Restaurant Review: Vigilante’s

I stopped in Donnelley the other day and ordered a Reuben sandwich for lunch at Vigilante’s Bar and Grill.

The sandwich came with a choice of salad, fries or coleslaw. My salad was a fairly standard green mix with bits of red cabbage and carrot, with croutons. Nice crisp green with a, oh, 3-4 ounce cup of Ranch on the side. My companion’s dressing also came on the side; a nice touch.

The Reuben came before I was done with my salad, so within just a few minutes of ordering (but, there was only one other diner in there at the time, plus two guys drinking at the bar). Nice toasty rye bread with decent corned beef and a healthy dose of sauerkraut. In fact, the kraut was the predominant flavor, that and the bread. The sandwich didn’t have the usual thousand island dressing, which I appreciated as I think that flavor tends to hide the flavor of the beef.  It did come with a side of a really nice horseradish sauce.  Not real hot, but with a good bite to it.

It was a two napkin meal because the bread was probably toasted on the flat top and was a bit greasy to touch. The dill pickles on toothpicks speared into the sandwich was a whimsical touch. I’d have it again, though they could have added more corned beef to stand up to the kraut and rye.

My companion had a patty melt, also on rye. Burger patty. Swiss cheese (it appeared), and grilled onions. He seemed to enjoy it.

Tat central

I spent last week in the company of a couple of dozen soldiers from various states; NY, MN, SD, GA, MI, LA, NV, RI, ID, WA, SC, and more.  Pretty wide cross section of the country.  Most of the group went to lunch at Busters* on the last day, and one topic of discussion was tattoos.

Specifically, the group consensus was that they saw more tattoos on more people here than any other place they could think of.  They marveled on the "full sleeve" tats, especially those sported by females.   They observed that almost every young person sported at least one tat.

Well, I see that stuff too, but haven't really paid attention to it as I travel.  Perhaps I just don't notice the abscence of a tattoo, as they notice the prescence of one.  I mentioned this to a friend, and she was adament that, "no way,"  believing that Idaho is not tat central.  How could it be, when there's CA?

*Busters:  I had a turkey sandwich with a chili relleno and chipotle mayo, with a side of slaw.  The sandwich was fried, and left my fingers greasy after holding it, but tasted good.  The slaw was not sweet or slathered with sauce, kind of mostly cabbage, but I liked it because of the nice crunch and the cabbage flavor.  Service was decent, though when it came to serve, the orders trickled out over the course of about 5 minutes.  This made it hard to politely wait until everyone was served befor eating, especially since of couple of the guys who got served first just immediately started in.  One fella (who I'll just call Hoover) was finished before everyone was served. I feared for his fingers.