Mama Sim, I love your waffle!

Sweet Mary. We rolled out 6 deep to Sacramento looking for trouble and what did we find? A cinderblock shop building with a double steel door guarded by an armed mercenary and people exiting by the droves with brown paper sacks. Charlie was baffled. He kept asking what we thought was going on in there and all we could come up with was weed. Lots of weed. And probably legal. Or legal enough to be that damn belligerent. There was a lot next door, chainlinked 14′ high with razor wire. Inside was a gravel-paved vacancy of weeds and a transmitter, and chickens. A chicken concentration camp. Where nice chickens, probably artists go to die a gray soviet death of gravel and birdseed. Across the street was a body shop, and I watched a pimped-out purple pickup haul a purple single prop plane out of the depths of hell. It parked on the curb, a Honda civic roared out, then purple pulled right back inside and the steel roll-down door fell shut.

Sims Diner is on Broadway, right in the middle of all that amazing activity. What a street. It’s a tiny one room hole in the wall where “Mama Sim” cooks up the most fantastically buttery and funky soul food in the Valley. Walking in to the TV blaring SciFi, the dining room was dynamite. Sourstraws waiting on the table for us (Brant had one), perfectly charming plastic tablecloths, and an empty buffet line set the scene. On the walls were pics of Malcom and the Panthers, and the best little kid on earth scrambled around shy and high as a kite on sugar, sometimes screeching an attention grabber at the lot of us. After some time, and I do mean some time, we ordered. This is a patient place, as in you better damn well bring your patience. It ain’t fast food, for that matter, it ain’t slow food either, as in “slow food movement.” This is deep fryer paradise, and a literal creamery of delight. I got the chicken and waffle special. Misty had a porkchop, grits, and some sides. Charlie got the chicken fried steak and eggs, and a side order of biscuits and gravy. Dani and Siobhan both had grilled cheese with super salty fries to Siobhan’s delight. Cans of coke to drink, and lively discussion topped off the experience. Not from us, but from another table of youngsters from the neighborhood who got the “buffet.”

“Ya’ll got the buffet?”

“Yeah. It’s in the back?”

First of all, if a buffet is “in the back,” then it’s not a buffet. This point was later verified by Mama Sim herself, when she chastised the two young’uns for trying to take-out an order of greens. Apparently, if you’re at a buffet, you can’t get it to go. I looked up buffet tonight:

1. a piece of furniture that stands at the side of a dining room; has shelves and drawers
2. a meal set out on a buffet at which guests help themselves

Perhaps Mama Sim goes with option #1: furniture at the side of the dining room with shelves and drawers, cause guests sure as hell weren’t helping themselves. Instead, they had to order plates of greens and such, and were wearing out dear Mama Sim. I won’t go into detail on the actual altercation, cue Brant, but in the end, I learned a valuable lesson from Mama. Don’t ever cross my own race, because it just ain’t right. It’s whats keeping us all down.

Hell yes Mama Sim. You make a damn fine chicken and waffles ’cause the butter and syrup are all melted together in the little pitcher and because I love your style. We all left Sims to great enthusiasm for our return, being such polite nice kids. The bill for six of us, under $60, even with sides and tip. Damn fine soul food.