Home Box

Home Box – home of the Asian lunch ladies. No, I don’t mean that Asian ladies have lunch there; instead, Asian ladies SERVE lunch here, like in your high school cafeteria, only in my high school lunch ladies were these surly, white women who’ve been serving lunch since the beginning of time – these ladies were old. How old were they? These ladies were so old, their birth certificates are in Latin. These ladies were so old, they told Methuselah to get off their lawn. These ladies were so old, they fart dust and lactate powdered milk. These ladies were so old, they were around when these jokes were new!
Back to Home Box, I drove by the place a thousand times. No wonder. It’s situated in a store front next to a shady liquor store in a shabby, decrepit strip mall. One day, I looked at a coworkers desk and I noticed her eating the most enormous Salisbury steak (head-​like in proportions) I’d ever seen. «Where’d you get THAT?»
«Home Box.»
«What’d you call me?»
«No! The place is CALLED Home Box. You know next to the crappy liquor store.»
«Oh YEAH… on Windy Hill.»
«And it was only $ 5.»
«Whoa.» Now I’d like to say that my «whoa» sounded more like Keanu in «The Matrix,» but it came out sounding more like Joey from «Blossom.» The next day I visited.
Despite the exterior, the inside is clean. No frills, definitely. There’s a set of hot bins from which you select your meat and two vegetables. The meats are your cafeteria standbys (salisbury steak, fried fish, chicken fried steak, fried chicken, etc.) as are the vegetables. This being the South, thankfully broccoli and cheese casserole counts as a vegetable. You also get a tea with your $ 5.
This isn’t the healthiest of meals and that’s why I haven’t been in a long time. It also isn’t the best meat-​n-​two I’ve ever visited, but the portions are huge for the money. And they seem to do a brisk business, so the food isn’t sitting on the bain for a long time, so the green beans are fresh… out of can. But hey, at least they’re fresh! And did I mention the giant Salisbury steak? Big as your head, I tell you. Big as your head! Three stars to the Asian lunch ladies.