Category Archives: Sandwiches

#NewJerseySloppyJoe

Posted on December 22, 2011 | 3 comments

HASH MARK sandwichnirvana

The mysterious Joe had seduced me with its reputation. Exotic, unattainable, available only indigenously. While I know in  my heart that settling is a crime, punishable by misery, and  that doing without is preferable, noble even, I would have settled for an imitation, an imposter, a reasonable facsimile. I did without though, and my appetite sharpened until it was as pointy as a larding needle.

Head scratcher (honey, don’t do that at the lunch table please): The New Jersey Sloppy Joe has not been pirated to other locales. Muffaletas, pulled pork, Cubanos, Reubens, the banh mi, Philly cheesesteaks, and countless other notable wiches have emigrated to parts far slung. The Joe? Uh uh. No franchised Joe. Although the Town Hall Deli will ship one to you. I wonder how they hold up?

The reputation of the Joe faded to beige once I had experienced the genuine article. I’m a goner and have joined the tribe of fanatics. 

The Town Hall Delicatessen lies in wait between NYC and me. A connector, touchstone, seducer. Connecting the dots from home to Joe with a sprinkling of rye bread crumbs and splashes  of sauce.  Holy cow that sandwich was good.

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Posted in New Jersey, New Jersey Sloppy Joe, SANDWICH LINKS, Sandwiches

Rolling In the Deep

Posted on November 28, 2011 | 6 comments

From the deep, dark, cold waters come the hard, sharp, scratchaddy, mondosects, whose anttenae, when I face them through the glass walls of the mondoquarium at the supermarket, always, always, bring to mind the please- don’t-hurt-me, deep, liquid eyes, of my sweet, departed, anxiously aberrant border collie, Ida.

Got my antenna closed, pondering what it is to be a lobster. Imagine wearing your bones on the outside. They put their lives in our hands and we put their bodies on a roll.

The lobster and the jelly fish got into a nasty fight.
Said the lobster, “Every word you spit from your source of spite
Bounces off me and sticks to you
Cause I am rubber and you are glue.”

In Amagansett, New York there is a lobster roll shack. I’d heard about it. Anticipation pumped through my veins. As we passed it on Route 27, heading to the outer east point of Long Island, I felt long, sticky lobster tentacles reach out and wrap themselves around my innermost, my most desirous, self. Alas, that shack was closed for the season.

When one door closes another one opens. Yeah, yeah, cold comfort when you have your heart set on a lobster roll.

Well, I had to eat my jaded thoughts. Had we hit the iconic lobster roll shack on Route 27, we would not have discovered Duryea’s, around the pond, down a winding road, set alone nearly, in a beachy, villagey, hilly, Montauk cottage cluster.

And did we feel smug. And snug. And happy. At Duryea’s the menu reads “Lobster Salad Roll”, a precision that cued purity. As limited as my lobster roll expertise may be, I do know that the lobster should be essentially plain – no mayonnaise, no celery, no salady stuff. And I do love a lobster salad roll. At the shore. In the wind. This lobster salad roll was so delicious.

The chips were delicious. And the slaw. At the risk of diminishing my praise, I could have eaten the plate with pleasure. Another tired aphorism: appetite is the best seasoning.

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Posted in Lobster rolls, NY, Sandwiches

You Know You Can See My House From Here

Posted on November 4, 2011 | 2 comments

Just a loaf’s throw away.

Sauca has opened around the corner. Hallelujah.

Eamonn’s is opening on the Pike! You read it here second. With a broader menu than the Old Town location. I’m kinda excited about the opening of Eamonn’s. Critical mass has not yet arrived on the Columbia Pike commercial strip. Still big patches of blistering parking lots, 80’s era car dealerships, check cashing joints, and mattress emporiums.

Living here in Arlington – Arlingtonian’s love it, and rightly so – I have always been conflicted, and have been making an effort to keep my conflicts in suspension.

Now we’ve got Eamonn’s and Sauca as anchor stores on the Pike.This is good news. Even for a skeptic like me. After 20 years living in Arlington, I still don’t get it. A county with no town.  And this is not rural. It feels like a case of No there there. Or, You can’t get there from here. At best, it is geographically awkward.

And “Pike”.  I can’t warm to a main street we call The Pike. I’m tryin’. I swear. For Pike’s sake, I’m tryin’. Thinking nice thoughts about the trolley. Getting fuzzy over the brick sidewalks. Throwing kisses to the knock-kneed baby treelets as I gun it and swerve around a metrobus.

Anyhoo, Sauca on the Pike is a coup. Thanks be to sandwiches.

There’s a Sauca where the diner used to be, and it’s eye-poppingly adorable.
Farhad Assari, the proprietor of Sauca, comfortably walks the tightrope between friendly and overbearing. What a pleasure to be meeted and greeted by Farhad and his easy charisma.
Melissa went with me and was game for whatever.
We loved the place – from orange spinning stools, to delivery scooters, to sparkly staff.  Sauca’s motto is “Eat the World”, which sounds kinda dirty to me, but that’s okay. 
Melissa has a thing about crumbs. She does not like them. Sauca’s griddled flatbreads keep their crumbs to themselves. Phew.And on a pretty day, a person can eat outside under the space agey awning thingy.

Arlington is ok.

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Posted in Arlington, VA, Sandwiches

Well Enough Left Alone

Posted on November 2, 2011 | 4 comments

One of my favorite Onion headlines: “Local Girlfriend Wants to Do Stuff”.

Local wife, Suits-Herself-Cindy, turned me on to American Seafood.

This cute and disheveled older man runs the shop. He is the owner, actually, with his wife, who makes the key lime pies. It mostly operatesas a seafood store (not restaurant), but he serves dinner a few nights a week. Basically, he will cook ANY fish for you. I get the feeling that you could just walk into the shop and say “I’d like that piece,” and he’d cook it up for you.Then you can get fries and slaw or vegetables and rice. (ADORE the lack of choices). The vegetables (summer squash and green beans) came from his garden!!! So sweet.And, boy, he can cook a piece of fish. The grouper I had was by far the best fish I have had in a long time. The owner hustles around in a cheerful but low key way and makes sure everyone is happy. AND you bring your own beer/wine.They have a variety of fish sandwiches for lunch. We should go.
 Here is a link if you want to investigate: http://www.yelp.com/biz/america-seafood-corp-arlington
So we went. Here here to BYOB and “lack of choices”.

I had been having restaurant phobia. It is a phenomenon where I basically don’t like any restaurant. They all either seem overpriced or not quite good enough or too fussy (I didn’t want anything seared or crusted or glazed or …you know). Does this ever happen to you? American Seafood Corp was the perfect answer.

I’m tired of restaurants, too. Poor me, like the school boy in the New Yorker cartoon circa 1979. Peeling open his sandwich in the lunch room, brown bag on the table, he says, “Not pâté again.” Poor me, I eat out too much. Too many choices. My brain is tired.

Taking one bowl and one spoon and moving to the country.

Here here is American Seafood. For when this local girlfriend wants to do stuff.

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Posted in Arlington, VA, DC Sandwiches, SANDWICH LINKS, Sandwiches

The Elephant in the Room

Posted on April 12, 2011 | Leave a comment


We meet Brooklynite Cal Elliott and the meatloaf sandwich from his restaurant, Rye, as well as La Superior‘s chef Nacxitl Gaxiola and his pambazo, a roll stuffed with chorizo, potato, salsa and Cotija cheese. Publishers Weekly

Thank you Pub Weekly for giving me further reason to live. Further reason to live a few days in New York this spring.

I learned from Sara Dickerman, in her story Edible Art, Sandwich recipes in cookbooks chronicle an American obsession (Saveur, April 2011, The Sandwich Issue) that not a whole heck of a lot was written about sandwiches prior to the 19th century. The first published American sandwich recipe appeared in 1837 in Eliza Leslie’s Directions for Cookery. Buttered bread, mustard and thinly sliced ham. Yikes.

Was that book written for people raised by wolves? If wolves had hands, even they most certainly would put bread, butter, mustard and ham together. A plate and napkin might be less instinctive. In my book, the bottom piece of bread doubles as plate, the top doubles as napkin. That might not fly in the big apple.

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Posted in NYC, Sandwiches

One Hand Eating

Posted on March 20, 2011 | 2 comments

Koan for a sandwich: “Ah, Grasshopper,” the Zen master asks, “What is the sound of an interval?” The student answers: “The string remains silent until the bass player finishes the sandwich.”


 

 

A & M Wine Shoppe

Koans aside, it takes only one hand to eat a sandwich, provided, if the sandwich is large, that it is cut in half. Making it two. Take this as a meditation on aloneness. One hand eating a sandwich, or rather holding a sandwich – let’s be precise here since we are discussing the absoluteness of non-absolutes – is absolutely enough. And when the company is good, much more than enough.
We look like we are having a good time cause, well, we were. At least I was. My one hand was clapping. Just the one, in solidarity with Reuben, whose right hand was broken. He did not want any help. Got it.
One sandwich and another sandwich makes a pair, like a pair of bedroom slippers. On the one hand our sandwiches were on the one hand, cause Reuben was one-handed, having broken his hand. On the other hand, they needed to be a bit man-handled, gently so, with two large, gentle man-hands, cause they were large. Flat and large, like slippers, as I mentioned.

So, he did allow me to help him a tiny bit, cutting that madly flapping panini into two parts. Mine was cut to begin with by the sandwichista.
A&M has quality goods, some of them not often seen in these parts. Also, take note, fresh donuts on Saturday mornings, an experience I have yet to live.

Put A&M on your regular circuit, folks. Your procurement department will thank you. 

She constructed them single-handedly, although with good-vibe company, the furry variety. Constantly vigilant during our lunch encounter, I wonder how this business beast is getting in his full 18 hours of daily sleep.

A&M was a bit quiet in the middle of the day, in the middle of the week. We loved it like that, but when you find a place you love, you better pray for a soundtrack of the cash register dinging. Idiosyncratic food shops are fewer and farther between in DC than I like to admit. Get over there, people, and shop, with 2 p’s and an e!!

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Posted in DC Sandwiches, Sandwiches

Cole’s At Last

Posted on February 15, 2011 | Leave a comment

I had wanted to go to Cole’s for a long, long time, long enough to slow roast a beef on an LA sidewalk. Cole’s and Philippe the Original are neck-in-neck on the French Dip-o-drome, that is, if you believe the hippety-dippety-dipped-up-hype. Neck-in-neck, but not beef neck, silly. Roasted beef, the sandwich kind, the kind sliced thin, so your teeth don’t have to do it.

You oughta see the penny tile floors and the mahogany bar and the light orbs and vertical dills and happily stacked meat and the bowls of liquid mahogany edible beef shellac.

I was there with fabulous Jenn, cool in the shade of her LA savvy.

Cole’s is a bit more high-brow than Philippe the Original. Lower lights, higher brow. Bout the same level on the roast beef layer. Medium-brow, not too thick, not too thin.

Shellackety-stacked piles of beef on rolls, rolls that soak, rolls built to soak, built to absorb, built to absorb under the orbs. Dip, dip, dip. More like dunk, actually, for a duration.

Truly, anyway you slice it, long as it is across the grain, a French Dip, done the LA way, in other words, IN LA, is fine fine fine. Mighty fine. Not much room in my life for food superlatives. You get to a certain level of nirvana and the sandwiches levitate on the same heavenly plane.

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Posted in Los Angeles, Sandwich Joints, Sandwiches

A Great Day Out at 2 Amys

Posted on March 14, 2007 | 1 comment

img_3643.jpgIf you are not working and feel a bit guilty (or worse) about it, Two Amys is a good lunch spot on a weekday. You will not be overrun by the ambition and success vibe. It was Ralph’s idea to go and I was happy for what felt like a teeny overseas vacation on an ordinary Tuesday with extraordinary spring weather. Italy for a couple hours.

We had a good spot for viewing, in the back between the bar and the dining room, where we could scan the restaurant’s vistas easily. We forgot to look much though, cause Ralph talks even more than I do, and the food kept us very busy.

Some of my snapshots are on the Two Amy’s page and the captions chart most of our meal. While there is a picture of only one panini we did have two. The waiter seemed perturbed by that. Did he think we would be bored?

From the blackboard we chose a Pork, Olivada and Arugula Panini, which you can see, and Pipe Dreams Goat Cheese, Red Peppers and Basil on Grilled Flat Bread, which I liked very much, although the picture I took was not flattering so it went to the cutting room floor. Flat and squishy, with creamy, tart cheese oozing out, on bread that draped over your hand, it was lovely to eat.

From roasted olives to panini to espresso, we talked like mad and ate like mad. The staff knew Ralph by name and indulged him in a small plate of syrup-soaked cherries for me to try. I let Ralph have one.

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Posted in DC, DC Sandwiches, Italian, Sandwiches, Uncategorized

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