Richmond Times-Dispatch
By Jody Rathgeb
Phil is watching his triglyceride levels. Actually, his wife is watching them. She's the one reading labels, measuring ounces and learning how to cook again
Meanwhile, Phil goes to Lowe's and buys stuff for home improvement projects. He built a gazebo behind their former house, and since they moved recently he has a lot of things to do at the new place.
Isn't this an admirable way to keep busy while keeping the mind off fat-laden foods? I would have thought so, if Phil hadn't pulled me aside at a party to suggest a review.
"Dominic's -- it's a little stand in front of Lowe's. Wonderful sausage sandwiches," he told me. I glanced at his wife. He shrugged and grinned.
It took me awhile to check out his suggestion. After all, an apartment dweller isn't likely to need cash-and-carry lumber or install-'em-yourself bathroom sinks. Eventually, though, a shopping list that included plant pots and a fire poker led us to the home improvement outlet -- and the food cart out front.
"I call them mobile kiosks," said John Felico, president of Foodnet Franchising, Inc., which owns the stands. Felico explained that his year-old company grew out of a sausage trailer business started by his father, Dominic Felico, in Queens, N.Y.
Felico the younger eventually took over the operation at 175th Street and Rockaway (which is still running), and began looking to expand outside the city. Lowe's responded to his prospectus and invited the sausage vendor to Virginia. "We liked Virginia so much we moved the company headquarters here," he said from is Sandstone office.
As small as the Dominic's stands are, they offer an amazing variety of food items. In addition to Italian sausage sandwiches (mild or spicy), there are six kinds of steak sandwiches and eleven chicken sandwiches, including jerk chicken and teriyaki chicken.
Phil was right, too -- the sandwiches are wonderful. On my first trip, I had the spicy Italian sausage, served with fried peppers and onions on an Italian roll. This was not a dainty delight. It was a huge hunk of spicy meat, heaped with glistening veggies, slathered with mustard -- a perfect representation of sin in today's Church of Good Health. I took a bite, and was taken back to a different church -- the Italian parish where the aroma of frying peppers and onions drew long lines at the bazaar's sausage stand. I almost expected to turn around and find Father Mitolo with a sandwich in one hand and a roll of chance tickets (a car from Durbiano's, what else?) in the other.
On a second visit to Dominic's, I ordered the cheese steak sandwich and was made equally happy. It was drippy, heaping with meat and those great fried peppers and onions, oozy with cheese, way to many calories for one meal, and great. Now, I've been to Pat's in South Philly, and I've had its famous sandwich -- but I must admit, despite the possibility of losing my "native Pennsylvanian" status, that this was better. Yes, Keystone Girl defects!
In fact, my experiences at Dominic's have started a few thoughts about buying a house here in Virginia... one of those "fixer-upper" things, maybe. That should require a few trips to Lowe's for wood, lighting fixtures, a honey mustard chicken sandwich, some nails, sausage, a shower stall, fajita steak....
Free-lance writer Jody Rathgeb is a former food editor and did here time as a waitress in her youth. The Times-Dispatch pays for the meals on her unannounced visits to restaurants.
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