I said I would report back, and I am a man of my word.

I emerged from the hole beneath my house tonight with every intention to leave immediately and go to the nearest Arby’s. Unfortunately, my wife had other ideas and sent me on several errands first. My hunger for “steak” would remain unsated for a time.

The second problem I faced was that there’s just not that damned many Arby’s around anymore. The errands I needed to run were in one direction, and the Arby’s in another. Lack of food was starting to make me grouchy.

Of course, the final trip to the Arby’s - twice as far away now as I had initially expected - happened during a period of heavy traffic. The Lady of the Phone was telling me to go one way, but I wanted to avoid a particularly dangerous interchange, so I had to zig zag through neighborhoods, bounding over the occasional railroad grade crossing.

Pulling up to the Arby’s, the sign proclaimed: STEAK NuGGETS ARE HERE. I found it to be quite loud inside, with competing clamor of music and customers and employees shrieking at each other. There was a lady buying meals for at least four people, based on the number of drinks she was filling. She kept darting around from one side of the fountain machine to the other, to the counter, to the trash, somehow taking up the entire front lobby area.

I waited.

Finally, it was my turn to order. Greek gyro meal, crinkly fries, five piece Steak Nuggets. The young man at the register was attentive and friendly. Honestly, the service was really pleasant, which is more than I would have expected from this decades-old fast food restaurant. Usually, a restaurant in this neighborhood gets to be a certain age, and it falls into a weird chasm of bad management and health code violations. Not this time, I guess.

While it seemed to take a while for the order to appear, suddenly there it was, all nestled in a deep-sided oval plastic tray. I made my way to a table way in the back, away from the noise.

I chose the fries first. As I mentioned, I was hungry and grouchy, and I did not want that to improperly color my impression of Steak Nuggets. You deserve journalistic integrity, and that’s what I aim to deliver. You might wonder, “But why didn’t you get the curly fries?” I do not believe that strong spices belong on french fries. Properly prepared, a french fry carries subtle flavors on a raft of puffy starch in a crispy shell. A plain french fry, gently salted, is best. These were exactly that, and the oil they’d been fried in was light and clean.

I’ll dip those fuckers in Horsey Sauce all day long, though.

The Steak Nuggets were served in a plain white plastic bowl/cup with a clear plastic top snapped over them. As noted elsewhere, there was a sticker on said cover that warned the diner to “stir before eating”. I think this has to do with dissipating heat; these aren’t deep fried (I don’t think), but they do have a bit of liquid fat in them that could produce temperature issues.

The picture in the previous post was not at all what my Steak Nuggets looked like. Mine were darker, and didn’t look like they’d been stored under a couch for some time. They just looked like … meat. In the time between my original comment and now, I did some research on this item. Some people compared it to brisket, others to burnt ends. Both are kind of right. Steak Nuggets are in an impossible nexus between the two.

I’d chosen the honey mustard sauce, but I never opened it, opting instead for Horsey Sauce. I had forgotten: Arby’s Horsey Sauce is the best fast food sauce anywhere. There will be no further discussion on this point.

Flavor-wise, they’re not … bad. They’re fine. I could stand them to be a touch more black peppery, but the Horsey Sauce was an excellent complement (because of course it was). One piece did have a slightly rank “side flavor,” but the pieces are clearly the same cuts you’d see from burnt ends, and those will have weird pockets of fat and connective tissue in them, so I’m not blaming Arby’s for that. Even though they were on the dark side, there weren’t any burnt or crusty pieces.

Texture was soft and moist, with a bit of stringiness, like you’d get with brisket. A little bit dry, but you’d really have to be tasting with a critic’s mouth to notice.

The five piece Steak Nuggets was about $6, so a little more than a dollar a piece for these things. The pieces are “two bite” sized, just big enough that you really shouldn’t jam a whole one in your steak hole, even though you could, and you’re damned sure thinking about it, but then the risk of choking to death on a Steak Nugget at an Arby’s flits briefly across your subconscious and you, for once in your life, make the right decision.

There’s also a nine piece: I would avoid it. Five is enough. Five is maybe one too many. Remember those weird pockets of fat and connective tissue? Unless you’re Inuit and regularly eat a bunch of whale blubber, that ain’t gonna sit right. They also offer a sandwich of some kind, and some sort of “bowl,” each including mysterious sauces and toppings which I did not care to experiment with. Just like a nice whisky, the first taste should be neat. Only after that ought you mix it up with other questionable ingredients.

The biggest culinary surprise at the Arby’s was the Greek gyro. I’ve had my share of proper doner kebabs, and I’ve definitely had better. But for a fast food chain, it was really good. If I was in a situation where a gyro was needed immediately, or I was just lazy, and there was an Arby’s close, my decision has already been made. Ask for extra sauce, but if they can maintain continuity on that gyro across time and space, so that it’s always the same whenever and wherever you order it - yeah, that’s a winner. It’s a solid 7/10 gyro.

There was a plaque on the wall, with a bell attached. “If your service was great, RING THE BELL!” Everyone in the store was great, the food was frankly better than expected by a wide margin, and I might even go to Arby’s again in the future.

I rang the bell.