Sugarbaker's Cafe & Bakery.

Sigh.

That new shopping-center-slash-apartment-complex, recently opened between the Quarry and the big hole in the ground where the quarry used to be, is becoming somewhat irksome. First it blocks our view of the big hole, its rim now nicely adorned with gi-normous McMansions built from parts ordered out of a catalogue; then it ramps up the traffic on a section of road already infested with more than its share of amateur drivers. Now ... now it's clogging up with pretentious restaurants in need of sampling by this particular foodie. 

Ah, well: it must be done, and I have done it.

I resisted the idea of going to Sugarbaker's. Any restaurant that announces its presence with an out-of-work actor waving a giant placard on a street corner, in the manner of a fast-tax-refund shop, surely doesn't warrant serious attention, does it? Yes, it does, and it got it.

In some ways, Sugarbaker's is exactly what I expected it to be: yet another hangout for the '09-er set, dyed-blonde creatures who drive around in late-model luxury-model cars and SUV's, and consider part-time real estate to be a career. If we're lucky, it'll remain fashionable with that crowd long enough to get established, so the rest of us can drift in at leisure and sample the goods, and the goodies.* For now, though, it's probably a good place to meet successful women of a certain age, if you're into that sort of thing. (Me, I'm not: I already have a trophy wife, even though she dresses funny and will unthinkingly eat the lettuce garnish from her chicken salad.) All I know is that when my lunch partner and I walked in, the testosterone level in the place shot up from zero to ... well, whatever we were carrying with us. Probably not impressive, but certainly more than zero.

What does that mean?

Sugarbaker's is light food and baked goods. Having recently resolved yet again to get my beach-body out before heading to the beach in 2011, I opted not to have any of the baked goods; though I think I might have gained a pound just looking at them in the case. Some day, when I'm thin, or when I've stopped pretending I will ever actually be thin, I will want to go back and trawl through that selection like a pig rooting out truffles; but for now I'm being good. I had just a sandwich, and water, and my friend and I traded sandwich halves, so I got to sample two.

I ordered the chipotle chicken sandwich. A suspiciously plump chicken breast on deliciously fresh foccacia bread, with melted cheese and all the appropriate trimmings, and a luscious, though messy, chipotle sauce. On the side were some sliced veggies and a fruit cup with a little yogurt dressing. This yogurt dressing was so good, it almost overshadowed the sandwich, at least in memory.  But not quite. I restrained myself from licking the ramekin it came in, and just scraped it with the last surviving chunk of melon.

If I were evaluating the restaurant solely on my own order, I'd've given it another half a chile pepper. But I traded half of my succulent chipotle chicken sandwich for ... pimento cheese.

Honestly, do they still make this stuff? It must be made in-house. It's nothing like the revolting processed dreck they used to fill future juice glasses with, back in the '60s, but there's a lot of leeway between "not dreck" and "cuisine." The burst of nostalgia, having prompted my friend to order this sandwich, subsided, leaving us to eat it, and to contemplate Jacqueline Kennedy eating finger sandwiches spread with similar substances during Jack's second Senate campaign. It's probably been that long since pimento cheese was considered fashionable enough for the '09 zip code. 

Well, the pimento cheese wasn't really so bad: fashion aside, the pimento cheese qua pimento cheese was tangy and nicely textured.  Surprising to find it on a menu in that part of town, more surprising (and a little bit embarrassing) to actually like it. It's just that, however tangy and nicely textured it was, it was still pimento cheese. And I can't get those damn juice-glasses out of my head.

*and yes, I'm talking about the food.