Cheeseburger Now!

So was the heaping mound of fat and crunchy onion rings that he ordered along with the burger. Louise and I grabbed a few, because we weren't so enamored of the flaccid FF beside our sandwiches. Louise noted that they still had bits of the potato skin on them. "When you see that, you kind of think they're healthier than most fries," she said. True, but they were also a bit too greasy.

Louise did, however, love her grilled Reuben sandwich, thickly layered with pastrami, sauerkraut and Jerry's homemade Thousand Island dressing. I'd tried to order carefully, having once made the mistake of requesting one of Naster's DCBs, which turned out to be nearly as big as a soccer ball. This time, I asked for a single cheeseburger but could finish it only by taking the meat off the saucer-sized bun.

Despite Jerry's limited dessert selection, Jason was game to try something sweet. Our server rattled off the possibilities: "A cinnamon roll, brownies, apple pie." He chose the latter, à la mode, and brightened up at the slab of pie sided with what looked like a half-pint of vanilla ice cream.

A couple of days later, I returned for another light lunch with my friend Jeanne. She's one of those smokers who usually prefers to eat in the nonsmoking section, but even she grabbed a booth in the nicotine nook. "No one's sitting in the nonsmoking room," she whispered.

She liked the visuals in the main room anyway: lots of burly, barrel-chested men with dusty boots and embroidered name patches on their work shirts.

Jeanne has the same brawny taste when it comes to food. She ordered one of Naster's most popular lunch plates: the hot beef sandwich. She had seen our waitress deliver the dish to a guy at another booth and started craving that gravy immediately.

"Look at this," she marveled as she dug into the mound of mashed potatoes, tender roast beef and soft white bread, all hidden under a thick, shiny beef gravy. Jeanne had finished half of her lunch and was boxing up the rest before I had eaten a third of my hot-pepper cheeseburger.

"A terrific lunch," she said, gathering up her purse. "Now let's go outside so I can smoke."