There’s always a question of how much context is relevant to the overall sandwich, as I relate it to you. No sandwich exists in a vacuum, and try as we might there are things that have an impact on how we feel about a sandwich that are not the sandwich itself. Price, restaurant quality and cleanliness, reputation, all of these and more influence expectations, which in turn influence how a sandwich is received. The reason I raise this point now is that I’m uncertain whether this was a good sandwich, or a good sandwich for an airport. I wasn’t in the best of ways when I ate this, I was in the middle of a journey home, the sky was a uniformly dull grey, I was worn out after a fruitful vacation, and possessed with the irritability developed by any sensible person who finds themselves in an airport. So it seems reasonable to me that I might get a halfway decent sandwich in an airport and be so soothed that I rate it much higher than it deserves. At the same time, I don’t want to hand this sandwich an unfair discount. It’s a tough call, but I think I can say with some degree of certainty that this was a good sandwich, full stop. Moist chicken, flavorful bread, fresh romaine, tomatoes, red onion and cheese. The cilantro aioli gave things a smooth cilantro flavor, neither overpowering nor being overpowered. It was certainly the best sandwich I’ve had in an airport, and one I think I would be pleased to have on a warm afternoon in a more pleasing environment.
Croissant Sandwiches – Le Boulanger & Manley’s Donuts, San Jose, CA
Scrambled eggs, chopped bacon, and cheddar cheese on a croissant. It’s simple, and it would be far too easy to simply inhale one early in the morning and never think twice about it. There’s a lot going on there, though. A tender, flaky croissant. Fluffy eggs. Crispy bacon. Cheese. The risk of this negligence of attention seems highest at breakfast, I think. The breakfast sandwich is one that is rarely a respite from something else; when one sits down for lunch or supper one is often trying to unwind, taking a short solace in simple pleasures. At breakfast your’re gearing up, considering the day that lies ahead, and as a result your sandwich may get scant attention. In this case, I was at the airport, taking in an early sandwich before I started an extended vacation. I can’t honestly tell you that I gave this sandwich what it was due.
That sort of mindless eating is unfortunate, but the alternative can be even worse. Such was the case with the similar sandwich I got from Manley’s Donuts, also scrambled eggs and bacon on a croissant. My mind may have started to drift, but this sandwich wasn’t having it. The labor required to dispatch tough, chewy bacon functioned as a sort of preliminary roadblock, and the dense, greasy croissant only slowed things further. This compounds the earlier sin, I suppose. The good sandwiches run the risk of passing hardly noticed, but the bad ones refuse to be ignored. In both cases, a sort of lack of effort undermines the whole thing; either you drift away or else you are put upon. I put it to you that true enthusiasm, sandwich or otherwise, requires effort. It requires a certain focus. Don’t we owe that to ourselves? Don’t we owe that to our sandwiches? In instances such as the sandwich from Le Boulanger, such effort pays off in the experience of a very good sandwich. In instances such as Manley’s Donuts, well…take it as a learning experience. The next time I approach the heights of some fine sandwich, I’ll take a brief moment to remember the greasy depths of Manley’s Donuts. There’s no reason to seek out bad sandwiches, but there’s also no reason to let one go to waste.
Canter’s Reuben & Eddie Cantor’s Delight – Canter’s Deli, S Las Vegas Blvd, Las Vegas, NV
Canter’s, a delicatessen based in Los Angeles and about which I have previously spoken, operates an outpost in Las Vegas’ Treasure Island Casino. While in town sometime back, I made it a point to stop by to see how the sandwiches on offer stacked up against the ones in Los Angeles. The Reuben, I am happy to report, remains a song of the heart, a pile of deliciously salty pastrami and moist sauerkraut. The sandwich itself is just as good, but, as you might expect, the atmosphere is a bit lacking. The Canter’s in Las Vegas is just stuck in a corner of the gaming floor, the floor’s jarring shift from hectic carpet to checked tile making it appear exactly what it is, a secondary appendage, an afterthought. It suffers from that permadusk that so pervades any and all casinos, you order from one window and grab your food from another, and there’s no one to top up your supply of pickles. In short, it lacks charm in just about every way something can lack charm. But it’s in an area that’s light on really high-quality sandwiches, so it’s still well worth your time.
The same cannot be said, sadly, of all of the sandwiches. The Eddie Cantor’s Delight, for example, is an ostentatious number that would be a towering failure if they even bothered to stand it up. Stages Deli, another venerable institution prone to missing the mark, at least made a display of their sandwich. Compounding the sin that is serving a sandwich with a fork, the Cantor’s Delight comes lying prone, having already surrendered to its faults. It’s not that you can’t pick it up, turn it right side up and go at it, it’s that they’re telling you you need to. The combination of pastrami, corned beef, turkey, ham and swiss cheese isn’t a terrible idea, and they’re even basically in proper proportion, but the sheer size of it renders the whole thing nearly useless. There’s no way to attack it that gets everything at once, and so you’re really left eating a couple of different sandwiches, a bite from one then a bite from the other. There’s a time and a place for that, but it isn’t when you’ve ordered a single sandwich. Eddie Cantor surely made quite a mark in the world of music, and it’s a good thing he did. His contributions to the world of sandwiches aren’t worth two dimes, be they marching or not.
Shrimp Po’ Boy — The Smith House, Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles
Some time ago, I ordered a “Shrimp Po’ Girl” from an establishment in Santa Cruz. The sandwich was a veritable monstrosity, featuring such an abundance of shrimp that the enterprise was a sort of riddle of consumption. I gave the shrimp sandwich another shot at the upscale bar and grill The Smith House in a strange area of Los Angeles referred to as “Century City.” The presentation of this shrimp po’boy was a far cry from my previous experience, and indeed it was perhaps a third of the amount of shrimp for right around the same price, if not more (forgive me, but this was some time ago, and the specifics escape me).
And therein lay the problem with this sandwich experience, if indeed there was one. The shrimp and the sauce both had ample flavor, and the bread was the perfect complement. It was an enjoyable sandwich experience, but I was left wanting more. The coverage of shrimp throughout the sandwich was a bit lacking, as there were entire bites devoid of the main ingredient, leaving me chewing a fine lettuce-sauce-and-bread combination, but falling short of the potential. I am happy to chalk this up to a careless line cook, but should I order it a second time and again find a severe lack of the selling point…well then, shame on me.
French Bull – Bagel Maven, 7th Ave, New York, NY
I’m always given a bit of pause when going for a sandwich at an establishment named for some other food. Plenty of such establishments offer fine sandwiches, but it’s always cause for the tiniest bit of suspicion. I should have trusted my instincts. The French Bull at Bagel Maven is roast beef, brie and watercress on ciabatta bread. Mayonnaise and horseradish round things out. That’s well and good in concept, but in execution there was much too much cheese. Believe it or not, what you see above is merely half of what was intended for the sandwich, and I actually broke with my own policy and offered instruction to the man assembling things. Watching it being made, I saw the pictured amount of cheese added and then saw the sandwich maker reach for anther handful. I found myself unable to hold my tongue. “That’s enough cheese,” I called, and the woman behind me wondered aloud just how much he had intended to add. That will forever remain a mystery, but I do know that so long as I was shouting instructions I should have called for some subtraction. The beef and the cheese are there in almost equal parts, which is hopelessly out of balance. The horseradish was completely lost, something that happens a lot more frequently than I would prefer. In more fitting proportions I think this would have been a fine sandwich, but as I received it it was no good. Balance is delicate, tremendously delicate, and it’s all too easy for one element to derail a sandwich. Any serious sandwich enthusiast knows this, which makes it all the more a shame that so many establishments seem so set on reminding us.
Guest Post: Jon Bois on a Bacon with Homemade Mustard Sandwich
From time to time esteemed members of the larger community of sandwich enthusiasts have a tale or idea too good to be kept to themselves or only shared privately. In these instances, On Sandwiches is happy to feature these contributions. In this case, Jon Bois says some things that need saying.
Do you like bacon? Don’t bother answering. I have suffered your memes, your retweets upon retweets sharing with the world that you are on #teambacon, your “bacon = FLAWLESS VICTORY” image macros. Stop for a moment and consider that you are not on a culinary journey, but rather are rolling through the same closed circuit.
Perhaps it does not interest you to create; perhaps you would simply do. Ultimately I must respect, and even celebrate, your “journey,” because your life is yours to live. Myself, I set upon a quest: to relegate bacon to a supporting role in favor of, of all things, a condiment.
That quest ought to sound odd to you, because it reflects an odd interest of mine: I am fascinated when a purportedly tertiary element steps into another role entirely. I like to watch pitchers bat. I enjoy reading about merry-go-rounds in Ghanaian playgrounds that generate electricity for their villages. I am amused to consider that of all the knives and saws and things that rest within this age-old pocket knife of mine, the utility of its scissors has outlasted them all.
I constructed a mustard sandwich that was decent enough to drag along some bacon with it.
Mustard is the greatest of condiments, and it’s also among the simplest to make. I did so with some brown and yellow mustard seeds, white wine vinegar, and salt, then scooped a liberal amount over some sauteed mushroom and poblano pepper. It was strong, which I prefer mustard to be, but not overwhelming. I was so pleased by how it played with the vegetables that I would have been perfectly satisfied to slam the door with the top slice of marbled rye and forget the bacon altogether.
No … no. It was time to humble bacon, to re-assign it under the command of a condiment. And so it did, with two crispy strips tangled through the mustard and vegetables. Indeed, the mustard starred, and the bacon, though its presence was welcome, provided no more than secondary saltiness and fattiness.
The sandwich wasn’t quite “great.” It was simply “good.” But I succeeded in taking this salty, shriveled mediocre-meme generator and reducing it to the least important component. You are on your thousandth lap under the bright lights; I am in the wilderness. Daybreak approaches. Will you notice?
The Month of Bánh Mì – Reflections & Recommendations
And so On Sandwiches’ Month of Bánh Mì concludes, having featured 23 sandwiches across four cities. The highlights, largely focusing on philosophy:
- Bánh Mì Zòn – Authenticity, clean floors, and pork patties.
- The Vegetarian Bánh Mì – Art, tragedy, and inherently unfulfilled potential.
- Lee’s Sandwiches – Franchizes, the future, and the horrors of inconsistency.
- Bun Mee – Good design, juicy steak, and a more upbeat vision of the future.
- Saigon Vietnamese / Bánh Mì Saigon – New questions, an unsettling feeling, and a challenge to the throne.
Putting philosophy aside to focus on quality, I’d say the best bánh mì in San Jose is at Thien Huong. The best bánh mì in San Francisco is at Saigon Sandwich, unless you’re already familiar with the sandwich. In that case head to Bun Mee. In New York City, until someone proves otherwise, I’m saying Bánh Mì Saigon is the best. I put less stock in that recommendation than I used to, but I’m not willing to jettison it quite yet.
I hope that as readers you were entertained, but perhaps more importantly I hope that I have done justice to the sandwich. I believe that the bánh mì is a genuinely special sandwich amongst the innumerable sandwiches that exist or that any of us may dream up. It seems more delicate somehow, the balance more precarious. It’s never piled high, so rarely ostentatious, a simple but flexible archetype that allows considerable variation in kind, quality, and construction. So much of culinary history in America involves foreign foods, flavors and ideas slowly moving into the country at larger, shifting as they do, gradually ascending to whatever perch they deserve. The bánh mì isn’t there yet, but anyone who takes a good long look can see that’s where it’s headed. It’s too good not to, and all of us are lucky to be here, today, enjoying these sandwiches even before their nascent glory. They aren’t a secret, not even close, but they’re miles away from popular. It’s less than rational and a little elitist to say so, but I think that gives them a little something special. Next time you sit down to enjoy a bánh mì, count your blessings that you live where they’re available. Smile at your fortune, and savor everything that sandwich can possibly offer. I know that’s what I’ll be doing.
#1 – Bánh Mì Saigon, Grand St, New York, NY
Yesterday’s sandwich, the #1 at Saigon Vietnamese Sandwich Deli, left me unsettled. My understanding of the sandwich world had not been overturned, but it had certainly been jostled. Immediately after finishing at Saigon Vietnamese, I walked the 500 feet to Bánh Mì Saigon. All that had been jostled, I thought, would soon be set still. All questions would be answered, all doubts banished. Bánh Mì Saigon was packed. It was getting late in the afternoon, and I took such a crowd as a bit of confirmation, an unspoken collusion between me and all of these other people who knew good sandwiches from great sandwiches from very good, and greatest from great. There was a healthy line, and a small crowd who had already ordered stood waiting for their sandwiches. I spent a few minutes in line, then stepped to the counter and made my order. As I reached for my wallet I was shocked to see my order ready to be taken away. I glanced behind me at the assembled crowd, and questioned whether this was really my sandwich. I was assured it was, money was exchanged, and I went on my way. The picture you see above is the glamour shot, from previous visits. As I held the sandwich that day:
The photo may not reveal what I need to mention, so I will cut to the quick: I have never had such a delicious, yet heartbreaking sandwich. I don’t know how long my sandwich had been sitting there before it was handed off to me, but it was too long. I have little doubt there are portions of the day where Bánh Mì Saigon does enough business to hand off #1s as soon as they’re bagged, but getting towards four in the afternoon on a Friday is apparently not one of those times. The pork, the thing about which I frequently daydream, the thing I had most looked forward to, could only be described as tough. It was dry. The caramelization I so treasure went too far. The rest of the sandwich had no hope of picking up the slack; having sat for an indeterminate amount of time, the baguette lacked any warmth and had lost some crunch. These are errors of execution, that they can be so easily avoided is what makes them so tragic. Indeed, from past experiences I am certain that Bánh Mì Saigon is capable of avoiding them. That they failed to do so is an almost unspeakable disappointment. It was still very good, but it was nowhere close to what it could be. In fact, it was not as good as the sandwich I’d just had at Saigon Vietnamese Sandwich Deli.
Is this the final hailstone that caves in the roof I spent yesterday propping up? I don’t think so, in a large part because were I to say that this is no longer the best sandwich it will not be because some other sandwich surpassed it but because it regressed. Rather than being bested, it can only fail to meet its own challenge. On this particular day, it did fail to do that. I don’t know what the future holds. It’s possible Bánh Mì Saigon had a bad day. It’s possible they’ve grown lazy, content to coast on their reputation. It’s possible they lost something in their transition to a new space, or something as simple as a change in cooks has lead them astray. But the question I attempt to answer is not “What is usually the best sandwich,” or “what could be the best sandwich?” It’s “What is the best sandwich?” That’s not a question I have an answer to right now. Here at the end of On Sandwiches’ Month of Bánh Mìs, I regretfully offer you no conclusion. This is a serious issue, and I do not want to make mistakes in haste. I will be hesitant to change what I consider to be the best sandwich, but I will not be unwilling. I am not sure when I will be able to revisit this issue, but when I do I will share what I find with you. That I have not settled this question does not mean it cannot be settled. Certainty awaits, and I look forward to obtaining it.
#1 House Special – Saigon Vietnamese Sandwich, Broome St, New York, NY
Saigon Vietnamese Sandwich Deli is a little more than 500 feet from my beloved Bánh Mì Saigon, literally around the corner. As I mentioned in the review of Paris Sandwich, I wanted to see what the neighborhood had to offer. My first sample of Chinatown’s other offerings left me underwhelmed, but Saigon Vietnamese was another story. To start with, this was a big sandwich. Most bánh mìs are six to eight inches, this one had to be at least ten and a good bit taller than most. Relatively speaking, it was a monster. That said, it wasn’t the size that got me thinking.
The #1 House Special at Saigon Vietnamese contains, in addition to the standard vegetables, nem nướng, thịt nguội, and chả lụa. This left me a bit confused, because there’s something a bit off in either the translation here or my understanding of bánh mì fillings. The thịt nguội and chả lụa were what I expected, cold-cut or cold-cut-esque meats previously discussed here and here, respectively. But I understood nem nướng to be pork patties, like I had at Bánh Mì Zớn. Here, though, they were minced. Not just in practice, but described as such on the menu. (The menu, to return briefly to a point made in the Bánh Mì Zớn review, is a series of 8.5×11″ pieces of paper taped above the counter.) Minced and grilled, the pork in this sandwich was much more reminiscent of thịt nướng, as found in my treasured #1 at Bánh Mì Saigon. It had a similarly chewy texture, and very similar sweet, salty, savory flavor. The primary contrast between the two sandwiches is that the pork at Bánh Mì Saigon has a heavier caramelization, and the pork at Saigon Vietnamese is more loose, more moist. Beyond description lies judgement, and I have to tell you that this was a very, very good sandwich. Crisp, tender bread, fresh, bright vegetables, and flavorful, tender meat. Making my way through the sandwich, I was struck with a thought: What if someone likes this better than Bánh Mì Saigon?
A number of associates, after hearing me sing its virtues, have gone to try Bánh Mì Saigon. To my knowledge, none of them have come away disappointed. I always fear that they will, though, because of the particular song I sing, so to speak. From the Finest Sandwich post:
This is a bánh mì from Bánh Mì Saigon, and it is the best sandwich in America. Now, I have not eaten every sandwich in America, and I do not aspire to. The conclusion that this sandwich is the best was not reached by poll, not by formula, not by proclamation. It simply is. The #1 from Bánh Mì Saigon is not an appeal to reason, it is an argument for sandwiches as a religion.
There isn’t much room to walk that praise back. I’m OK with that, I wrote the above because I believed it, because I meant it, because that sandwich showed me something no other sandwich had before or has since. This “what if someone else…” isn’t some act of cognitive dissonance attempting to distance myself from a realization that I might be wrong. My thinking was that Bánh Mì Saigon was better, but if someone valued different things (a moist softness over the celebration of the Maillard reaction that is the #1 at Bánh Mì Saigon, for example) they might feel differently. And that conclusion, that it was possible that the #1 at Bánh Mì Saigon isn’t the best sandwich in the world, was deeply unsettling.
It isn’t just that I would have to come before you and offer a mea culpa, or that my entire sense of what a sandwich can be would be thrown off. Both of those things would be true, but it’s more than that. Why that conclusion was unsettling isn’t about me, or even about the sandwiches. It’s about fault lines in the ground upon which we lay the bricks of certainty. How do I know the #1 at Bánh Mì Saigon is the best? I can’t explain it, it’s just something I knew when I ate the sandwich. I was made privy to a clarity, and what the sandwich at Saigon Vietnamese Sandwich Deli suggested was not that that picture had shifted, but that perhaps my eyes did not work as well as I thought they did.
Given that I can rely only on myself, my impressions and my understandings, to share the things I love with you, that notion is uncomfortable. Consider the tapestry that is the idea of “Best.” How difficult it is to see which thread is quality, which thread is context, which is luck? Is there novelty in the weave? Bias? This problem exists across criticism, and it prompts some to scurry in retreat, designating only a “favorite,” informing anyone who asks that they must make their own decisions. I would consider that an option of last resort, and it’s not one I will avail myself of today. No. Today I will tell you that this is the second best bánh mì I’ve ever had, that it is slightly too moist, and too tender. It is an exceedingly good sandwich, really, genuinely, very very good. But it was not as good as what I’ve had from Bánh Mì Saigon.
Bun Mee Combo & Juicy Steak – Bun Mee, Fillmore St, San Francisco, CA
Bun Mee is fancy. The pork they serve isn’t just pork, it’s Kurobuta pork, a particular breed. You can get Pellegrino, the menu and the building both feature sharp design, and the menu is full of treats, salads and fries. The sandwiches are expensive as well, from $6-8 compared to $3-4 at the other San Francisco establishments I’ve sampled. It’s closer to Cô Ba than any of the other places from the past month. The first sandwich I tried, the Bun Mee Combo, didn’t make me think much of the elaborate trappings. Aside from the standard carrot/daikon/cucumber/jalapeño/cilantro, the sandwich boasts grilled lemongrass Kurobuta pork, paté de campagne, mortadella, garlic aioli, and shaved onion. That last bit is over the top, I think. I’ve never tried to shave an onion, but I can’t imagine it going very well. Thinly slicing, sure, but never shaving. As if everything else weren’t enough, shaved onion strikes me as the final snap in the unfurling of a fancy flag. Fancy or not, though, this sandwich just wasn’t great. There was a lot going on, and none of it was really bad, but there was so much at play that nothing stood out. The garlic was lost behind the jalapeño and the richness of the paté, the lone slice of mortadella playing farther in the background than it should have. There was fair balance here, in that nothing blasted anything else away, but there was very little harmony, in that nothing seemed to be working together. Had this been the only sandwich that I tried, I would have had a fairly negative impression of Bun Mee.
Luckily for both myself and Bun Mee, I also tried the Juicy Steak. It was a revelation. With the same standards as above, the Juicy Steak held grilled flank steak with lime pepper aioli, lotus root relish, shaved onion, and crispy shallots. The steak lived up to its billing, moist, meaty and flavorful. The lotus root relish brought a delightfully earthy sweetness, echoed in the crispy shallots. This was far, far from a traditional bánh mì, but it was also very good. Bun Mee is the first place I’ve seen attempt and succeed at presenting an upscale bánh mì, and I have to say I’m very heartened by that success. The Combo might not have been special, but the Juicy Steak was and it left me very curious to try the other things Bun Mee has on offer. Given the vision of the future of the bánh mì on offer at Lee’s, Bun Mee was extremely heartening. Someone here knows what they’re doing, and the world of bánh mìs is richer for their contributions.
On Sandwiches 