Dining

The deli style sandwich discussion in Fresno can get heated. You got your Sam’s fans and then you got your Gino’s loyalists. The Sunnyside Deli fanatics are oil and vinegar wrestling with the Piedmonte hipsters. Then you have the Packing Shed suits that really screw everything up. Well, in the midst of this I heard from an East Coast transplant that “Ronnie’s Midway Market” on Blackstone just North of Herndon was Fresno’s best sandwich.

Each year there is an event so “Big” that comes to Fresno that it’s hard to miss.  Like a tumble weed, it rolls out as fast as it rolls in.  I’m speaking of the Big Fresno Fair, an 11 day all you can eat hodgepodge of pure unadulterated culinary ridiculousness.  Last year Greg and I had a hell of a time at the horse track, but this year it was all about the food.  We decided very early on that this visit to the fair would be a bowel moving experience, and boy was it.

My grandma has been a Valley girl since 1930. Her family got a little ranch in Reedley after they saved enough money working the docks around Oakland and Sausalito. It was back in the days when escaping the city squalor for the Valley was a dream and not a punishment. I asked my grandma if she could ever remember a time without Chinese food and the answer was no. After some research I found that Chop Suey has been popular in America, namely the early western Railroad States,  for longer than the hamburger. Fresnans in particular have been sucking down chow mein at neighborhood joints well before the chain restaurant infestation that has come to define and divide us. So when Bo and I began discussing Chinese food history, a battle arose. Which of our families' favorites (TAKE-OUT only) were better ? This is when we knew we had to have a Lunch Combo Chinese Food CHALLENGE! 

Summer mornings in Fresno are pleasant, and honestly, I rarely take the time to enjoy them. I was happy when Greg called me at 8:00 in the morning and asked if I could pick him up from the mechanic and escort him on a series of man dates throughout the day until his car was ready to drive again. When I got in my car I didn’t fear the oppressive heat that usually accompanies a summer drive, it was early, the air was still cool and life felt good. Every good Fresnan knows that nothing can make a summer morning better than a breakfast burrito so we drove west looking for adventure, and what we found was a place called Valentin’s in a strip mall on Dakota and Hughes. It was a Mexican Restaurant that like so many others offered Mariscos but we were more interested in a Mexican breakfast, preferably in burrito form. They were open and had a sign painted on the window that read “$5.99 breakfast specials daily” so we were sold.

THE CHICKEN MAN