So here it is. The first time we are returning to a restaurant for the same meal and counting it as a visit. I expect by the time this is done there will be some sort of merging of the scores but haven’t quite decided what to do with that yet. We have been talking about this for a while but you can thank a former student (Cooper) for our having followed through. He’s asked me three weeks straight if I’ve tried the Uncle Rico yet and I just couldn’t take it anymore. Plus I’m not gonna argue with a vet who has four inches on me. The place remains the same but many of the sandwiches we had tried three years ago have given way to some new options. A second visit seems appropriate. The sandwiches are still tied to movie characters…some that make sense and some that seem much more arbitrary. We ordered four sandwiches, mac and cheese, mac & cheese bites and dessert.
 

Way Less Interesting Than Sandwiches

The mac & cheese was really underfunctional and needed more cheese or really anything else to make it desirable. Kinda funny since the mac and cheese bites were markedly better, having been made with a smoky Gouda…imagine that, cheesy mac and cheese. And in a fried nugget at that. We also had a perfectly average, lightly creamy coleslaw (almost forgot). From worst to first. The Dude (The Big Lebowski), which we might have ordered just for the movie. Well, the Dude abides…but the sandwich doesn’t have any of the flair of a White Russian. Plain bagel and cream cheese with ham and an egg make for a perfectly ho-hum breakfasty sandwich. Nothing wrong with it but it quickly bores.

Janet ordered the Large Marge (Pee Wee’s Big Adventure) which turned out to be a tuna melt on a hoagie bun with Swiss cheese, tomato and onion. It's a pretty good tuna melt if you are into that sort of thing but it would work out better for me (and probably Janet) with a bit of acid from some citrus or pickle against the fish and cheese to make it pop.

The Bobby Boucher (The Water Boy) is a gyro. Pita, lamb/beef mix, tzatziki sauce, tomato, lettuce and onion, that’s a gyro. The Bobby doesn’t stop there, though. The pita also contains a handful of seasoned fries and the white tzatziki is topped with a reddish orange squirt of hot sauce. This might have been my favorite barring a couple of things. The tzatziki sauce doesn’t seem to have much in the way of cuke or garlic or citrus or anything else, reducing it to a simple creamy slick. I think I would really have liked those flavors along with the hot sauce and the rest of the sandwich. I remember Mama’s dinner from the movie and I know she cooked with way more hutzpah than that.

The Uncle Rico (Napoleon Dynamite) also turned out to be somewhat plain but in it’s plainness it held up to all of the promises it makes on the menu. Wheat bagel. Pile of lean roast beef. Crispy edged tater tots ("Napoleon, give me some of your tots" Napoleon: "No, go find your own"). Onion and chive cream cheese. It tastes just like you would want it to. Every part of it pulls its weight. To officially enter professional Bacchanalia we finished with an order of funnel cake fries. Not sure what these were going to look like (fries with batter stuff?) but the menu says they come with chocolate so they must be dessert. They were funnel cake batter stopped to make sticks instead of swirling it to get the more standard nest. Oh, they don't come with chocolate.

Mr. Zubs might not be as creative as a place like Tom n Chee or as together as some of the great deli’s, but you could certainly find a unique favorite on the Marquee and a surprise or two along the way. 
 

Mr. Zubs Restaurant  (Original Visit)
 Akron, Ohio        Date of Visit  10/29/10            http://mrzubs.com/

Heard a student mention this place in class. I heard, “great sandwiches, great menu and vibe”, well you just gotta know. We have been to a couple of places in the Highland Square area of Akron but had never seen Mr. Zubs. Having viewed the menu online we were anticipating a really unique experience and we weren’t completely disappointed. Like most of Highland Square Mr. Zubs is instantly identifiable as kitschy and quirky. A flat store front flush next to the partnering bar is distinguished from the rest of the block by a sign and some stuff in the windows. I am curious how the logo became to be a stick of butter. Inside the place is dark with a couple of tv’s tuned to some really odd MTV programming. The menu is fun, with about 35 Sandwiches all named after movie characters, and the variety of sandwiches is a definite plus.

Foil Prizes
 

Service is essentially do-it-yourself at a counter in front of the kitchen. It took us about 20 minutes staring at the menu to come to any kind of conclusion about what to try. If I weren’t so fat and had a million dollars I likely would have tried a bite of all of them. What we finally ended up ordering were three sandwiches and a side of pasta salad and grabbed a seat. Mr. Zubs had a revolving door of what appears to be mostly Akron U students who are obviously unconcerned about things like the place not being able to afford a broom. Great sandwiches in a dark little hangout would make me care a lot less as well. Even though you order at the counter the food comes out to the table in a bag full of foil wrapped prizes. The first thing Steph tried was the pasta salad and the face that followed didn’t signify enjoyment. I am not certain what it might have been that made her blanch as it didn’t have much distinguishable flavor at all to my taste. The Hightower (can you name the movie?) was the weirdest thing we ordered. In this case white bread contains, or fails to contain macaroni and cheese and bacon. Yes a mac and cheese sammitch with bacon. This should be awesome! Wrong, immoral, maybe revolting…but awesome! In all actuality the reality doesn’t live up to the window show. The bacon is limp. The mac and cheese is not so mac and cheesey and the whole mess falls apart in a less than satisfying way. The stretch of the day was a serious miss.
 

Onward and upward, the next offering was the Craig Jones (this movie might be much harder to guess). This one consists of Roast Beef and Cheddar Cheese with Horseradish Sauce on a Pretzel Bagel. The roast beef is excellent, the cheese is fine, the horseradish was really good although it could have used an extra dollop on the sandwich and the bagel was really nice but ended up getting an oil slick coating from the ride in the foil. Put together it was actually a good sandwich. Our favorite for the day was the Vincent Gambini (if you don’t know this movie you might actually have too much of a life or be younger than 25 years old). The Vinnie has Capicola, Mortadella, and Salami, dragged through the garden and topped with a four cheese cream cheese on an onion bagel. Good individual ingredients that are well balanced and constructed made this a runaway favorite.

I actually feel sorta old eating at Mr. Zubs. No, older than I usually feel anymore. This is definitely a younger folk hang-out…but there are about 30 other sandwich combinations I still want to try. Well, I already feel old most of the time anyways…see you at Mr. Zubs.