All Over Albany

Eggy's Place: Good lunch, fast.

Haven't headed down to pick up your mulch yet? Here's your incentive to do it over the noon hour: Eggy's Place.

Eggy's is a food truck parked practically in the shadow of the Central Warehouse, in a gravel lot at the intersection of Erie Boulevard and North Lawrence Street. Sure, the location's not much to look at. But you're not there to look. You're there to eat. As the hand-drawn sign says: "Great food. Made fresh. Great low price. Save money. Get it?"

The truckers, the county workers, the guys in hard hats and reflective vests -- they get it. "Everything is good here," the AAA guy says as he pays for his sandwich and heads for his truck. Eggy himself echoes it: "After 36 years and 14 states, everything's good."

Eggy is Eric Gibson. He's a character. Rapid-fire talk peppered with curses. Full of opinions. He'll serve you up his straightforward philosophy on breakfast and lunch: It's stupid to serve bad food. Serve good food. Get it?

Eric and his wife have both been in the business of serving up a fast lunch order for decades. She's a sidewalk vendor on State Street near the Capitol. They've been together more than 20 years. ("And never fought once.")

He's taken the Eggy's truck all over, he says, spreading the gospel of good sandwiches to 14 states. This is his third year down on Erie Boulevard.

Does the truck stay here at night?

"Think about it. Would you leave anything of yours down here?" Well, I'd never thought about it. But Eric has had plenty of occasion to think about it. Twice he kept the truck here overnight. And both times it got broken into.

Let's eat. The pulled pork sandwich comes with cole slaw, and Eric serves it how it should be served (at least by one school of opinion): With the slaw right in the sandwich. But he accepts when I ask for my slaw on the side -- lame, I know, but there've been too many mediocre cole slaw experiences in my past.

There's one picnic table, a little damp from the rain, but my husband and I commandeer it. After I've started eating Eric shouts across the parking lot: "How's that crappy cole slaw?"

"Not too crappy," I shout back.

Because actually, it's not crappy at all. I ate all of it. It was awesome. Was that buttermilk? "No," he says. "Good guess, though. People have been trying to get that recipe for years."

I'd have taken a picture of my pulled pork sandwich but I ate it too fast. Sloppy and fabulous. Yum.

My husband had the cowboy ranch sandwich: fajita-grilled chicken with onions and peppers and jalapenos and ranch dressing. I picked at it after wolfing down my own sandwich: It was packed with flavor.

Eric describes how people are always telling him his egg sandwiches are so, so good. His reply: What's wrong with everybody else? "They can't make a stupid egg sandwich? It's an egg sandwich!"

That's the Eggy's worldview: Make it good. Hand it through the window. Next customer.

"People don't need to wait," Eric says. "They want it fast and quick. And we have a good time."