Love Food

Hi, Miller here. If you were to ask me "what's the best restauant in Sac?", I would tell you that in my opinion, it's the Waterboy. But if you were to ask me "what's your FAVORITE restaurant in Sac?", I would tell you without hesitation that it is the fabulous June's Cafe. The reason I'm telling you this is because I just returned from there & had what I consider the ideal June's lunch experience. But before I go in to that, let me explain to the uninitiated what the deal with June's is. June is Japanese & her husband Dennis is American. My theory is that one day when they were young & poor, they opened up the refrigerator & all that was in there were the dregs of both his & her last trip to the store. So June took out the hot dog, the rice, the onion & the teriyaki sauce & invented her now signature dish: Wienie Teriyaki. She would later add an egg to this dish & bring Wienie Royal in to the world. So while there is some straight Japanese food on the menu (though it's still very much June's style - it has an unmistakeable 'diner' quality to it), the favorites remain the "combo dishes". There's the Hamburger Steak which is a huge slab of ground beef over rice with her signature macaroni salad on the side. This dish is best enjoyed with ketchup. And Loco Moco which is apparently a Hawaiian dish that some of June's friends told her about when they got back from Hawaii so June tried her hand at it based on how they described it. June claims that people tell her that her's is better than any they've had in Hawaii. So yes, as I was saying about my ideal June's experience - the first good sign is that it was empty. When June is busy do NOT even bother if you have to, say, go back to work within an hour or so. If 20 people come in there & all order Chicken Teriyaki, she will still make each plate one at a time. I like to think that she believes this makes each plate special & full of love. I went there the other day & experienced the inexplicable June's curse: "he who takes someone to June's for the first time will experience an insane & unexplainable wait". I brought someone assuring them it was the best, we ordered our food at 1:00, and at 2:00 I was on June's phone calling my work telling them I was going to be 20 minutes late as June assured me my lunch was almost ready. And you can't plan around this since half her clientele is older Japanese men (they ALWAYS get Wienie Teriyaki) who saunter in at whatever hour they feel like. So it was empty today which means I got the full treatment. Dennis is sitting there reading the paper(sometimes it seems like he's on permanent break, but hey, he's a retired fireman so he's off the hook. The fire dept presented him with a big plaque with an axe mounted to it for his retirement which hangs prominently on the wall of the cafe) & he slowly gets up to serve June's award-winning macaroni salad. Nobody I know can quite put their finger on what exactly makes this so good but I know she has a secret ingredient because recently I tried to get her to write down the recipe so I could frame it & give it to someone I know (who REALLY likes it) for Christmas. I thought 'hell, I've been coming here for at least 12 years now, she'll give it to me' but no, she just thought about it for a second & promised to give it to me when she retired. Apparently June doesn't understand how devastated I'll be when that day comes & that no macaroni salad recipe is going to help ease the pain. So yes, I eat the macaroni salad & read a little until Dennis gets around to bringing the also-award-winning miso soup. By this time another customer has come in & starts talking to Dennis & June & somehow the conversation comes around to tequila (I can't picture June drinking tequila, though I'm sure Dennis has some partying under his belt). The guy tells June that he likes Cabo Wabo tequila & then says "y'know - Sammy Haggar." "Oh yeah" says June - exhibiting her amazing capacity for agreeing with everything whether or not she really does. Or not even agreeing, just acknowledging everything as if it's understood. I could walk in there & say "June I just went on a killing spree" & she'd say "Oh yeah? Good". There's something on the menu called Hamburger Royal which is eggs scrambled with onions & ground beef over rice (everything at June's is over rice). It's a popular one. She also has something on the menu called Hamburger Egg which could probably get more popular if she'd ever let anyone order it. I guarantee that if you go in there & order it, she'll direct you to Hamburger Royal instead. I think she's worried that you don't know what you're getting in to. It's not bad or anything but it's kinda goopy. Before Dennis retired & came to "work" at June's she had a series of little Japanese ladies helping out. One of these ladies & I were in love (I never could understand what June was saying when she called her by name). She would always call me "sonny" & wink at me & give me little treats like kim chee or weird little candy while I waited for my food. And whenever I would drink my first glass of water really fast she'd accuse me of drinking too much beer the night before with this little laugh. I have to admit this did genuinely embarass me because she was usually right & she knew it. So no matter what - even if I was dying of thirst - I'd always sip my water really slow if I could at all help it. Now this lady REALLY hated the Hamburger Egg. Anytime somebody ordered it, she wouldn't even try & redirect them - she'd just make this horrible face like "don't do it!". She didn't even seem to mind if June saw her do it. A goal of mine was to have tried everything on the menu so of course the fateful day was inevitable when I had to get Hamburger Egg. I ordered it & the lady made the face but I insisted & finally she wrote it down on her little pad & gave me this look like she was no longer responsible for what happened. It wasn't bad but maybe I just liked it because I was expecting a plate of putrid eggs & raw hamburger. So yes, again, back to today's ideal experience - sure enough, someone came in & ordered Hamburger Egg & faithfully June convinced them to get Hamburger Royal instead. She kinda just TELLS people to get that instead as opposed to suggesting it. June's so agreeable though that people don't seem to notice. It cleared out again so June sat down at my table & we shot the breeze. She told me about people she's had to kick out. I guess that once some guy came in with his own can of Campbell's soup & sat down & used her condiments to spice it up right in the can. That pissed her off. And she told me about some kids that always walked by & hit her windows really hard & at first she yelled at them which didn't work, so instead she gave them some candy & now they walk by & wave at her instead of banging on the windows. She was proud of that one. Speaking of June's windows, once Jay was having a post-June's smoke & he was kinda leaning on her front window & the whole window busted out & broke everywhere. Of course he felt horrible but June seemed more concerned with letting him know it was OK & that she had insurance. I lived with Jay at the time & a few days later the phone rang. I answered it & it was for Jay. I told them he wasn't home. "Oh, well this is June & I just wanted to make sure that he knows he can come back & it's no big deal." Can you fucking handle that!? If that doesn't convince you that this place is the best than maybe nothing will. Oh yeah, and she gave me a June's t-shirt on my birthday which is very sporty. Oh wait, one more thing, as I left today, she handed me a to-go container of the macaroni salad on the house because she probably feels a little badly that she wouldn't give me the recipe.
And that's my essay on June's Cafe. May it NEVER close down!

miller