A for effort, 5 for attainment, Randolph, MA, May 2011

Somewhere in misty Massachusetts, I pulled my twin cab gas guzzling Chevy Silverado Tank Buster into the extra wide berth parking space in Randolph, MA. I looked at disgust at all the piddly cars next to me - Massholes...

Not Your Average Joe's looked rather average. It was your typical big boisterous American dining room with people with faces you just want to hit. We were warned that the bread was great. It did not disappoint although I would have preferred more crust though. The dipping thing was composed of a glug or two or three or four of olive oil, finely grated asiago cheese and some herbs of some sort. It was alright but I could not work out why my fingers ended up being so oily. Maybe I was experiencing what Jack Warner experienced during the World Cup voting circus?

Average picture for average Joe's

For my main course I got a Pork Cubano sandwich. When it arrived, it wasn't so much Fidel but more infidel. This thing was tiny and was certainly not fit enough to ride in my twin cab Chevy Silverado with 3 cup holders via my gut. I thought I was in America? The ciabatta was as fresh as Sepp Blatter after undergoing a corruption probe. My first bite nearly made me cry. All I could taste were pickles/gherkins - whatever you want to call them. The pickles were so pickled that even German E.Coli would have been in a pickle. Achtung! After scraping the pickles from my sandwich I could appreciate the Pork Cubano. The pork was succulent and the mustard and cheese were as common as muck but were reasonably useful complements like Gary Barlow, Kelly Rowland and Tulisa Contostavlos. Louis Walsh was the pickle - useless. Together they made the sandwich really rather tasty.

However, like an Olympic ticketing ballot, there always has to be a fuck up. I asked my salad to be served with a dash of olive oil and that's it. No caesar dressing with extra calories, no bizarre American Blatter-infused dressing. Just a dash of olive oil, please. What the fuck I got I still have no idea. My greens were limp and disgraceful like Mark Hughes' explanation for his resignation. My dash of olive oil was certainly not olive oil. It was sticky, oily and sweet. Complete and utter disaster springs to mind....

I had a bite of the Latino's burger and that was really rather good. The pattie was not too oily, not too dry and it had a bit of character to it unlike Manchester United's midfield at Wembley last weekend.

The Ho Down says: Good and pitifully bad = Joes about average.