I’se Da Bye’s Fully Stuffed Kitchen, Lusby, Calvert County, Maryland

I’se Da Bye’s is a brightly painted food truck that sets up shop in the parking lot of Sneade’s Ace Home Center, my favorite hardware store ever.

Sneade’s is hugely popular. We always see someone we know there, even though we’re pretty new to Calvert County, and part-time at that. Calvert County is full of people who work in the building trades as well as people like me who have limited mechanical understanding and skills (I was 23 before I could operate a wheelbarrow), but the Sneade’s staff is able to switch between experts and idiots seamlessly and cheerfully. I’se Da Bye’s is wise to set up there.

Here’s their menu:

The Big Pig Sandwich captured my attention. If you can’t read that, it contains country sausage, ham, bacon, hash browns, cheese, and an egg. If I had weighed 20 pounds less, I would have ordered it. Actually, if I weren’t about to take a barbecue-eating trip I would have ordered it. Instead, I went with the lighter Breakfast Sandwich with sausage (and egg and cheese). At $5, how big could it be?

Pretty big.

Can you tell how large that sausage patty is? Let’a take another look.

It’s easily, easily a third of a pound. I looked it up and the official National Bureau of Standards classification is Sausage Patty, Big Honking. I took a couple of bites and thought, “I won’t need lunch.”

And the sausage is delicious. It’s good country sausage, well seasoned, with a lot of flavor. The egg had been fried hard, and the cheese melted beautifully. This is a great breakfast sandwich. And sausage is not the only option. It also is available with bacon, scrapple, ham, Spam, and smoked beef bologna. The thought of that much bacon on a sandwich is mind-reeling. The thought of that much Spam or scrapple is … formidable.

I’se Da Bye’s attracts a steady stream of customers, and I’m sure I’ll dive into that stream again.  You may be wondering about the name. I’se Da Bye (or B’y) is a song, a jig, really, written and sung in a Newfoundland dialect. Here it is, complete with the lyrics. The tune is catchy enough for me to get up and dance a hornpipe, or it would be if I were 50 years younger and even minimally coordinated. Give it a listen, and go to I’se Da Bye’s.

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