“If the food isn't good,” I warned Charles as editorial assistant LP and I went to lunch, “you're going to pay for our meal.”
“It's GREAT,” Charles promised. “Trust me!”
We were arguing about Le Diplomate Cafe, across the street from UC Irvine at the University Town Center. I had gone there years ago, looking for a review, and left disgusted. Charles, on the other hand, swears by it, alongside thousands of his fellow current and former Anteaters, as evidenced by the 4.5-star rating Yelp averaged from more than 1,300 reviews. Freakin' kids. All this over a sandwich shop that sells smoothies on the side? Yes. Le Dip (as the kids call it—freakin' kids) is so popular that it not only didn't suffer when a Lee's Sandwiches opened just a couple of doors down some years back, but it also beat down the Vietnamese chain until it closed. WTF?
LP and I entered Le Diplomat's tiny space—just some chairs, a pastry counter and combos. It functions as the Hoagie Haven (the legendary sandwich shop near Princeton University) of UCI, with dozens of sandwiches made with baked-in-house baguettes, all reflecting the school's multiculti reality: bánh mìs, gyros, heroes and Italian subs. But the ones that Charles and his ilk go crazy over are French-inspired: chicken slathered in a garlic sauce out of Zankou's; another chicken version is given the cordon bleu treatment. And then there's the chicken/broccoli/mushroom combo, something that apparently leads to fights between its acolytes and people who think broccoli doesn't belong on a sandwich. Whatever the choice, Charles is right: All the sandwiches are wonderful, cheap and come in baguettes baked by whoever is the patron saint of baguettes. The lines never stopped while LP and I were there, and even the shakes were delicious, although I still want to know what's so dolphin about the Dolphin.
When we returned to the office, I told Charles he won; he smiled the way only a confident cub reporter can. As a token of my appreciation, I got him a cream cheese croissant, buttery and flaky and just right.
“Eh, it's okay,” Charles replied.
WTF? Freakin' kids, I swear.
