Author Archives: Pete

Egg Sandwich – New York, NY

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egg sandwich

“Two eggs on a roll, bacon, salt & pepper.” It is the thing I miss most about New York City. The location where I purchased the sandwich above was left out intentionally. Every deli has the same counter, the same griddle, the same flat of eggs all manned by the same crew. You make a simple request and for a fair price you get a simple sandwich. While there are countless breakfast sandwiches that feature eggs bacon and bread none of them are this sandwich. None of the parts are especially great, the roll nor the bacon are especially flavorful, but on the whole the sandwich is special. It is beyond cliché to talk up New York City and the last thing I want to do is post another tired, self-involved impression of the city but I find myself unable to explain this sandwich any other way. Ignore the fact that you cannot quite get this exact sandwich outside of New York. There is a moment after you are shoved off a crowded train, drag yourself upstairs and watch the sun starts to creep above whatever buildings surround you. You have a coffee in one hand and in the other you hold a fine, fine sandwich.

Tri-Tip Sandwich – Happy Hollow Market, Senter Rd, San Jose, CA

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tri-tip

When you see Happy Hollow Market from the road you are presented with some information and invited to make assumptions. A hand-painted sign on the slanted roof informs of the name of the establishment and some of the things they sell. There are things you expect from a market, such as beer, snacks and cigarettes at state minimum. The sign also informs you that they sell BBQ and Ribs. This is where you make your assumptions. The assumption I chose to make was that any BBQ sold from the inside of a mini mart was either very, very good, or very very bad. Figuring that most BBQ joints sell some manner of sandwich I decided to try my luck.

The market portion of Happy Hollow Market is exactly what you would expect. Tucked into the corner is a separate counter, behind which sit two men and a large oven. I ordered the tri-tip sandwich, one of the men took my money and the other took a large bun and piled on meat from a warming tray. It was wrapped in foil and I took it outside to one of the small tables.

Luck was not on my side. “Leathery” is not generally a quality I seek out in food and it was by far the dominant quality of this sandwich. Good BBQ has ‘bark,’ a flavorful crust that perfectly compliments the tender meat. The bark in this sandwich was comparable to beef jerky, though the comparison would be less than favorable. The meat itself was tough and dry. The best that could be said about the sauce was that it was not bland, but it was nearly all pepper and no smoke. I have a fondness for dives and holes-in-the-wall, but each one is a gamble. I am sad to say, dear reader, that this time I lost.

Chicken & Cheese on a Croissant – Made at Home

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chickencroissant

This sandwich, made for my by an associate, falls into the popular “tasty but lacking” category. It was a simple combination of grilled chicken, tomato and muenster cheese on a croissant, topped with a bit of garlic mustard. The flavors played nicely together though I feel they all could have stood to be a bit louder. But these are minor quibbles, as I said the sandwich was tasty. The only real problem was the croissant. Holding a grilled chicken sandwich together is a bit much to ask of a croissant. It’s flaky and delicious but it’s not quite substantial enough, falling apart as you try to hold it together. Still, with a different choice of bread and a bit more garlic I get the feeling this could be a very good sandwich.

Spicy Rizzak – Tiny’s Giant Sandwich Shop, Rivington St, New York, NY

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spicyrizzakfinal

A short while after I posted last week’s Panera Bread sandwich I got to thinking about a sandwich I ate some time ago. Back in December while spending some time on the east coast I stopped at Tiny’s Giant Sandwich shop and had the Spicy Rizzak. The reason I was thinking of it after the Chipotle Chicken is that it’s virtually the same sandwich. The Spicy Rizzak is sliced turkey, bacon, tomato, red onions with cheddar cheese & chipotle mayo on a toasted semolina hero. The Rizzak succeeds where the Chipotle Chicken fails in two big ways: The first is by having a lighter hand with the cheese, letting the chipotle mayo stand tall in contrast. Dairy and heat are a natural pair and it can be tough to keep one from overpowering the other on a sandwich. The second major contribution to the Rizzak’s superiority is the roll. The Panera Bread sandwich was presented on thin sliced french bread, barely rising above inoffensive at some points and rendered soggy by the tomato at others. The Rizzak comes on crusty semolina bread, a roll of strong body and texture that holds its own before yielding with a crunch.

Everywhere Panera Bread faltered Tiny’s Giant Sandwich shop excelled. It is comforting to me that with a little thought and a different hand a very poor sandwich can be turned into a very good one and I am thankful that establishments like Tiny’s are out there doing just that.

Chipotle Chicken Sandwich on Artisan French – Panera Bread, San Jose, CA

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panerafinal

It is one thing to sit down and eat 1000 calories in one sitting, without a side dish in sight. Any individual serious about food will do it at one point or another. It is another thing entirely to do it for this sandwich. I didn’t want this review to turn out like this. I wanted to be fair. I’m okay with being a snob, but I didn’t want to be a strict “This sandwich chain’s sandwich is HORRIBLE! This independent cafe’s sandwich is TREMENDOUS!” sort of snob. However the Chipotle Chicken Sandwich on Artisan French happens to be the first Franchise Sandwich I reviewed, and so here we are. This is not a good sandwich. The cheese dominates the entire thing, layered heavily and smothering all flavors. With the taste lost to the cheese the bacon adds nothing except additional cost. The best that can be said about the chicken is that it is inoffensive, in both portion size and flavor. The bread, and I was honestly surprised at this given the name of the establishment, the bread is barely there. It lacks body and flavor, more a container than an ingredient. You only get to eat so much in this life. There’s no reason to waste 1000 calories on this sandwich. I could go on, but in the end why dwell on a lousy sandwich? Here’s hoping for better things next time, friends.

Portebello & Goat Cheese – Made at Home

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mushroomcheesefinal

There was no high minded goal with this sandwich. I simply set out to make myself a tasty sandwich and I am pleased to say that I succeeded. I marinated portobello mushrooms in olive oil, lemon juice and garlic then wrapped them in foil and grilled them until tender. Crumbled goat cheese made the next layer, slices of cucumber were laid down for their fresh snap and caramelized onions finished the sandwich with their buttery sweetness. It was all piled on to a grilled roll that had been prepped with a garlic butter. For my money grilling makes the best sandwich bread. You get warm, soft bread with just the right amount of crunch. Some sandwiches benefit from the all-over toasting or methods such as stale bread but for the general sandwich I prefer the grill. I wouldn’t say there was anything special about this effort but it resulted in a tasty, flavorful sandwich. What I am left to consider, then, is the mushrooms.

When I sat down to write this review the first word I thought to describe it was ‘meaty.’ Now this is both a failure of my imagination and a statement about my choice in mushrooms but a quick google search reveals that I have nearly 8 million other people to keep me company, all of us talking about meaty mushrooms. Is this what the mushroom deserves? It seems the mushroom is most often considered as an accent and when it is given a starring role it is cast in contrast to what it is. I ask myself if this sandwich honestly celebrated the mushroom and I am not sure of the answer. And so we make another entry on the list of sandwiches to make; one that savors mushrooms. Mushrooms are a broad category and their nuanced textures and flavors deserve to be highlighted better that they were here. I may have made myself a fine sandwich but I am forced to admit I should have aimed higher.

Whitefish & Fried Polenta – Made at Home

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polenta

Any fool can pile ingredients so high that the sandwich is evacuated when you try and hold it. When given the chance to make their own sandwiches young children will often exercise little restraint with condiments. Grape jelly and relish do not compliment each other and if you employ both on the same sandwich you will have failed to achieve what I consider to be the most important element of a sandwich: Balance. In a truly great sandwich every element relates to the others. The flavors of any condiments play off the flavors of the main ingredient, contrasting textures come together to form a whole, and any strong ingredients like cheese or bacon are properly restrained into their supporting roles. It is a delicate harmony but any great sandwich must have balance.

If balance is a delicate harmony, my friends, then I am sad to say that this sandwich was a tepid bleat. I am being harsh, both associates who enjoyed this sandwich with me indicated it was tasty, but I feel to be fair I must be as harsh on my own creations as I am on those served to me elsewhere. The origin of this sandwich was the simple sun-dried tomato. In order to temper their bold flavor a bit I toasted some garlic and roasted a few red peppers and combined everything into a loose paste. Fish suggested itself and so the final major question was that of texture. Now, I believe contrasting textures are important in a sandwich but to always run to diametric opposites is a mistake. To put light, flaky fish on a hard, crusty roll would leave me with a sandwich that all but disintegrated while I tried to eat it. The classic ‘grinder’ ideal has its place but it wasn’t on this sandwich. The roll would have to be soft though in the end I toasted it a bit so that it would have a light crunch before giving way. I decided that my contrasting texture would come from fried polenta and I’m afraid that is where I went wrong. My experience working with polenta is limited and I just didn’t get it to fry up to the crisp I needed for this sandwich. It browned a bit but I was aiming for something more like polenta chips, something with true crunch to sit opposed to the soft fish and a soft roll. The crunch was absent and into its absence fell the entire sandwich.

The sandwich came together like so: The sun-dried tomatoes, roasted red peppers and toasted garlic were processed into a paste. The rolls were lightly toasted in the oven. The polenta was fried in a rosemary/lemon compound butter, the fish fillets simply got a little salt & pepper and were pan-fried in olive oil. A bit of mozzarella cheese was added though not too much, as I am ever wary of cheese overpowering the rest of the sandwich. In the final analysis I think that light hand might have been my undoing. The sun-dried tomato paste that I set out to highlight wasn’t as flavorful as it could have been, I included no vegetables and in general went for the minimal sandwich. With polenta fried up right and some bigger flavors I think this might be quite a sandwich. As it stands, though, this was a bland sandwich.

The Smokie — Just Burgers & Q, El Camino Real, Santa Clara, CA

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(A quick note: My phone failed to store the picture I took of this sandwich. The photography on this blog will improve considerably in the coming weeks, I promise.)

I was accompanying an associate on an errand when I saw it. A professional light-up sign proclaimed “JUST BURGERS & Q”, while a smaller, computer-printed sign in the window specified that the Q in question was Bar-B-Q. I instantly made several assumptions about Just Burgers & Q and when I visited them that afternoon I found out that all of my assumptions were correct. This is the type of establishment that is offended even by the suggestion of a frill. It’s barely even a restaurant, pared down even for a take-out joint. 3 tables and less than a dozen chairs crowded the front, a high counter had a menu taped to it and beyond that a man who appeared to be the proprietor busied himself in the kitchen. He took my order from the back, rang my order up when he had a moment and when my sandwich was ready he brought it out to me.

As I sat and waited for the sandwich I found my anticipation building. When someone chooses to forgo the formalities of a restaurant it is usually because they know their food can stand without it. It is a bold move to deny your customers a pleasant atmosphere, daring them to admit that they only thing that matters is your food and that your food is very, very good. I thought it was all-or-nothing. I thought if the sandwich was good then the whole enterprise was a success, and if it wasn’t then I was just sitting in a dirty storefront drinking a watered down coke.

I was wrong. To cut to the chase the sandwich was no good but I am unwilling to write off the whole of Just Burgers & Q. The sandwich was a bed of shredded lettuce on a sesame seed bun, some shaved pork loin and a slice of tomato. That’s not much of a sandwich but what saved the whole thing from disaster was the sauce. The pork loin was soaked in a smokey bar-b-q sauce thick enough to hold the sandwich together but not so thick as to impede things. The sandwich was lousy but the sauce was amazing and as I ate it the disconnect between the two made me uncomfortable. The caramel notes in the sauce played against the spice and the whole thing just overshadowed the rest of the sandwich. The meat in the middle could have been roast turkey or tofu loaf, it was all lost. To have a sauce that is so obviously a product of so much work and love poured over a sandwich that no thought has gone into is an unacceptable dichotomy. The sauce at Just Burgers & Q is amazing, and for all I know the ribs are transcendent. The sandwich, however, is no good.

Smoked Turkey and Bacon – Made at Home

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Smoked Turkey and Bacon – Made at an associates house, Boston, MA

Smoked Turkey & Bacon Sandwich

In the quest for the most rarefied of sandwich airs, for perfection, I sometimes forget that at its heart the sandwich is a humble meal. And while the best sandwiches are slaved over, tried again and again until they are perfect, sometimes some things are just thrown between two slices of bread and then consumed. On a trip to Boston some time ago I arrived at an associates house rather peckish. He offered me his fridge, and so I hastily assembled what you see above.

Cibatta bread holds about a quarter pound of smoked turkey, a few slices of cheese, a leaf or two of lettuce, a generous helping of mustard, and three slices of bacon. Salt & pepper finish it off. The sandwich is what you expect it to be, the turkey flavorful but not greatly so, the bacon savory and with a proper crunch. I would not say I was “wowed,” but my stomach was filled and my taste buds were pleased. I suppose we all need a reminder from time to time of the sandwich as a utility, rather than as art. Whatever its role, this was a good sandwich.

Sausage Sandwich – Giamela’s Submarine Sandwiches, Los Feliz Blvd, Los Angeles, CA

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When I moved from the east coast last year it was with the understanding that I would be leaving certain things behind. I wasn’t upset about this, I understood that if I wanted my shot at the sunshine I would have to leave things like snow and effective mass transit systems behind. I don’t regret my decision at all, but all the same I spend a fair amount of time trying to relate my life out here to the things I knew there, trying to find echoes and impressions of life back east. As my associates and I drove over to the restaurant I wondered how faithful it would be to the establishments I had known and loved in the past. I must say that were I to judge it solely on the design Giamela’s is a wonderful establishment, almost designed specifically for the transplant. Plastic checkered tablecloths covered the tables. The price for a refill was written on a paper plate and taped to the side of the soda fountain. The menu tacked to the wall displayed the restaurant’s original offerings in proper printing, with later additions and revisions written below in all capital letters. The atmosphere was as authentic eye-talian as I was likely to find, but this is not a blog about atmosphere.

Beneath the onions but above the wax paper is a hero roll and several succulent sausage links.

Beneath the onions but above the wax paper is a hero roll and several succulent sausage links.

As you can see from the photo, the sausage sandwich at Giamela’s includes onions. You cannot see that it also includes sausage and a sharp marinara sauce. All of these things are standard and I would have been more than pleased if they were the only things presented. Giamela’s went above and beyond what I might expect and included peppers, carrots and pickles. I had seen on the menu board that these things were included in the sandwich and I could have asked that they prepare my sandwich differently. I didn’t make that request because when I stopped to consider it, I was very curious about what they had done to the idea of a sausage sandwich. And what they’ve done is….well, they’ve added carrots and pickles. The sandwich was tasty enough, but I couldn’t get past what I saw as interlopers. They added nothing to the sandwich, with the pickles bringing an unwelcome sour crunch and the carrots an equally unwelcome brightness. How had they gotten there? My only guess is this: The idea of a sausage sandwich was, some time ago, carried west via the children’s game of Telephone. From person to person the recipie went, and somewhere around St. Louis “peppers” became “pickles.” 1500 miles later Phoenix made sure to twist “caramelized onions” into “carrots and onions” and in a grimy joint in Los Angeles the whole thing came together. And that left me, pleased with the note-perfect decor but less satisfied with one odd sandwich.