SCOTT GORDON BLEICHER PHO(BLOG)GRAPHY

Tom & Joe’s has the best Breakfast Mess. Ever.

There, I said it.

Now if you happen to be the skeptical type that has to see eat to believe, then you can hop on The Pennsylvanian (with an empty stomach) from the Amtrak concourse at Penn Station, get off fourteen stops later in Altoona, walk three and a half blocks to Tom & Joe’s, do what you have to do, walk back to the train station, jump on an eastbound Pennsylvanian, sit down, and loosen your belt. When you arrive back in New York City about six hours later, you’ll still be full.

Two eggs, scrambled. Home fries. Ham. Bacon. Sausage. Onions. Green peppers. Cheese. Toast on the side. That’s the Breakfast Mess with everything. I don’t need my bacon in strips and I certainly don’t need my sausage in links. Just throw it all together, cook it up, pile it on a plate, and hand me a fork.

Tom & Joe’s is the gastronomical heart (clogged arteries and all) of a dead downtown in a dying railroad town. Tom & Joe’s opened in 1933. Tom & Joe’s doesn’t open for you. You come when Tom & Joe’s is open (8 am to 2 pm, usually). Tom & Joe’s didn’t move to the strip mall. Tom & Joe’s doesn’t wear khakis. Tom & Joe’s won’t let you date its daughter. Tom & Joe’s takes credit and debit. Reluctantly. Tom & Joe’s likes your kids. Bring them. Tom & Joe’s deserves a visit from Guy Fieri. Scratch that. Tom & Joe’s doesn’t need Guy Fieri’s bleached spikes and backwards sunglasses and SoCal cool.

So here’s to the next 77 years of getting all of your daily allowed caloric intake at breakfast, hot black coffee, white buttered toast, mixed berry jam packets, and waitresses with more attitude than hair spray. Almost.

Just a stone’s throw from the Rock in Plymouth, Massachusetts is Wood’s Seafood, an end-of-the-pier seafood shack and fish market that you’d expect from any harbor town, but especially from this harbor town, because this harbor town is America’s Hometown.

After passing on a refreshing dip in the Governor Bradford Inn’s fish-shaped pool,

then feeling a pang of disappointment in my patriotic heart when I saw the glorified zen garden that houses Plymouth Rock (follow the signs, walk to the railing, and look down),

I turned and headed back along Plymouth Harbor with my sights set on the sea-salted grey building at the end of Town Wharf.

…

Here’s how the story goes:

Mr. Wood was a pilgrim. He came here on a boat with other pilgrims. The pilgrims met the Indians locals and wanted to invite them to dinner. The pilgrims wanted turkey. Mr. Wood wanted fish.

Whereas Mr. Wood was thinking that a high energy and heart-healthy dinner rich in Omega-3 fatty acids would make for a nice first impression, the pilgrims had other, more nefarious plans.

When the Indians locals inevitably slipped into tryptophan-induced comas, the pilgrims would slaughter them and immediately begin erecting strip malls and clearing forest for landfills, and they’d build a casino or two for the remaining Indians locals to run as sort of a consolation prize.

Mr. Wood digressed and lived out his days catching fish on Plymouth Beach, blissfully ignorant of the genocide set in motion by this first Thanksgiving.

…

Ok, that might not be exactly how the story goes (Mr. Wood was a merman from the lost continent of Atlantis), but Wood’s Seafood is the destination of choice in Plymouth for buttery lobster rolls, fried clams strips, steamed mussels, and creamy clam chowder in styrofoam cups.

Or should I say, clam chowda.

A recent commercial interiors shoot for Superpages led me to the ghoulishly-named neighborhood of Gravesend in Brooklyn. Much to my masochistic dismay, Gravesend is home to more Chinese restaurants and Kosher markets than haunted houses and fog-shrouded cemeteries.

A ten-minute walk east from the Q train on Avenue U will lead you to a well hidden Brooklyn gastronomic tradition which has recently been outed on an episode of Man v. Food.

Established in 1938, Brennan & Carr is a wood-stained, brick-walled, Irish-named eatery serving up pub grub from a bare bones menu posted to the wall and printed on the placemats, doing so in the vaguely musky ambiance of a turn-of-the-century Bavarian hunting lodge.




What you come here for is the roast beef the hot beef sandwich, dunked- bun and all, in au jus. If you’d like, you can have another ladleful poured over top, at which time the sandwich becomes a soggy, beefy, salty, fork-and-knife-only affair.

I manned up for my inaugural Brennan & Carr experience and ordered the Gargulio burger- the hot beef sandwich plus hamburger patty, sauteed onions, and gooey melted cheddar cheese. And yes, the whole sandwich was dunked in it’s own broth.

The plating, the idea and the execution are simple. The resulting sandwich is an epiphany for carnivores, and for your taste buds.

Next time you find yourself in Gravesend (because I know you always go there, you know, for the Kosher markets, the Chinese takeouts, the tanning salons, and the Russian nightclubs) make sure you stop by Brennan & Carr for a hot beef sandwich. Have it dipped. If you’re daring, go for the pour.

I’m ready for seconds.