I was able to stop at Tessaro's to have my main meal of the day yesterday, as I was in town for 48 hours to do a little sightseeing and some eating and beer tasting. This was my third time there in the last 8-9 years, the other times had been when I was in town to watch baseball. As I was alone, and was hoping to have my meal (and the dessert across the street at Crazy Mocha) be 80% of my non-beer calories for the day and hoping to not have a wait, I took an Uber from Grist House at 3pm and was immediately seated.
I kept it simple:
- Burger cooked medium with cheddar, grilled onions, pickles, and a little bit of ketchup
- Home fries
- Salad with crumbled dry blue cheese, but Italian dressing
No photos, as I was seated in a location with poor lighting. But it was nearly perfect. The burger was better than the burgers at Hackney's on Harms in my childhood in the 1970s when they were still totally on their game. The combination of the char with the texture of the house-ground meat on the inside was outstanding. The home fries, really charred redskin potatoes, also had a nearly perfect texture and just needed a tiny bit of salt and pepper. The salad was large, nothing fancy but well executed.
It was a fantastic meal. I then walked across the street to Crazy Mocha and had a perfectly acceptable slice of carrot cake and a very good mocha, and hopped on the #87 bus which for $2.75 took me all the way back to my hotel at Mellon Square. And other than a handful of cashews and an apple, I didn't eat again until I got to the airport at about 8am today.
"Fried chicken should unify us, as opposed to tearing us apart. " - Bomani Jones