When you think of Dirty Jobs your mind might not go to food…unless maybe Sloppy Joe’s but this article pairs the show with the Seattle eatery The Honey Hole.
By A.J. Tigner
TV Dinner
Seattle Weekly
While languishing in a media atmosphere apparently devoid of any relevant or exciting television programming for weeks on end, TV Dinner has to apologize for completely looking over the few gems offered by the recent “Watch Other People Do Their Jobs” phenomenon that seems (hopefully) to have come to full fruition this year. You don’t have to worry about hearing about the hundred mildly different spinoffs of Storage Wars or Auction Hunters or Bullshit No One Needs Round-Up here, but charming former pitchman Mike Rowe’s long-enduring illuminations on society’s most seemingly unbearable professions are definitely worth talking about. To pair with Dirty Jobs, I chose The Honey Hole, a small, utilitarian sandwich shop jampacked with charisma and given a name that definitely rivals Rowe’s show as “Single Easiest Intellectual Property To Make a Porn Parody Out Of.”
The Cuisine: Although Capitol Hill certainly isn’t short on amazing sandwich places, The Honey Hole stands out as a pretty consistently packed monument to the east side of the Pike/Pine Corridor, whether it be the relatively laidback first stop before many an aspiring Broadway rager wanders off to do shots at The Garage or just a cozy little haunt for an unpretentious business lunch.
Honey Hole’s specialty lies in wryly-named twists on old deli standards like the pulled pork sandwich (“Buford T. Justice”), the Philly cheesesteak (“Fast Eddie”) or the Reuben (“Corleone”). However, the restaurant’s most practical subversion probably comes from its extensive vegetarian menu, heavy with Roma tomatoes, Field Roast, and goat cheese.
I ordered The Gooch — partly because it’s my favorite thing on the menu, but mostly because ordering anything with au jus to go might as well be the prime litmus test for how seriously a restaurant takes their take-out. Fortunately, The Honey Hole delivered on both counts, with a predictably outstanding sandwich wrapped in foil along a white, lidded container which had been carefully vented with a single puncture. As if they hadn’t aced the care package already, they also threw a lollipop in the bottom of my bag. Good form.
The Gooch itself is Honey Hole’s take on the French Dip, combining the comforting familiarity of diced tri-tip steak and french bread with red onions, cheddar, and the delightful sting of horseradish mayo. Skeptics of any french dip sandwich that would dare place cheese on the famously spartan diner staple should really try the Gooch before they draw any further conclusions. Honey Hole’s fries may lack any kind of discernible zing, but that’s forgivable when they’re essentially just there to frame the incredible main courses.
The Entertainment: Dirty Jobs entered its seventh season on Discovery Channel a couple weeks ago, once more treating audiences to the adventures of prolific narrator and former dollmonger Mike Rowe as he tackles physically exhausting, mentally straining or just generally unpleasant-sounding work all across America. Rowe and Dirty Jobs are no stranger to Washington, having previously visited Shelton’s Taylor Shellfish Farms to harvest geoducks and Wenatchee’s Rocky Reach Dam to assist mechanics in the dam’s epic regular oil changes. This season, the show promises to cover something called a “fish squeezer,” which I’m simply going to leave to the professionals to explain.
Read the complete article – HERE
