Tag Archives: New York

Chicken Parmigiana Hero – Shackleton’s, Hempstead Tpk, Franklin Square, NY

Posted on by

Shackleton’s is a fairly standard pub, in an unspectacular part of Long Island. The menu features nothing that demands to be sampled, and while there’s a tasty beer or two, the selection is less than superb. And, as you might expect from that kind of establishment, the sandwich was, well, tasty enough. It was fried fresh, which is a pass/fail sort of quality, the sauce was fine. The only real downside is that the bread, billed as a garlic hero, doesn’t really carry much garlic flavor. It’s there, somewhere, but as someone who likes a heavy dose of garlic, I was disappointed. There wasn’t too much cheese. Like I said, it was tasty enough.

But let us consider this for a moment, the idea of good enough. This, I think, is one of the more wonderful things about sandwiches: most of them are pretty good. They aren’t hard to make, there are a substantial number of established classic forms you can work with, and in the end you’re more likely to get a good result than a bad one. It’s the best of all things. A hot dog is easy to make, but there isn’t much going on. A full meal can be delicious, but there’s a good amount of work involved. A sandwich, though, is a simple route to fine things. Thanks to the sandwich, I could enter a fairly ordinary bar on an ugly stretch of road and know that I was probably going to come away satisfied. “Most sandwiches are good” might seem like a tepid, pedestrian sort of insight, but think about it. I ate a sandwich today. I went in knowing that my life was probably going to be a bit better off for having eaten it, and I was right. I put it to you that that is no small thing, and that sandwiches can bring us these things is something for which we should be very grateful.

Chicken Mama Mia – Crosby Connection, Bleeker St, New York, NY

Posted on by

The Chicken Mama Mia sandwich at Crosby Connection, New York City
Click for grainy close-up

When I first encountered the Crosby Sandwich Connection a few years ago, they were operating out of what appeared to be a large closet on Crosby Street. I mean that literally, the man who works the counter stood in a doorway while someone behind him put the sandwiches together, I’d be surprised if the place had a footprint of event sixty square feet. The cramped quarters didn’t put the squeeze on their sandwich making abilities, though, and during my time in New York they quickly became my first choice for lunch. Since then they’ve been at a few addresses, but now appear settled at 45 Bleeker, in the lobby of the Bleeker Street Theater. Location, of course, is always secondary to the sandwich, and Crosby Connection makes a fine sandwich. The Chicken Mama Mia is sliced chicken breast, fresh mozzarella, tomato basil sauce and ricotta cheese. The ricotta is really want makes things work, providing a slightly salty, creamy counternote to the sweetness of the tomato sauce. You’ll need a couple napkins, things slide around a bit, but it’s well worth the mess. Crosby Connection has about a dozen sandwiches on their menu, and I’d say they’re all worth your time.

#38 – Press 195, Bell Boulevard, Bayside, NY

Posted on by

The #38 at Press 195, in Bayside, NY
(Click for a grainy closeup)

Everything you need to know is right in the name. 195 is the street number of the original Brooklyn location, but it’s the other bit that interests me. Press is so named due to the centerpiece and vast majority of the menu being pressed sandwiches. Indeed, sandwiches get top billing with the restaurant;the bar offerings follow second. Press has a fine beer list, and in terms of non-sandwich items their Belgian fries really are outstanding, but personally I wouldn’t give a tenth of a fig if the sandwiches weren’t good. Well friends, I am happy to say that they are more than good. Press has forty hot sandwiches on offer, plus another half-dozen cold ones. The cold come on toasted Italian bread, while the hot come on an outstanding ciabatta bread. It’s got a wonderful crunch to it and yields perfectly to whatever it holds. With forty sandwiches some are bound to be better than others, but I’ve never had one that disappoints. The #38 was no exception. Grilled steak, avocado, sweet onion jam and fresh mozzarella all with a roasted pepper dressing all came together wonderfully. They have a light hand with the dressing, the onion jam doesn’t get lost, the whole thing is just a great sandwich. I’ve had a number of sandwiches recently about which I have nothing even remotely profound to say, so I won’t try. I’d simply like to present them here, share them with you, and together we can appreciate the finer parts of the sandwich world.

The Jimmy T – Lenny’s, 9th St, New York, NY

Posted on by

The Jimmy T at Lenny's, New York, NY

Lenny’s is a sandwich chain in New York city, currently operating over a dozen restaurants. Each one is more-or-less the same in layout and design. There’s nothing particularly charming about Lenny’s. You won’t come away with a story for your friends. You won’t feel compelled to spread the word about Lenny’s and you won’t feel you have to hold it as a personal secret. It’s a chain, someone takes your order, assembles your sandwich and passes it off to the person you pay. Eating at Lenny’s would never be considered an experience. But none of that matters because Lenny’s does something very well and it is the most important thing, the thing that many other chains lose in their constant expansion: Lenny’s makes a very good sandwich.

The Jimmy T, high on the list of Lenny’s signature sandwiches, is a breaded chicken cutlet, melted mozzarella cheese, grilled onions, sweet peppers and honey mustard on your choice of bread. It’s a fine sandwich. The grilled onions and the peppers are the featured ingredients and the mustard is just enough to keep the sweetness from getting out of hand. I do not mean to sell the sandwich short but what is especially notable isn’t that it’s good it’s that you can get it at a substantial number of locations. At far too many chain sandwich shops any chucklehead with $5 is served a pile of salt between two pieces of bread. It is nice to know that at least in certain places there are people who don’t think that availability is a substitute for edibility.

Turkey Club, Stages Deli, 7th Ave, New York, NY

Posted on by

Stages Deli is a New York institution and they are quick to remind you of this. The newspaper clippings and photos of famous people who have stopped in for a knish show the full range of time that Stages has been serving classic delicatessen meals in midtown Manhattan. For 70 years Stages Deli has been urging all comers to try the stuffed sandwich.

I remember as a young boy discarding section after section of the newspaper, ignoring all matters of politics and finance. My only interest lay in Dagwood Bumstead and his latest act of grandeur. Dagwood was something of a mythical figure from my formative years, and in the excess and experimentation of my adolescence I tortured myself with two questions: ‘Can this be built higher?’ and ‘Why didn’t this work?’ It did not occur to me for some years that it was the scale that was bringing ruin to my creations.

While Stages is not guilty of piling on ingredient after ingredient the sandwich is no less ostentatious for its limited number of ingredients. I regret that the photo I have included is of such poor quality, dear reader I have seen a great number of sandwiches but the size of this beast was enough to take me aback. Almost as tall as the water glass there has to be four solid portions of turkey, more than a half dozen slices of bacon, 3 or 4 slices of tomato, and a fair amount of iceberg lettuce. The toothpick you can barely see is buried to the hilt and still did not touch the bottom third of this sandwich. I thought I understood the motivation. This had to be a sandwich made by someone who believes in Sandwiches, believes in America, believes in God, and moreover that God loves America, that God loves sandwiches, that he would bless such a towering effort.

When I first saw this sandwich I marveled at the size and thought silently to myself about all of those failed attempts. Maybe I was just too young and too foolish, and some master craftsman toiling away in a noted deli had discovered what I had not. Maybe this sandwich was the magnificent creation I had dreamed of but never realized. It was not. From the first bite it became clear that this was not a divinely inspired attempt at greatness, but a callous stack of sub-par ingredients designed to flabbergast tourists. The turkey was dry and flavorless, seemingly roasted plain. The bland and mushy typical out of season tomatoes had lost whatever flavor they once had to the refrigerator they were stored in. Iceberg lettuce has its place but deployed by default it is the calling card of a hack and with one bite of this sandwich I realized I should have known. Maybe this sandwich was something some day. Maybe in the heady post-war days someone put a little more care into things and it all came together. Maybe back then something grand was possible. Now, though, now it is late afternoon in America and this is just a bad sandwich.

Egg Sandwich – New York, NY

Posted on by

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.

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

Posted on by

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.

Bánh Mì – Bánh Mì Saigon, Grand St, New York, NY

Posted on by

We should start, then, with perfection.

This is a bánh mì from Saigon Bánh Mì, 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 Saigon Bánh Mì is not an appeal to reason, it is an argument for sandwiches as a religion.

The namesake sandwich at Saigon Bánh Mì is listed as #1 on the handwritten menu board, and if we’re being completely honest here it is similarly inscribed in my heart. The sandwich is not complicated, and it is the pursuit of perfection of a classic formula that seems to raise the sandwich above its competitors. A baguette grilled to a crunch holds seasoned, diced pork grilled to chewy perfection. Cilantro makes its distinct mark, shredded onion and carrot join cucumber to contrast the pork with a bit of fresh snap, and a slice of pork roll and a bit of mayo smooth things out, bringing it all together. It is everything a sandwich should be, it is flavorful and complete. Rather than merely holding things together, the bread accentuates the overall sandwich.

Saigon Bahn Mi is located in the back half of a jewelry store. After you order your sandwich you can stand there as the jewelry store employees stare at you, no doubt long tired of people who take up space but don’t buy any jade Buddha pendants. I have always felt it a little bit awkward, but before long you surrender your four dollars and leave holding the crowning achievement of the entire sandwich industry. This is the finest sandwich.