On the latest Happy Half Hour, host Troy Johnson traces a proper Sunday roast into its evolution as a distinctly American handheld obsession. Following the breadcrumbs leads straight to Big Jim’s Roast Beef in Pacific Beach, which is owned by today’s guest, James Jones.
He’s a North Shore Boston transplant who brought the “super beef” to our fair shores. His version has a griddled onion roll, rare- to mid-rare beef, and the cult-favorite James River barbecue sauce shipped in from back East. We also get a rapid-fire history lesson featuring British roast-beef nationalism, refrigerated rail cars, the invention of the meat slicer, and LA’s French dip origin story. Johnson makes the case that the piled-high roast beef sandwich is top-notch, cross-generational gustatory engineering.
