Tag Archives: Sandwiches Made For Me

The Istanbul – SUNdeVICH, 9th St NW, Washington, DC

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Sundevich is tucked away in an alley. I might not have even found it if not for the small chalkboard propped outside the door. The chalkboard read “SUNdeVICH – NOW OPEN.” I submit to you that this announcement was an almost superhuman display of modesty. The chalkboard should have read, at the very least, “VISIONARY AT WORK.”

I stood a few steps in from the door, staring at the chalkboard menu. I was paralyzed. I’d come expecting a good sandwich shop, an out-of-the-way gem. I wasn’t prepared for what I’d found. Consider The Cairo: hummus, cucumber, brined vegetables, walnuts, and fresh herbs. Or The Beirut: skirt steak, hummus, tomato, brined vegetables, and fresh herbs. Even the more simple sandwiches seem brimming with promise. The Athens: lamb, lettuce, tomato, red onion, and tzatkiki. The Madrid: chorizo and chimichuri. Their stated mission, local ingredients and global flavors, seems ripe for pretentious indulgence. Yet the menu is full of wonderfully creative sandwiches, one after another begging to be tried. Sundevich was not my first stop of the day and standing there looking at the menu I nearly came to tears facing the ugly fact that I was only going to be able to eat one of the sandwiches. I was leaving the DC area early the next day, too early to even pop in and grab another sandwich on my way out of town. No, I had to look at these offerings, make my choice, and live with it. Life isn’t fair, dear readers. Over and over again we hear this from parents and other adults as we grow up. We never really believe it though, do we? In our hearts we doubt it until one day we stand there, the warmth of our dreams departing us, the cold of reality cementing its grip.

I went with The Istanbul: Ground beef and lamb, sumac onions, tomato, yogurt spread and fresh herbs. After I made my order I saw the gentleman behind the counter put a patty of lamb and beef on a skewer and place it over the grill. Meat cooked to order! It’s one thing to get that in a sit-down restaurant, but in a counter-based sandwich shop it’s beyond rare. Any concerns I had that Sundevich would be high concept/low execution went out the window. The sandwich itself cemented my feeling that Sundevich is something special. The bread had a noticeable crust without being a chore to get through, the meat was well spiced but didn’t overpower the rest of the ingredients, the yogurt sauce and the herbs (chiefly cilantro and big leaves of fresh mint) made a tremendous pair, a tangy and sharp back and forth playing over the whole sandwich.

I’m haunted by that menu. DC isn’t one of my regular destinations and it may be a year or more before I get back. When I do return, though, it will be on an empty stomach and I intend to make a beeline for Sundevich. I’m going to line them all up in front of me: The Kingston (jerk chicken, spicy slaw, salsa, garlic mayo), The Shiraz (beef tongue, pickled vegetables, mustard), The Ifshan (souffle of (spinach, mushroom, walnut, barberry), feta) and more. I probably don’t have the appetite or capacity to make it through the whole menu, but that won’t stop me from trying.

Nobadeer – Jetties, Foxhall Rd NW, Washington, DC

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Countless sandwiches are born of food left over from another meal. We at On Sandwiches have had a number of fine sandwiches in that mold. The Nobadeer is the supreme sandwich of the category, the undisputed sovereign of the leftover sandwich. It is the Thanksgiving sandwich. Of course, it isn’t my Thanksgiving sandwich, or yours. Mine involves dark meat, for one, and a touch of gravy. No, this is just the broadest outlines of the archetype: Soft white bread, turkey breast, stuffing and cranberry sauce. (There’s a layer of mayo as well, but it neither adds nor detracts so I’m ignoring it.) That’s the rub of a sandwich like this; you run the risk of stoking a person’s nostalgia without the necessary fuel to really get the fire going. Some restauranteurs see this problem and surrender. They put forth no effort, counting on the simple fact that they’re appealing to sentimentality to carry the sandwich through. That never ends well, dry turkey, bland stuffing, cranberries that are more jelly than sauce.

The folks at Jetties don’t take the coward’s way out. No sandwich is going to be everything to everyone, so they just put forth a quality sandwich and dare you to be disappointed. And make no mistake, the Nobadeer is a quality sandwich. Named for a beach in Nantucket, it features freshly carved turkey that’s about as juicy as you can expect a turkey breast to be. The stuffing was moist and savory, and the cranberry sauce, with big bits of cranberry, was neither too sweet nor too tart. It wasn’t a perfect sandwich, with some problems in construction. The cranberry sauce and the stuffing were concentrated towards the center of the sandwich, leaving both absent at the edges. With a mediocre sandwich this kind of error can ruin things, but the quality of the ingredients in the Nobadeer carried things through and left it, a few bland bites aside, a great sandwich.

USDA Prime Beef French Dip – Cole’s, 6th St, Los Angeles, CA

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The Beef Dip sandwich from Cole'sHaving featured (and highly praised) the French Dip from Phillipe’s, it is only fair that I give a chance to the other establishment claiming to have invented the sandwich. Where Phillipe’s claimed a roll was inadvertently dropped into a pan of jus, Cole’s story is that such a dip was made intentionally, to cater to a customer with sore gums. I’m not sure which story is true, and to be frank I don’t care. It’s the sandwiches I’m after, not the trivia.

This is the beef dip, where the linked Phillipe’s sandwich is the pork dip. I’ve tried the beef and the pork at both places, so forgive me for jumping back & forth while only having a picture of one or the other. I suppose the simplest way to do this is to simply run down who does what better. The beef dip is better at Phillipe’s, and the pork dip is better at Cole’s. The fact that the pork dip is listed above the beef on Cole’s menu suggests that maybe they’re aware that their pork supersedes the beef. Whether they know it or not, though, those are the facts as I see them. The associated matters seem an even draw. The mustard at Phillipe’s is smooth and yellow with a substantial amount of horseradish, the mustard at Cole’s is pale and features even more horseradish, present in shreds. The atmospheres of the establishments differ significantly, Cole’s being a restaurant with subdued lighting and a bar that can put forth a very impressive old fashioned. Phillipe’s, meanwhile, is bright and the shared seating is bustling with familes, the young and old and everyone in between. Cole’s serves the sandwich with a small cup of jus and you dip on your own, at Phillipe’s the sandwich is dipped before it’s handed to you. All told I prefer Phillipe’s mustard and dipping style, but the old fashioned really is spectacular and I can easily see someone preferring Cole’s.

Neither the pork at Phillipe’s nor the beef at Cole’s is bad, both are very good, incredibly tasty sandwiches. It’s just that someone on the other side of town does it better. In a bit of symmetry, though, each establishment wins a particular category and the contest of the whole can only be called a draw. While some may see this result as something of a letdown, I can’t see it as anything but the best possible outcome. Think of it! Any one of us can travel to Los Angeles, patronize one or both historical establishments and eat a delicious sandwich. No matter which you choose you are unlikely to walk away unsatisfied. Truly, the winner here is neither Cole’s nor Phillipe’s but your humble sandwich enthusiast.

Lobster Grilled Cheese – LA Cafe, Spring St, Los Angeles, CA

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The lobster grilled cheese sandwich from LA Cafe in downtown Los Angeles.The Lobster Grilled Cheese at LA Cafe is $9.99. That’s the tell. The price of lobster fluctuates, of course, so with something that doesn’t go for ‘market price’ the only thing a restaurateur can do to protect their margins is to fiddle with the amount of lobster involved. Priced somewhere around $20 you might be confident you’d get a fair helping of lobster, but at $9.99 you know you aren’t in for too much. I still wanted to see how the whole thing worked, so I ordered it anyway.

As an ordinary grilled cheese sandwich this would be a strong success. The bread had a wonderful buttery crunch, the cheeses used played together well and brought a smooth flavor with just enough tang. Everything that needs to work in a grilled cheese worked. But the inclusion of lobster makes it an upscale grilled cheese, and by those standards it’s a failure. The lobster, first and foremost, was lost in the cheese. Without substantial, meaty chunks the subtle flavor of the lobster was completely overwhelmed, leaving you to suss through each bite, hunting for the lobster purely by texture. It was there, but with a few exceptions it was diced too fine to stand out. That, I imagine, is a product of there not being enough of it – forced to use a small amount and wishing to distribute it throughout the sandwich, small pieces are the only option. I found myself wondering if a handful of large chunks could have stood with some filler. Had I gotten a sandwich with a few large chunks of lobster and some artichoke hearts or mushrooms, would I have felt cheated? I suspect I would have considered it fair, given the price. Another option might have been dressing the lobster in lemon before adding it to the sandwich, hoping the citrus would cut through the cheese and let flavor of the lobster shine through. In any event, neither these remedies nor any other were present in LA Cafe’s Lobster Grilled Cheese, and so I cannot call the sandwich a success. It would work very well if you did more to highlight the lobster or if you removed it entirely, but as it stands it misses the mark. This sandwich stands as a strong example of what I’m talking about when I say I don’t hold it against someone for aiming high and falling short. Someone clearly wanted a grand sandwich here, and by one constraint or another they were prevented from achieving what they set out for. I wish them better luck next time, and I make no strong mark against them in my book.

Slummin’ It: Double Hamburger w/ Everything – Original Tommy’s Hamburgers

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The double hamburger with everything (including chili) at Original Tommy'sThis is the first hamburger to be featured at On Sandwiches. There isn’t a real strong reason for that, hamburgers are clearly sandwiches. It’s just that I don’t eat them particularly often, and in most cases there’s always a sandwich I’d rather eat, always a sandwich I’d rather talk about. But with the Slummin’ It project developing, my options are much wider if I consider hamburgers. A good friend was urging me to try a double Whopper with cheese, and for his sake I’ll get to that soon enough. I didn’t want it to be the first hamburger featured at On Sandwiches, though. It just didn’t seem right. Original Tommy’s, however, seems to fit that role rather nicely.

I went in to Tommy’s with an associate who was grooving on pure nostalgia, reminiscing about day after day crowned with Tommy’s chili, be it atop hamburgers, cheeseburgers, or french fries. They sell it to go, you take it home and put it on everything, he told me. Seeing the enthusiasm Tommy’s fostered in this man I gladly ordered a double hamburger and some chili cheese fries. I confirmed that I wanted the hamburger with everything on it, which at Tommy’s entails the usual tomato, pickles, and onions but also includes a not insubstantial helping of chili. Extra chili is available at no charge, I’m told, but given that this was my first time I figured the standard amount was the wise choice.

I mentioned the french fries only because they’re key to describing the chili. Where the chili on the hamburger was largely hidden under the bun, the chili on the fries sat front & center, and I was able to marvel at the little pools of shiny red grease collecting in the hills and valleys the chili formed. I mention this not to damn Tommy and his hamburgers. Fat can provide a pleasing taste and texture, and while I’ve had plenty of lousy greasy sandwiches, some folks can pull it off. I’m happy to tell you that Tommy’s is one of those places. The burger itself is pretty standard issue but the chili sings. It’s thick and smooth, with enough texture to not be slurry but not so chunky that you’ve got stew on top of your burger. My associate speculates that they blend it down to a smooth consistency, perhaps adding oatmeal to thicken it up. Whatever they’re doing, it works. This is the kind of sandwich I was looking for when I started Slummin’ It. It’s a sandwich that revels in its grease but does so artfully. The calorie count is high but not obscene, and fares much better than similar burgers that don’t feature a mound of chili. I find that reassuring, a signal that whatever madness is at play here, someone is keeping an eye on it. This was a fine hamburger to be the first at On Sandwiches, and the easily the first success of Slummin’ It. It was a delicious hamburger, and late on a Saturday night that’s often all you need.

Pulled Pork Sandwich – Subway

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The pulled pork sandwich from Subway.

Well meaning friends and associates have, in the past, suggested I write about subway. Each time I have declined to do so. The topic is a challenging one for me, a point where my passions intersect with a sincere desire to minimize snobbishness. I fear I cannot address the topic in a rational, restrained manner. But my esteemed colleague is addressing pulled pork sandwiches soon and I have felt a certain dismay over Subway offering one, so the time has come.

Let’s start with the sandwich. I’m a man who thinks that things have rules. They can (and should) be bent or even broken, but always for a good cause. Here’s a rule: pulled pork comes on white bread. Sliced loaf, roll, that part doesn’t matter, it just has to be white. The
point of a pulled pork sandwich is to savor laboriously prepared pork and (ideally) a sauce with a history. The bread should say as little as possible.

Subway doesnt have white bread. They have honey oat, the have 9-grain, they even have a Hearty Italian that might be close, but no straight white. So when the sandwich artist asked me what kind of bread I wanted, the first step in any Subway sandwich, I was at a bit of a loss. Ideally, this wouldn’t even be a choice. I ordered a pulled pork sandwich, white bread should be available and they should know to use it. Thinking that the “hearty” in Italian might be too much, I went with sourdough.

The pork sits in a small tray like any other ingredient. A portion of pork was scooped out and placed on my sourdough, and then I was asked what kind of cheese I wanted. Cheese? What kind of cheese did I want? I was struck. If the bread is a slip-up, cheese is heresy. I try to remain open to all ideas but I cannot accept this. There is no cheese in a pulled pork sandwich, full stop. It doesn’t belong and it’s presence will only hurt the sandwich. I declined cheese, but who knows what everyone else is doing. By now I could have had BREAD and CHEESE, a ghastly pair to bring to a pulled pork sandwich. “So what?” you ask. “Why not try it?” Because it won’t be any good. Because some questions
have been asked and answered. You respect that people have eaten a lot of lousy sandwiches by accepting their conclusions. Pulled pork goes on white bread and it doesn’t involve cheese*.

More of the same followed as I was asked what toppings I wanted. The rules are more loose here. There are different things you can try, but there are limits. Coleslaw is a fine thing to add, sliced cucumber is just weird. I opted for a bit of red onion and said that was enough. I got a strange look for being satisfied with a sole topping. A few days after eating the sandwich I looked closer at an advertisement.

Look at all that lettuce! A good pulled pork sandwich is a savory, chewy affair. A bed full of watery shreds isn’t needed, it isn’t needed in the slightest. I’m left shuddering with thoughts of pulled pork with mounds of lettuce, limp tomatoes, banana peppers and god knows what else. How does the line go? It was not my strength that needed nursing, it was my imagination that wanted soothing. Next came the sauce, dispensed from a squeeze bottle like every other subway topping. You can see this is how the sandwich is represented in the ads, with a layer of sauce on top.

This is also less than ideal. Tf you’re going to involve sauce, toss the meat in it. The pork obviously isn’t prepared in house, so an additional bit of adulteration is only one more on the pile. (It occurs to me that they might avoid adding sauce to give you the option of
adding something like their chipotle southwest sauce. Oddly enough I would be ok with that, because at that point youve got a chipotle pork sandwich and I don’t care what the hell you do.) This is a pulled pork sandwich in the classic barbecue pulled pork sense, and tossing the meat in the sauce would be the best option.

The most important question here, apart from all of my uptight ranting, was whether or not the sandwich was any good. It was…it was alright. The pork was juicy enough, the sauce could have used less sugar and more smoke. I didn’t hate it but I didn’t love it. Meh.

There are a lot of subway restaurants. To foster growth, Doctor’s Associates was willing to accept a lower franchise fee than other major franchisors, and they were willing to put franchisees closer to each other than might seem wise. This was intentional, they had a goal of having more subway than there are mcdonalds and they achieved that goal. But this is not an abstract,”hey did you know” point. The hack jokes people told about Starbucks are accurate descriptions of subway and this has consequences. If you’re so hung up on being the biggest, being the best is an afterthought.

Subway doesn’t make terrible sandwiches. I think they’re pretty salty, but they aren’t outright bad. But they aren’t good either, and there is no worse place to be than the middle of the road. I can forgive aiming high and falling short, as in the Mad Maple at Joe Davola’s. But I cannot forgive lack of effort. I used “meh” for a reason. It represents a deliberate unwillingness to care, a 21st century rejection of enthusiasm. It is the perfect summation of Subway. There is no greater sin than being boring, and this was a boring sandwich.

This, in and of itself, isn’t worth getting worked up over. There are scads of mediocresandwich shops; long winded rants about each one wouldn’t be interesting to read or write. But Subway is ubiquitous. For a lot of people, Subway is sandwiches and that is what I cannot stand.

Subway is aiming above boring. A pulled pork sandwich is a departure for them, as is the recent promotion of the turkey with avocado. But they’re setting out to make these sandwiches with the same pattern, skills and effort they bring to everything else. Honey oat bread, add swiss cheese, dump the sauce on top. If it was good enough for the sweet onion chicken teryaki, it’ll be good enough for everything else. Meh got them here, and meh shall carry them through. This is the middling effort I cannot forgive. If you aren’t going to do pulled pork right, don’t bother. Spare us your sputtering attempt. Stick to ham and swiss, the Italian BMT. We’ll find pulled pork elsewhere.

*This argument ignores the grilled cheese with pulled pork that has become popular recently because that’s a grilled cheese first and the pork is not the central element as it is here.

Pombazo Original – El Tucan, Bascom Ave, San Jose, CA

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The pambazo original from the El Tucan food truck in San Jose.There’s a food truck parked on Bascom Ave in San Jose that rarely moves. Thinking that a stationary food truck might be just the kind of place that would be the answer to my quest for the perfect torta, I stopped by after a bike ride. With no torta milanesa on the menu my eyes drifted elsewhere, and they settled upon the Pombazo Orginal. The Pambazo is another type of Mexican sandwich, named for the type of bread used. The bread is dipped in a red sauce, filled with potato, chorizo, lettuce, salsa, and queso fresco. Then the whole thing is browned on a flattop or in a skillet. The result is a delicious sandwich. Not one of those sandwiches where a hearty crust sends a tender filling sliding all over, the pombazo crust yields easily to give up the soft potato and chorizo filling. Everything is so soft that the iceberg lettuce, all too often an afterthought, provides a nice crisp contrast. There’s no great philosophy to lay out here, just a very tasty sandwich. Should you get the opportunity to eat a pombazo, my advice is that you take it. There will always be other tortas.

Chopped Chicken Liver Sandwich – Guther’s Restaurant, Meridian Ave, San Jose, CA

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The Chopped Chicken Liver Sandwich at Gunther's Restaurant in San Jose, CA

As I mentioned last week, I could not stop thinking about the Reuben from Canter’s. I’m an east coast transplant. Great, classic delis are are somewhat sparse in California, so one like Canter’s is going to stick with me for a while. Returning from Los Angeles to the Bay Area, I decided to keep things going by seeking out more classic deli cuisine. I feared that another Reuben would only skew the feeling I carried from Canter’s, so something different was in order. Gunter’s Restaurant is not a deli, it’s a pretty standard German restaurant, but their menu is full of what I might find at the eastern chrome counters I so love.

A closeup of the chopped chicken liver sandwich.

The sandwich was a fine example of chopped chicken liver. Depending on your perspective that makes it a delight or a horror. I fall into the former camp and so I was delighted by the light, smooth sandwich. It needed a bit more mustard, but that’s nothing I couldn’t remedy on my own. The bread wasn’t grilled or toasted, which seemed to me to be a rather substantial missed opportunity. The sandwich was otherwise outstanding, though, making it a very good sandwich overall. I make it back east only occasionally, so it’s always nice to find the spots close to home where I might find culinary comfort.

Slummin’ It: Arby’s Classic Roast Beef

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Arby’s was founded in 1964 with the desire to tempt consumers with something other than Hamburgers. It’s a window into what was available at the time that roast beef sandwiches were both a novel change and enough to propel a restaurant to moderate, then substantial success. I sincerely wish that I could consider this sandwich in that context, because by current standards it’s abysmal. Maybe that’s my fault, for selecting Arby’s classic offering instead of something new. I suspect, though, that the addition of three cheeses and bacon wouldn’t fix the underlying problem. The beef, which is apparently roasted in store and freshly sliced, tastes like it came out of a large can, with a white label reading “BEEF” in big block letters. I tried both the BBQ sauce and the “Horsey” sauce, a sauce ostensibly built around horseradish. I like horseradish and I think it’s underrepresented in American sandwich cuisine and so I had anticipating this sauce providing at least a few positive marks for the sandwich, no matter what else developed. Alas, readers, the Horsey sauce is…well, here’s how I picture it: Someone took a jar of mayonnaise and set it next to a jar of horseradish. They stared at both of them for a minute, maybe taking the jar of horseradish and pointing it at the mayo. Then they take the mayo and start doling it out as Horsey sauce. You could dunk your sandwich in the sauce and you wouldn’t approach a significant level of flavor, which is unfortunate. Horseradish is built around attacking the sinuses and if you dilute it to the level where you no longer have to be careful in its application you might as well not use it at all. The BBQ sauce I found a bit watery but basically inoffensive.

I ended the first Slummin’ It post with a hope that I would fine a really good sandwich where I was not expecting one. That is still my hope, but I now fear it may take much longer than I might have expected.

Canter’s Reuben – Canter’s Deli, N Fairfax Ave, Los Angeles, CA

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This was a fantastic sandwich. I have no great story to tell you, I do not desire to obfuscate this point with discussions of sandwich philosophy. This was just a Reuben, executed perfectly. Not long ago I had a disappointing experience with the Reuben at The Garret. If you’re interested there’s a picture here, but I decided not to post about it because I try to keep things positive and I’d already run down The Garret once. I need no such hesitation when discussing Canter’s, however, as I have nothing but good things to say. Canter’s is a deli, an honest, old fashioned Jewish deli that understands that there’s a certain way to do things, a right way. The Reuben isn’t complicated, but it’s easy to just rest on the recipe and assume that so long as you bother to put it all together the finished product will be good. I suspect that’s what happened at The Garret, someone figured that Reubens are good sandwiches and the details would sort themselves out. Canter’s doesn’t make that mistake, starting with a big pile of pastrami. The spices and the smoke and the salt all came together for a flavor that was about as bold as it can be before it overwhelms the rest of the sandwich. Helping to hold it in check was the sauerkraut, tangy and with a subtle crunch to oppose the tender meat. The bread was rye in both name and flavor, a combination that too many rye breads are missing. The Swiss cheese and the Russian dressing were both unspectacular but thoroughly satisfactory, bringing together a really great sandwich.

As I walked out of Canter’s, holding a black & white cookie from their bakery, I thought to myself that I’d just eaten a damn fine sandwich. Several hours later I had the same thought. The next day, again. It’s weeks now and I’m looking at that picture and thinking about how good this sandwich was. The classics are classics for a reason, and we’re lucky to have places like Canter’s that show them the respect they deserve.