I spent my routine Thursday off-day away from the computer — instead, crawling through a utopian futurescape with two pounds of meat in my stomach.

The thesis statement is this: My friend Kris invited me to try “Wario’s Beef and Pork” in Columbus, Ohio. She first heard about the restaurant in the Jordan, Jesse, Go! podcast — with it coming to the hosts’ attention due to an unintentionally funny crossover of Instagram sponsored content: Nintendo characters and fine meats — and sought out plans to visit on her own.

Life’s too short to spend your time wondering if the juxtaposition cheesesteak restaurant, evocative of an evil anti-plumber known for his caustic temper and atomic farts, is any good, so I couldn’t refuse the daytrip offer. Together, Kris, Jeremy, and I put about 10 hours on the road between Bloomington and Columbus to make it happen. We hit the road by 9 a.m. to endure hours of construction work along I-70 between Indiana and Ohio.

(A quick additional shoutout to Kris, whose car-mom skills are undefeated: Twizzlers, sour straws, and seltzer water kept us refreshed during the most brutal stretches of searingly slow interstate travel.)

Located in an unassuming strip mall in Columbus’ Arena District, Wario’s Beef and Pork could be overlooked between its corporate office neighbors (sup, FastSigns?). We were even more shocked to see the sticker prices of some of these sandwiches. The Steak — served “Wario’s Way” with provolone and onions — came to $17 before tax and tip.

That pit-feeling in our wallets lasted no time at all: Wario’s Steak (which I got his way) may have been the best sandwich I’ve ever eaten.

Measuring about 14 inches long, and weighing like a newborn baby, Wario’s Steak punched me in the brain with a caramelized masterpiece. The meat was thick, and bountiful, and danced so sweetly with the cheeses and toppings.

Kris ate one half and saved the rest for her husband. I ate 3/4 of mine before quitting. (And Jeremy put the whole thing down, no problem.)

A mixture of satisfied, disgusted, and filled with grease, we set off for Otherworld (stylized OTHER WORLD), a much-hyped, interactive, multimedia art installation located in an abandoned strip mall. The way the intense mid-day sun scorched the barren and quasi-apocalyptic parking lot was enough for the aesthetic, but Otherworld’s sleek, future-forward, black-and-platinum façade made us feel like we were about to experience something big. Something powerful. Something life-changing.

“If this were a Twilight Zone episode, we’d step in and never leave,” I joked while walking to the front door.

Giving Otherworld a proper review is an impossible task: The only consistent theme was bright neon and proper air-conditioning. From there, once the neon pink wristband is on, everything else is a mystery, a crapshoot.

Go into this room and become a sepia-colored cartoon from the 1940s. Crawl under the faux-Space Invaders video game machine (does not work) and you enter a room with laser guns that allow you to shoot flying aliens yourself. Pull back the slit behind the projection curtain and discover an empty aquarium room full of beanbag chairs. This room is covered in fur, and the resident 12-foot fluffy narwhal invites you to crawl into its mouth.

The gist is this: We spent about two hours testing every trap door, looking for every Easter Egg, and generally standing in awe of everything around us. A giant shopping mall left to die by Amazon’s advance had become a playground, a whimsical theater of the imaginary — the best use of public space since freeze tag.

Was there a takeaway message? Did we learn anything in particular? Were we changed people?

I can’t say for certain, but sitting in silence for 10 minutes afterwards was a tell-tale sign that something powerful, whatever it may be, had happened, and we would never be the same.

We finished the evening by visiting a cute Japanese mini-mall (featuring a grocery, two restaurants, a trinket shop, and a combination ice cream shop/bakery) before polishing off a few “Studweisers” at Somewhere in Particular Brewing.

Kris’ playlist of 80’s Dad Rock (Hall and Oates, Steely Dan, etc.) got us through the stop-and-start morning on the highway, but Jeremy’s “Butt Rock” metal playlist (Dokken, Ozzy, etc) got us home that evening. In the final hour, Jeremy and I curated an emergency KISS playlist to keep us all awake. (And I sang “Hard Luck Woman” in the style of Garth Brooks.)

Kris dropped me off at my place somewhere around midnight. A 15-hour day with only a third of it coming where we meant to go. My stomach was still full of Wario’s finest cuts, and the experiential crisis of Otherworld was fresh in my mind.

The next morning, when I awoke for another thrilling day of remote computer work, I was greeted by a familiar companion: the hot-pink wristband from a dying strip mall. It spoke to me, but not in the Burning Bush way. From what I could make of the missive, it said this:

The future is now. Yesterday is your past. Your heart will map the right path between both destinations.

…Bring seltzer water and Twizzlers, if you can.

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-moose

Editor’s note: Wario’s Pork and Beef seems to be a new addition to the Columbus downtown area, but I wasn’t able to confirm anything about their opening date. Their restaurant is a no-frills, pounce-for-the-ounce masterpiece where all the money clearly goes back to the food: Patronize them if you have the opportunity — unique, independent restaurants like Wario’s were the hardest-hit by the pandemic, and they’re treasures we can’t afford to lose.