Steak Bomb.

Vegan "steak bomb" from Fiori's Bakery.

It's a C-. 

Sliced bread 😯 It's a bakery, and they have whatever bread they bake there, so in retrospect I get it. But cheesesteak to me has to be on hoagie roll. The filling reminded me of breakfast scramble type of dish.

I make a fine cheesesteak with Impossible beef and Follow Your Heart shredded parmesan. (Which isn't a chef brag as much as it's a statement that there's this other way of doing it which works quite well.) Consistent and gooey, loaded with peppers and onions and mushroom and jalapeno if desired. Theirs is more mushy with some occasional pepper pieces. It didn't really accomplish what I was looking for in a steak sandwich.

Full-disclosure: I had to walk a couple miles, and it cooled before I ate it.

What happened is I lost my manners.

We'll blame it on being recently single, I've felt active and flirtatious. Girls, guys. If you're an adult and squarely under 35 or so, you're in my crosshairs.

There's a nice lady who works outside the cannabis shop checking IDs. And she was on her phone looking for directions to Fiori's Bakery for me. And the thing about the crosshairs is some people get scanned, and then get let go. (Most people get scanned and let go. Most people don't fit the bill. She'd been let go.)

A bird walks out and looks me right in the face.

I believe her to be smiling at me, and I'm a loose cannon. "You look great," I tell her. "Beautiful smile."

No tact, all effort. Mohnish Pobrai teaches us that there are no called strikes in stock picking. With this, there are no swinging strikes. So you can feel free to try.

But she keeps walking. 

Maybe she was smiling at the joy of walking out of the cannabis shop. Maybe she saw the other girl with her phone out and thought I was trying to pull two birds in the same swoop and wasn't gonna let it happen. Maybe I look funny to her.

The cannabis shop friend was curious and asked if we were flirting down there. Nope, just that right there, lol. And she tells me where the bakery is and I'm gone now too.

It's hard to read people when they're at work, when being friendly is part of the job. But because I'm so cute I default put people at maybe 10-20% chance of liking me anyways, and maybe this is a moment where she's hoping she gets my number.

You never know.

And how bad would that be, to have her phone out while I hit on another lady, it doesn't even work, and I say nothing complimentary to her and just take the directions and leave.

This all dawned on me as I'm on my way to the bakery. Clearly I'm operating, so lack of any hitting on her while I talk to her is kind of a statement. Presumably she'll live, but: "your smile is dope too btw, so glad spring is here" would really elevate the situation. How hard is that?

Sometimes it feels like it's an easy read when you say the nice thing that you know they want you to say. "No, you don't look fat in that." It's like you know what spot I'm in so why even care what I say? How does that mean anything? But I think what happens is you throw them a bone to buy into in case it's really important.

Manners really could be described as taking yourself out of it and letting them have the baseline possibilities.

So in a storm of vanity and compassion, I ordered 2 whoopie pies and walked one back to her.

"hey, that's for you" 😀

It's perfect, because it comes across as maybe that was my intention the whole time when I was asking about the directions. It doesn't even look like I thought of it later.

"It's vegan," I called back. 

She was kind of teary-eyed, and I was off into the night to eat the sandwich at Whole Foods. 

I shamelessly put an Arizona Iced Tea on the table, which of course they don't sell there, but I was carrying a water I purchased from them earlier so I didn't feel like I was loitering too bad. (It was actually day time despite that the photo looks dark and that I called it night.)

The whoopie pie gets an A. I imagine all their sweets are great, and would get A's.

The bread was excellent and there was a side of potatoes (hidden, behind sandwich) which was nicely seasoned and excellent. Overall great place, including staff. I just would order differently next time.

Below, enjoy the area around Forest Hills subway station.