We get it, all right? Yes, the word "Johnson" is synonymous with penis. Has been for--what?--a thousand years. Good job, P.D. Johnson's Dog Day Deli, for incorporating the joke into your menu and onto the T-shirts you sell and the paraphernalia that lines your restaurant's walls. Ha ha, funny stuff, a sophomore-ish bit, but the problem is...the problem is that it's not...well, to be honest, the real problem is that it's tough to stay mad at P.D. Johnson's for its crassness. The sandwiches are too good. The signature sub, the Hot Johnson, piles roast beef, oven turkey, bacon, barbecue sauce and two kinds of mayonnaise--"cheddar" and "horsey"--between two thick slices of warm bread. Order the grande--the regular is 6 inches, the grande 8--and it's amazing what happens. You leave the table wanting more--the sub's that tasty. Plus, P.D. Johnson's serves beer. Plus, you get to pull your beer from a tub of ice before twisting off your own top. Domestic bottles are only two bucks. Suddenly, this place has charm.
Purists may scoff and pick, oh, Big Easy New Orleans Style Sandwiches up north or something farther east...say, in New Orleans. But this venerable Deep Ellum eatery has never let us down, whether we needed our café au lait-and-beignet fix at 8 a.m. or our muffaleta-and-fries jones satisfied at lunch. The gumbo and étouffée are extraordinary--the roux's particularly rich, like Mark Cuban--and the sandwiches wonderful, and if we feel the need to dock this place points, it's ditching the booze, which is fine most afternoons save those occasional lunches after the boss tells us if our Best of Dallas items are late again, there'll be no raise. Need a Dixie after that. Make it a case. Instead, we'll just have the oyster po' boy.
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