Driving down Irving Street after soccer I couldn’t help but be attracted to The Yellow Submarine Est. 1971 with its bright hand painted sign. Submarine sandwiches are our favorite easy dinner option especially now that Victor can more or less eat them. There is no guilt about taking it to go and missing out on the ambiance of a nice restaurant—especially if it’s the Yellow Submarine. Irving Street is very busy so parking has deterred me many times from stopping. On a Friday night a few weeks ago I was determined to go home with dinner in hand in time for Judge Judy.

My whole evening in fact revolves around my favorite TV judge. I almost have the kids trained to leave me alone for just that 30 minutes, ok not really, I have to do a significant amount of playing the poor mama who has been working and schlepping all day card. Years ago I was similarly obsessed with Perry Mason. I worked nights and went to school so my days would be scheduled around watching Perry Mason at 10 and again at noon all while getting some crocheting in. As a portrayal of criminals and the legal system Perry Mason is pure fantasy and Judge Judy isn’t that far behind in its portrayal of small claims court. One definition of fantasy is “the creation of exaggerated mental images in response to an ungratified need”. On Judge Judy when you do the wrong thing you always pay for it-you lie, you lose, you do something stupid and you look like an idiot. I think I project my powerlessness over the small injustices of life on Judy, so when she speaks, she speaks for me.

The Yellow Submarine looks like it has been in business since 1971—an original hand painted menu with painted examples of the offerings still holds its charm reflecting the 1000% rise in prices over almost 40 years by not very neatly repainting the new prices. They unfortunately don’t offer a few of the things they used to, like carrot cake and chocolate chip cookies but they do offer oily French fries made from slabs of potato and fried in not quite hot enough oil. If they took the retro thing seriously they wouldn’t cross the carrot cake off the menu but bring it back—even if it no longer cost 65 cents.

The seating area is really just a place to sit and wait for your sandwiches. In two visits I never saw anybody eating there. It’s yellow, it’s grimy and the dour woman making the sandwiches doesn’t help the atmosphere either. The kitchen area is tiny—no fancy bun toasting ovens like at Subway—just some baking sheets and an old pizza oven.

One of the banes of my existence is sandwich makers who don’t listen carefully and make you the sandwich you wanted—this can of course be tragic for kids. Luckily they made Vida and Victor’s sandwich perfectly, ham, turkey, lettuce, tomato and nothing else. I had an Italian combo without mustard—the first time we went they made it perfectly but the second time I had to live with a little mustard flavor peaking out. As usual I was starving by the time I was getting the sandwiches—I ordered two larges for Vida and I (they are at least 18 inches long) and a small for Victor. Vida looked at me like I was crazy as they were packing it all up . . . “two larges”? A great thing about these sandwiches is that they hold up really well. We of course couldn’t finish them that night but they made a great lunch the next day.

Restaurant Total: 266