, we must 'Americanize' it" routine that is so common around here. I'm tellin' ya' ... as I sat there eating, I could close my eyes and imagine myself back in many of my old haunts in Laos! Nong Khiaw, Luang Prabang, Vang Vieng, Phonsavan, or even sitting along the bank of the Mekong sipping a Beer Lao in Vientiane while looking across the river at Thailand. Even the music was authentic and they were surprised when I asked if they had any morlam or simply some khene music. They did and gladly switched the music being played throughout the small place. Lynn wasn't so thrilled with my choice of music, but she lived with it (Morlam REALLY has to grow on you). The owners sure got a kick out of it though! Mom and Dad run the kitchen and the family waits tables, etc. It turned out Mom was from Northern Thailand and dad was Laotian. I speak quite a bit of Thai and enough Lao to get by, but generally, if you speak one, you can understand the other. The whole family finally ended up visiting with us as they aren't all that accustomed to an old white boy coming in and speaking their native tongue. Needless to say, we TOTALLY enjoyed ourselves and the food was kick-ass good! I asked "dad" about a couple of items that were not on the menu and he said if I'd give him a call a couple days before we return, he'll get the ingredients and cook whatever I want. He says most of his "non-standard market ingredients" come from local Laotian "farmers" (I didn't ask, but I'm sure that's why everything tastes authentic). ;)

Lynn and I ate until we couldn't even take another bite ... then boxed up the few left-overs we had which I'm about to have for lunch! What sucks is the place is 60 miles from here, but we WILL go back ... AND, I'll call in beforehand with my custom order! We can't wait to hit the place again! :encouragement:

Here's what was on our table yesterday (nothing too exotic, just good ol' Lao home cooking):

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And this salad turned out to be one of the best tasting salads we've ever had. We didn't order it, mom just surprised us and brought it out. There wasn't a shred of it left over!


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[Chicken Dinner]

Nice! We’ve got a couple of good Lao places up here if you’re ever in the neighborhood. One even has Beer Lao on tap.


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[Thumper]

Cool! I'd be all over them! This place hasn't been able to get their supplier to hook them up with Beer Lao yet, but I did have a Singha with my lunch. Beer Lao (Laos) is my favorite, followed by Tiger Beer (Singapore), then Singha (Thailand). We don't have a lot of Lao places around here and the one's I have tried ended up being fairly Americanized. This place just opened 5 months ago. I hope they make it. That's a tough business to break into.

[Big Muddy]

Thump, next time you pass thru this way, I'll take you to a REAL hole in the wall.....Po' Monkey's Lounge, it's an old honky tonk out in the middle of a cotton patch.....you can't find a parking place out there, on the weekends, provided it didn't rain on the dirt roads.....otherwise, bring a chain, so somebody can pull you in to the place.....best day'um soul food and greasy burgers you ever ate.....boilt chittlin's once a month !!!
Brown addition on the far left is the dance floor.

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[jb]

Looks like you eat what somebody threw-up, my dogs do that too.

[Thumper]

Ha! What do dayum Yankees know about good food anyway? As my dear grandmother used to say, "They ain't had no fetchin' up!"

Muddy, I'd hit that joint in a heartbeat! There's one very similar up in Georgia, but I'll be darned if I can remember the name of it or even where it was persactly. My buddy used to have a house with property in N.W. Georgia and I'd go up there to deer hunt with him sometimes. There was a place just like that close by and he'd take me there to eat occasionally (Lynn went with us once, she may remember the name). Anyway, same deal, it was way out in the middle of nowhere and located out in the middle of a huge cotton field. Just a dirt road off the 2-lane highway. It started out as an old juke joint that's been there a bazillion years. Wish I could remember the name ... I'd search for a pic.

[Big Muddy]

Here's the story behind Po' Monkey's Lounge:

"""Po' Monkey's
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Po' Monkey's.jpg
Po' Monkey's lounge is located in unincorporated Bolivar County, Mississippi, United States, outside of Merigold, Mississippi. Located in the Mississippi Delta, it is a juke joint located in cotton fields in a one-room house.[1] The juke joint was founded in 1961 and is one of the last rural juke joints in the Mississippi Delta.[2]


Contents
1 Structural Decor

Structural Decor
By the 1990s, Po' Monkey's was attracting a conglomeration of college students, migrating from Delta State University, located in Cleveland, MS, to juke joint pundits.[3] The absurd and sightly decor of the joint called the attention of The New York Times, Annie Leibovitz, and Birney Imes.[3] The low ceilings of the joint are lined with Christmas lights, naked babydolls, street signs, wrapping paper, disco balls, and dozens of stuffed-animal monkeys.[4][5] The outside of the joint is adorned with a famously reputable sign of etiquette reading: "No Loud Music, No Dope Smoking, No Rap Music." [6] The building's assemblage consists of tin and plywood, held together by nails, staples, and wires, loosely fashioned and obviously made at the hands of Po'Monkey himself.[6]

Historical Influence

For the past 50 years, Po' Monkey's has been in operation as an incubator for the Delta Blues scene. Although this is not the first Juke Joint to arise within the Mississippi Delta cotton fields, it is one of the relatively few to survive the harrowing 21st century.[7] This shack, originally sharecroppers' quarters, now housed in a raunchier crowd filled with dirty dancing, strippers, and $2 cans of beer.[8] These historic music houses have always been places where "farm workers could relax, drink beer, and listen to music." Po' Monkey's was owned and operated by owner William Seaberry until his recent death in 2016. The joint is only open one night a week, Thursday, unless booked for special events.[9][10]

The term "Juke", dialectally pronounced "jook", is believed to have originated Gullah dialect of African influence from the Southeast coast, where it means "boisterous", "rowdy", "corrupt" or "immoral".[11] According to Zora Neale Hurston, a prominent folklorist, novelist, anthropologist, and short story writer of the 19th and 20th centuries, "Jook is a word for a Negro pleasure house". It is regularly referred to as a "bawdy house" where African-American workers could "dance, drink, and gamble." [11]

July 2004 marked a moment of cultural preservation for Po' Monkey's. The state senate passed a bill which established the Mississippi State Blues Commission. The goal of this enactment was to create "a plan to promote authentic Mississippi 'blues' music and 'blues culture' for purposes of economic development." [12] Unfortunately, the commission's campaign failed to recognize the roots of Delta blues in slavery and its brutal legacy, and instead emphasized the "story of the people, places, themes and styles of blues music in Mississippi".[12] The Mississippi Blues Commission placed a historic marker at the Po Monkey's Lounge in 2009 designating it as a site on the Mississippi Blues Trail for its contribution to the development of the blues (and one of the few authentic juke joints that is still operating today).[3]

Ownership

The juke joint is originally named after a nickname given to Willie Seaberry, "Po'Monkey". Seaberry explained the name: "Po' Monkey is all anybody ever called me since I was little," he said. "I don't know why, except I was poor for sure." [11] Seaberry was best known for his strangely coordinated outfits of wildly exotic pantsuits. He could be seen sneaking out of bar room, into a bedroom offset of the drinking quarters, only to reappear in a new pantsuit.[11][13] Seaberry's legacy is building a community that encouraged people of all races to intermingle. Billy Nowell, current Mayor of nearby Cleveland, MS, called Seaberry a "positive influence" on Bolivar County.[6] Mr. Willie Seaberry, "Po' Monkey", was found deceased on July 14, 2016. It is unknown what will happen to Po' Monkey's lounge after the procession of his death.[14]

[Captain]

I didn’t even read it.
I just saw the plate and thought Nasty.
Thought I’d save myself some time and not read.

[Thumper]

You can read? Who'da thunk it? :huh

[LJ3]

I'd eat most of that stuff. Looks good!

[Arty]

I don’t see any raw tentacles, so I’d eat all of it!




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[Thumper]

Nothing there should be offensive to some of the delicate palates around here. No bugs, worms, crawly things or weird stuff. Just good, healty ingredients. The first is green papaya salad. If you can’t take “heat”, stay away from this stuff. Lynn and I both have cast iron mouthes when it comes to spicy food, but we ordered “medium” heat. That stuff would’a melted the paint right off a Ford! That’s what I mean about “authentic” and not “Americanized”. Normally we’ll order “hot” and once we get served, we have to ask if they forgot to add the peppers! This som tom was the real thing. It was GOOD, yet also cleared my sinuses for a few days! There were Lao pork rinds on the side, but they don’t show in the pic. I also had sticky rice with mine.

The second is Lao (beef) jerky. A little dip in the sauce on the side and it’ll make you slap yo’ momma! Good stuff. Basically an appetizer, but as shown in the pics, they don’t short you on serving sizes here.

The next was Pad Thai. I’ve had good and bad, but even the bad will make you think you’ve died and gone to heaven. This was on the good side! It’s just noodles, meat (I ordered pork), green onions, egg, bean sprouts, chopped peanuts, “Pad Thai” sauce (varies depending on the chef) and chili. It’s a staple in Thailand/Laos. ANYBODY who wouldn’t enjoy GOOD Pad Thai ain’t gots a sophisticated tastebud in their mouth!

The next is crispy rice. They kinda make a rice and meat ball, deep fry it (makes the rice crispy). Then break it up and add the finishing touches. Eat it like a wrap. Good stuff Maynard!

The final dish was the freebie mom brought out for us. Basically just a cold salad (lettuce and tomato) with a dressing that would knock your socks off! There are also slices of beef buried in there but I only see one in the pic.

The pics with the lettuce or cabbage are dishes you’d eat like a wrap. Thais/Lao generally eat with their hands and the leafy veggies are for eating like we’d do with a wrap.

Now see there. Nothing terribly exotic and pretty healthy to boot. These are dishes developed by poor people who make the best tasting dishes from the most basic ingredients. This place accomplished that as it reminded me of what made me fall in love with this style food in the first place.

[Big Skyz]

I wouldn't hesitate to eat at either place posted on this thread. I quite like little hole in the wall food joints.

[BarryBobPosthole]

Me too, especially if they are hamburger or bbq joints. We are lucky here to still have some hamburger joints that are basically seven or eight stools at a bar and behind it a grill with an ex con wearing a paper hat flipping burgers.
As the owners are dying out though, there aren’t any new one.
Food trucks seem all the rage for fast foodthese days. eight dollar burgers and four dollar corn dogs. I like the greasy spoons the best.
BKB

[Thumper]

I hear ya' P-hole. I guess we share that in common! Back in the day, I was surprised by some of the hole-in-the-wall joints I was able to sniff out in the most unlikely places.

To this day, one of the best cheese burgers I've ever had in my life was at a TINY joint called "Sunset Grill". I was working in Beverly Hills when I discovered this little jewel crammed between the big businesses on Sunset Blvd, in Hollywood. I worked right at the Beverly Hills/Hollywood line and would many times walk down the street to this greasy spoon for lunch and b/s with Joe (the owner) as he grilled my burger. It was just an open window with a few bar stools on the sidewalk in front and had a TINY covered area on the sides (in case of rain). I really have no clue why those burgers were so damned good, but they honestly were. It had been there since 1957 and had always been pretty much a closely guarded neighborhood secret. The odd thing is, on most any day, you could grab a bar stool and realize you were sitting next to some big Hollywood star grabbing a burger incognito. The "secret" was blown all to hell by Don Henley in 1984 when he released the song "Sunset Grill" (he ate there) and then every frigging tourist in L.A. flooded the little hidey-hole! I went back years ago to see if it was still there, but I found out Joe had sold the place in 1997 (I left in '89) after owning it for 40 years. The new owners tore the joint down and rebuilt (bastards!). It's still called "Sunset Grill" , but I've never tried eating there ... it just wouldn't be the same. :(


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When I worked in Hollywood (farther east down Sunset Bl), I found another hole-in-the-wall lunch favorite. It was a tiny BBQ joint and was actually much SMALLER than the Sunset Grill! There were two BIG black guys running the place and it was just barely big enough for them to fit inside shoulder to shoulder. It was very much like the Sunset Grill as you either grabbed an order to go, or sat at a couple of little tables set up in front of the stand. I got to know the owners through the years and found they were brothers, originally from Georgia. One specialized in smoking the meat while the other's specialty was their BBQ sauce. I'm tellin' you right now, they had the best BBQ sauce I've ever tasted, and I've tasted bazillions (BBQ is my favorite). The name of the joint was Dab's. I once asked one of the brother's where the name came from and he said it came from their sauce. I asked what was in the sauce and he said if he told me, he'd have to kill me, then explained that people were always asking him what he used to make his sauce and he'd answer, "Oh, a dab o'dis and a dab o'dat" ..... so they decided to name their little joint, Dab's! :D

I worked on Sunset Blvd. and they were a block behind us on Hollywood Blvd. I've searched the net high and low, but have never found mention (or a picture) of that little "hole-in-the-wall". I've sometimes wondered whatever happened to those two brothers. They were super cool dudes and sure made a bad-ass BBQ!