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The Cheap Seats
At Meta’s restaurant, owner Meta Poole serves up pork chops, macaroni and cheese and greens.
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Published: May 15, 2008
Updated: 05/14/2008 08:00 pm
It's hard to find a delicious deal in these troubled economic times.
The 99-cent neon-red hot dogs at the grimy gas station around the corner? No way. Fifty-nine-cent Sunday-special tacos from a drive-through? Wrong. The value menu at Acme Fast Food Restaurant? Come on.
Don't get me wrong -- I don't necessarily think we should get away with paying rock-bottom prices for food because that can come at a cost somewhere else (on the land, on your digestive tract).
But five bucks just doesn't go as far as it used to, even feeding just one person, so when I set out to find good places to eat on the cheap, I loosely aimed for under $8. I also looked for the feeling that I got my money's worth, and more -- economists would probably call it a low cost-to-value ratio, but the phrase "cheap eats" is catchier. With especially good cheap eats, a good sign is when you feel as if you've gotten away with something.
So here it is, Winston-Salem, my cheap eats, my favorite affordable edibles, a tight little list for tightwads. I returned to some places I had been to before and tried out some new ones. Not everyone made the cut.
Go forth and save green, and eat deliciously.
The Cheap and the Greasy
Skippy's (624 W. Fourth St., 722-3442) has spoiled me. Now it's hard to eat any hot dog that isn't tucked into a chewy pretzel bun. The all-beef dogs at this hip little green storefront on Fourth Street are thick, snappy and garlicky, and split lengthways as owner Mike Rothman cooks them on the grill in front of a long lunchtime line. I like Skippy's dogs "all the way" ($3) with chili, slaw raw onions and mustard, but you can order Skippy's dogs any which way, including Chicago-style with jalapenos, tomatoes, celery salt and the other traditional toppings; or a Reuben dog with sauerkraut and Swiss cheese (both also $3).
When I feel like something more cozy than greasy, the chicken melt ($5.50) is a plain Jane, the chicken salad comfortingly unadorned, without celery or even that much seasoning, then capped with Swiss cheese and bacon, and sandwiched on a grilled pretzel roll. Somehow it all tastes right.
I reviewed Skippy's last spring. Since then, a tight little list of micro-brews ($3) has been added to their drink selection. Veggie dogs have also joined the menu.
The Cheap and the Wholesome
Many of you have probably heard the joke about the other name for Whole Foods (41 Miller St., 722-9233) -- Whole Paycheck. It's certainly not a cheap place to shop (though the cheese counter can be beguiling). But when I'm trying to eat well and don't have time or the ingredients to throw lunch together at home, Whole Foods' salad bar ($7.99 a pound) is my default option.
My everyday life is not about hot dogs (well, I try for it not to be). It's more about trying to eat my vegetables.
There is container upon container of vegetable paradise -- roasted garlic and red peppers, edamame, raw red cabbage that squeaks under your teeth as you crunch into it, loose spinach and romaine and mesclun. Green beans are cooked perfectly, crisp and vibrant, and then liberally slicked with olive oil and garlic. Pasta salads sometimes include penne with dill, kalamata olives and chicken. There is orange-scented couscous. There are roasted beets. There is a build-your-own yogurt parfait bar. On a recent weekday, I got out for $4.07 (not including tax). OK, I spent 99 cents on a cookie, too. That brought my total, with tax, to $5.40.
I'm singling out Whole Foods' salad bar here because I'm never as happy with the lunch selections on the neighboring hot bar. Much of the time, the food has good intentions (chicken pot pie, beef burgundy) but looks beige. Stick with the fresh stuff (it also can weigh less, thereby allowing you to leave with more in your wallet).
The Cheap and the Chickeny
You may have to dust off your high-school and college Spanish to order at this spare little taqueria, but it's worth it. There are some Anglo-friendly menus here, but that's where the similarity to Mi Pueblo ends.
La Perlita (1001 Waughtown St., 788-6888) is possibly my favorite of the collection of taco joints that string Sprague and Waughtown on Winston-Salem's south side, although I am also partial to the carnitas (slow-cooked pork) at nearby El Paisano (2742 Waughtown St., 650-0400).
At La Perlita, you'll find the usual tacos with steak or al pastor (spicy pork -- usually tacos al pastor also have pineapple as an accompaniment, but it's missing here), as well as carne asada and barbacoa (Mexican barbecue). Carnitas are on the menu but never seem to be available. There's cabeza (beef head, rich but fatty) and lengua (tongue) for the more carnivorous-adventurous.
The tacos ($6.75 for four) are standard-issue genuine Mexican, the meat and corn tortillas showered with raw white onions and cilantro, with radish slices tucked here and there. Half a lime balances on top for spritzing. A couple of grilled spring onions add bite. I always leave here with terrible breath.
"The Little Pearl" is perhaps best known for its rotisserie chicken, and that's the real reason to come here. The meat is succulent. The skin is salty, fatty, brown. A burnished leg and thigh comes with the quarter-order ($4.50), with rice, soupy beans, big slices of avocado, iceberg lettuce, and a pickled jalapeno, and a foil-wrapped short stack of steaming corn tortillas. Just practice saying: "Yo quiero una orden del quarto pollo." And "gracias."
Zip up the meat even more with one of the two salsas that sit on every table -- zippy, bright salsa verde or a creamy, smokier red version. You can also get the chicken in tacos.
I once saw a co-worker finish his own chicken lunch, then order an entire bird to take home to his family that night ($10.99, and it comes with family-sized versions of the beans, rice, tortillas and salad). This is a man who accidently left his locked car running outside La Perlita the entire time we were eating. That chicken is distracting.
Tamarind or mango augas frescas (sugary fruit waters) are good choices to wash it down. On your way out, grab a cantaloupe, pineapple or rice-flavored paleta (fruit popsicle).
La Perlita is not for the squeamish, nor for people who don't want to know where their meat comes from: there's a butcher shop connected to the dining room. (Spanish lesson: that's what the Restaurante y Carniceria sign outside means.)
The Cheap and the Soulful
Tucked under the cement slabs of the former Register of Deeds office for Forsyth County, Meta's (102 W. Third St., 750-0811) is about as soulful a Southern cafeteria as you'll find in Winston-Salem.
I've never heard any customers get especially loud in here. Maybe it's because whenever I come here, the overhead lights are off. That leaves a row of pendant and heat lamps glowing from the line of metal hot and cold bars, spotlighting cucumber salad, towering layer cakes, and pans of barbecue ribs, fried pork chops and baked chicken. It's calming, restful and the opposite of most cafeterias.
The day to come here is Wednesday for a "Hump Day" special of two vegetables, a meat, a cornbread muffin or a roll and a cup of make-your-teeth ache sweet tea for $5. On other days of the week, that plate goes up a shade depending on what meat you select ($5.99 for a plate with fried chicken, for example).
The collards are slightly spicy, cooked just enough that they still have some tender chew to them. The cornbread muffins have a delicious buttery edge.
I've heard good things about Meta's ribs, but forgive me, I can't turn down the fried chicken. It's my favorite around. It's consistently hot and juicy, with a thin but even shattery coating. Last week, I snagged two wings as I went through the line. They were the last two pieces in the warming tray, and they were fantastic. On Hump Day, that chicken doesn't get a chance to sit around long.
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