If you follow me on twitter (and you shouldn’t because that’s where I spew my mind vomit) then you already know that I have been baking my way through the 40 sandwiches on this “Encyclopedia of Sandwiches”.
I have gotten through 23 of them so far and if you want to see pictures of each, you can check out my pinned tweet.
My favorite is the Lobster Roll. Hands down, the best sandwich I’ve ever had. I need to revisit it because I made the buns a little big (so I’ve been told) and I need to do a comparison of the mayo version that I made and the butter version that everyone told me is the best. Also, I bought a small lobster and I can’t figure out the economics of lobster. You know what I mean? Small lobsters are cheaper per pound and I paid about $15 for a 1.5lber but I only got enough meat for one sandwich and people told me that’s unusual. I’m not sure what I did wrong there but I will try again!
My 2nd favorite is the Po’Boy. I never thought of myself as a seafood guy but holy cow I guess I am. Deep fried shrimp and crystal hot sauce is pretty magical. Though I don’t know why they call it “hot” sauce: I could drink that stuff straight from the bottle.
Third so far is the Croque Madame. It’s a heart-stopping mess of a sandwich but everything about it tickles the ancient pleasure receptors in my brain.
I won’t go on with rankings here but I also loved the banh mi, the pulled pork, and the French dip. I also have to re-do a bunch of these to get them right.
The Thanksgiving was a huge fail. That’s a sandwich which needs to be made with leftovers from a good turkey roast. The gyro needs to be made with the kind of gyro meat that you get off one of those big swirling meat sticks (excited for the comments on this) and the caprese was.. well it was just bland.
The caprese is a mystery. The bread itself is super difficult to make because it’s such a wet dough. But then when I made it according to the “Encyclopedia” it was just.. not good! I have been told that I need to add balsamic glaze and other stuff but man that was one bland sandwich. I will make it again, don’t worry!
Anyway, this is what I’ve been doing with my time lately. I kind of get up every morning now and just research sandwiches! Today I was looking at the bread for Torta and came across a funny thing. It looks like I can either make Telera rolls or Pan Bolillo. I’ll probably make the Telera rolls but there’s a local shop a few blocks from my house which makes the best tortas (they actually bake their own bread and everything. If you’re in Tacoma it’s called Zocalo and it’s on 38th street) and I might ask him which he uses.
Have a good day! Make a sandwich!
I’ve been waiting for this post for ages!!! (I don’t Twitter, so this is as close as I’m going to get to your sandwich endeavors.)
I’m curious why a hamburger isn’t in that encyclopedia (or did I miss it?). I suppose the hamburger is really in its own culinary category since there are so many ways to top them, but it is, after all, a sandwich.
If hamburgers are off the list, then my four all-time favorites are the gyro, banh mi, clubhouse, and po’ boy. I could eat any one of those every day (huge sucker for a clubhouse with fries). I don’t think I’ve ever had a lobster roll, so will try that soon. And I recently watched a triple D episode where Guy Fieri profiled a torta sandwich shop in Portland called “Guero,” and I absolutely have to go there.
Honorable mention for one other famous sandwich not on that list: the Kentucky Hot Brown. Yum.
There’s a patty melt on the list which is basically a burger. And Kentucky Hot Brown is #37!
By the way, I looked up the history of the Caprese sandwich and it was apparently given to some sheik or something. I don’t really believe it myself.
I also got a lot of folks getting mad because “shwarma” isn’t on the list but when I looked that up, it’s basically just a gyro.
Oh! I missed the Hot Brown! Glad to see it.
Yeah, the patty melt makes sense as the hamburger stand-in. A while back, I watched a show on the history of the hamburger and the thinking is that is they were first served between slices of toasted bread, not buns. There’s a famous old burger place (considered the birthplace of the hamburger) still making them this way : “Louis’ Lunch” in CT.
Yeah, I’ve always thought that about shawarma, donair / doner, and gyro are just different names for essentially the same sort of sandwich (difference is just the country of origin).
Oh! Speaking of which, I have to tell you that one of the best sandwiches I ever had in my life was a sarbeni kebab from the “Best Kebab” shop in Glasgow. This was back in 2006. It was after a night of heavy whisky sampling, and it tasted like heaven. I ended up wearing half of it, though. Messy.
hahahaha! that’s funny, in 2006 I was in London and I was also very drunk one night and also ate a kebab from a shop and also got half of it on my shirt. In fact, I left that shirt there in the hotel room garbage rather than drag that filthy smelling thing back to the USA with me.
Just looked up Louis’ Lunch and their Menu is perfect: literally only burgers and choice of potato salad or chips as a side. They also offer pie. And that’s it!
What makes a caprese: 1) you need fresh local in-season tomatoes, and 2) the mozzarella needs to be salted.
Back in the 1700s, when the Earl of Sandwich famously put some roast beef in between two slices of bread, little did he know what he was starting off.
The story goes that he had a gambling habit and it was the only way he could eat and play cards at the same time.
Growing up in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick I like to say I knowy Lobster Rolls and well made, I don’t know if there anything better nyounput between two pieces of bread.
A good Po’ Boy and a Bahn Mi are to die for. We get plenty of the latter in Toronto but the former is hard to come by up here.
Congrats.on making your way through to this point.y wife makes awesome falafel sandwiches with whole wheat pita pockets which is fact what Wei about have for lunch! Cheers.
I sprained my thhumb when playing and I cann only type pidgin Enhlishy.
There’s a franchise– Maine-ly Sandwiches which does the best lobster roll I’ve had. They do a crab salad version of it too. The roll is challah style, warm-buttered. Bit expensive too.
https://www.mainelysandwiches.com/menu/
Love challah. Dated a girl throughout HS, from a Jewish family. She and her mom
baked challah on the weekends. Best I’ve ever had. The Maine-ly rolls are as close as to that as any I’d had since.
What would one of Donald Trump’s favorite sandwiches be aside from a Big Mac?
And why is he such terrible liar when that is supposedly one his greatest skills?
Is because he sucks at being a human being so bad that any skill hebposses is at a low bar?
Lukewarm but entertaining review by Nick Horby in The Guardian:
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/oct/14/my-life-in-red-and-white-by-arsene-wenger-review-shrewdly-avoids
Looking forward to Tim’s and everyone’s thoughts upon reading the book.
Lox on a bagel from Bagel and Bialy, and Italian beef dipped with extra sweet peppers from Portillo’s for anyone visiting Chicago.
Money back guaranteed if you’re not satisfied 100%.
Nice!
I don’t eat beef anymore when I did, this place was, as the kids say today, absolutely bangin’! Went there a lot when I was on the road in Southern NJ/Western PA.
https://www.sonnyscheesesteaks.com/
1nil
The pre requisite for being a good liar is to tell the truth most of the time.
Same, in bluffing at poker.
I’m in Durban South Africa and there’s a place here called Poboys. Some of the best sandwiches ever. They have different fillings in a Poboy roll. Great stuff.
If ever any of you happen to visit South Africa, make it a point to come to Durban for the culinary experience if nothing else. Usually Cape Town and Johannesburg get all the plaudits and visitors but Durban is the food capital of the country.
As a South African that grew up in Durban i have to concur. Though I’d have mentioned the Bunny Chow*, a hollowed out quarter loaf of bread filled with curry which was started by Indian indentured labourers working on the sugar cane fields of KwaZulu-Natal.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunny_chow
*Bunny apparently comes from an Indian caste “bannia” and chow means food.
In more recent times the Bunny Chow has made it back to India and the Kota** has become a growing South African fast/street food craze.
**Kota is isiZulu for quarter, a quarter loaf of bread
Indeed! Lol
Fancy meeting a fellow Dbn-ite here
Honourable mention to Sunrise Chip and Ranch aka Johnny’s Rotis. Many “chip, triple cheese with mutton (curry) gravy” Rotis were consumed at 3AM on the way home from a night out with a stop off at “the Cube” to view the harbour and city lights.
Great times! And pleased to make your acquaintance!
I love that you have an encyclopaedia of sandwiches. And I thought the Brits were batty 🙂 Shared this with wifey, we enjoy baking. A personal fave (not on your list) I found at a cutlery museum in Derbyshire. A white bloomer with cream cheese, date and mint. I know it doesn’t sound like an iron man sarnie but boy it’s divine. Happy munching
A good banh mi, Italian sub, or philly would do it for me. Sadly, the Italian sandwich place within walking distance of my house closed down.
Oddly, the place voted best lobster roll in the country is not in New England, but rather here in Utah. Freshie’s Lobster. And while I’m not necessarily a huge lobster roll fan, they are very good.
There’s something deeply, brilliantly weird and American about this sandwich encyclopedia – over here the whole point about a sandwich is that there are no names or recipies, you just throw whatever you have in the fridge into a couple slices of bread, but now I see that we are wrong and it can be the basis for an entire food culture.
When I lived in Brooklyn everyone was obsessed with where to go to get the best sandwiches, pizza, donuts, beans and rice, stews, fried chicken… in North London we generally have much less fun and can barely work up the interest to decide if Starbucks coffee is legitimately a drink or if it’s just warm ditchwater.
Anyway, the crucial opinion – best sandwich is a middle eastern, preferably Lebanese lamb shawarma with real meat cuts pressed on top of each other on the skewer, not those big elephant legs of blended reconstituted unidentified animal protein, and yes it’s kind of a gyro but also no it’s not because the spice rub is different, the bread has to be soft and chewy but not too thick (shaq bread is good), you need a big flatbread that’s folded up at the bottom to keep the sauce in and then rolled up tight with the meat, onions, leaves (parsley and coriander), fresh tomato and sauce in the middle and it has to have a couple of crisp, soft, warm falafels in it (and maybe a few fries).
I will also cause actual bodily harm over a fresh, real baguette (type 55 flour with lower protein content, baked no longer than 3 hours ago) with almost any decent filling – brie and ripe tomatoes is a winner
Though I am no sandwich connoisseur I can highly recommend the pastrami sandwich at Langer’s in downtown Los Angeles.
I am more used to dry, curling British Rail sandwiches than the delights in that illustration. However I do recall a superb pastrami sandwich from Katz’s Deli in NYC. I do think that sandwiches in the US are generally more interesting than sandwiches in the UK though Pret A Manger has improved the local standards somewhat.
Katz deli is so good that it’s almost worth it to pay $150 and get a whole pastrami.
I can recommend Sherman’s in Palm Springs. They also do really good cream cakes, if you are ever in the mood for a cholesterol frenzy.
If you want a Lobstah sandwich, then almost anywhere in Maine.
If you go to Katz on the Lower East Side, you can also sit at the table where Harry met Sally. Resist the temptation to simulate a fake orgasm, however.