Category Archives: Uncategorized

Photo by Renee Comet Foodstyling by Lisa Cherkasky
All sandwiches begin with a sound foundation.

Photo by Renee Comet Foodstyling by Lisa Cherkasky
And solid fixings.

To see other gorgeous photos by Renee Comet click here.

A husband and wife who own a local technology company have bought development rights to open 106 Dagwood’s Sandwich Shoppes in Greater Washington.

Curt and Cindy Anderson, founders of Nexus Technologies, signed a franchising contract with Clearwater, Fla.-based Dagwood’s in January. The contract allows the Andersons to open 63 stores in a territory covering D.C., Northern Virginia and west to Charlottesville, Va.
Washington Business Journal

Dean Young (current cartoonist for the Blondie comic strip) with Blondie and Dagwood

Okay, okay, I admit I’ve never eaten at Dagwood’s and I should not jump to conclusions. On the other hand, I have yet to eat anything that would qualify as a sub at a franchise. Maybe Dagwood’s will raise the bar. Maybe the bread will have an actual crust. Maybe the olive oil will have a personal relationship with olives. Maybe DC will get the vote. We’ll see.

Oh man, I just took a look at their website and found this nugget, “Dagwood’s is a franchise development and expansion company structured to become one of the fastest growing chains in history…” Now doesn’t that just make your mouth water?

It’s time I got out for a real sub, hoagie, grinder, hero, torpedo, wedge, zep…

Dagwood, of course, is the real deal, as is Blondie, no question. I do hope these shops do justice to their namesake.

Fatburger is coming! I hear from an inside source that the LA chain is planning to plunk down 10 units in the DC/Baltimore area.

Firehouse Subs is on its way too! While I hear that Firehouse does have pretty good subs –
One of the best “chain” sandwiches places I’ve been to. I had an excellent Italian Combo, and a so-so Meatball. Jeff W –
and their website has a cool siren soundtrack, why am I not excited?

Yikes, stripes, what’s DC’s sudden draw? Oh yeah, dollars.

She made the bed and she would like to lie in it. Mara Cherkasky’s favorite comfort food is a BLT.
The elements of a perfect BLT

She sleeps best on bacon

Do these make you grin? More here.

Wondering what to do with all that extra bacon lying around? Look deep into our culinary roots for sandwich concepts that would otherwise only come to you in an hallucination. The Gallery of Regrettable Foods may laugh at bacon and beets on bread, but hell, I ain’t afraid to admit that it sounds GOOD.

Everytime I turn around I am reading about grilled cheese sandwiches, this week in the New York Times for example.

Clementine’s in LA celebrates the grilled cheese for an entire month. Read all about it on this blog.

How do you do it? How do you like it? Add your comments here at the bottom of the page.

Thank you to Soufside from the Bottlerockets message board for calling my attention to this thrilling BBC story detailing the specifics of bacon perfection. The crossroads of mathematics and pork is a mysterious one, but Leeds University scientists have pinpointed the exact intersection. Read more here.

Ack!! Just when I thought I was sufficiently educated on bacon butties,aka bacon sandwiches, along comes Mike R to point out an even more thorough report from the New York Times on this groundbreaking bacon research.

A short tidbit follows:

Researchers at Leeds University spent more than 1,000 hours testing
700 variants on the traditional bacon sandwich, which many Britons
refer to as a bacon butty (eschewing the term sandwich, said to have
been coined to honor the fourth Earl of Sandwich’s habit of eating
meat between slices of bread around 1762).

For Britons, butties come in a variety of guises — chip butties
(French fries between slices of bread), crisp butties (ditto with
potato chips) or even sugar butties, which are self-explanatory.

Read on here, particularly if you wonder about sarnies and bangers.
There is an especially wonderful photo of a buttie, too.

although it seems we have always had plenty. As more restaurants like the Spicy Pickle move in, outfits that are less slick, less marketed and have shallower pockets are driven out.

I would say that all the sandwich joints on this site qualify as “fast casual” and are far less predictably dull than chains like Spicy Pickle and Panera. These big box restaurants are just that – big, soulless boxes. They may pose as real restaurants (as in “restorative”) but their main agenda is to part you from your money. No thank you. I’ll take my chances elsewhere, where I might get something I wasn’t expecting, good or bad. At the very least I might encounter a bit of adventure.

March 31, 2007
Ben’s Chili Bowl has been the mainstay of DC’s hotdog scene since 1958, without much competition save Hot Diggity Dog, gone since the early 80’s (or late 70’s?). Now we have M’Dawg’s, just up the hill from Ben’s. I decided to check out Ben’s competition.

Blue skies beamed on us on Friday, a school holiday. Teddy and I took advantage with a great day out. After a stroll around the tidal basin to inhale the delicate beauty of the cherry blossoms, a sloppy hot dog buried in a blanket of fixins was the sensory antithesis we needed to balance our day.

We took some snapshots and also some ketchup-coated notes.

M’Dawgs was peaceful at noon on a Friday, but I would venture a guess that it rocks on a weekend night. Also to be noted, while we loved M’Dawg’s, it is no Ben’s. You’ve got to be around for at least 50 years to achieve that kind of status.