I have so many because I realised recently that most of my favourite foods are basically if not literally sandwiches in some form. What springs to mind now though is the English Fry-up crammed in to a baguette. I almost said the ‘full-English’ but admittedly it’s not quite the full English.
A crusty but still quite soft baguette is best, similar to bahn-mi bread but longer and not as chewy
2 fried eggs
2 Cumberland pork sausage (or Irish sausages if you can get them 'cos they’re so good) slided in to longish strips on a bias
Long rasher bacon strips to match the length of the baguette (can fold them if they are a bit too long)
2 hash browns
Heinz baked beans (just a couple of teaspoons)
Brown sauce
Ketchup
A glare from the grumpy Polish woman that made it for you.
Ok it’s just a well known breakfast but shoved in a baguette but somehow it does something magical to it. Especially loved this in the UK when I had a bad hangover and I could just about drag myself to the little Polish run cafe near my place. They were great, albeit grumpy.
I’m not sure if it classifies as a sandwich but it’s a slice of toast with peanut butter then I add a packet of ramen noodles on top and from there I either add egg or bacon or chicken. I can’t eat it to often because it’s a fuck ton of calories.
I thought I might have a picture of the sandwich and I was right. However looking at the sandwich now I might have cooked to hard this with this.
There’s a sandwich shop around Vancouver that’s only open like 10-2 on weekdays so I hardly ever get to go, but they get their bread from a local bakery every morning and it makes all the difference. It’s a simple turkey and cheddar sandwich, lettuce, tomato, pickle, a hint of mayo and Dijon mustard, but the ingredients are all quality and, again, the bread is fresh and super soft.
I use to get a “trk special” at the local takeaway - they literally added it to their menu board because I got it so frequently and other people who heard also got it.
It was three pieces of bread, all the salads (tomato, lettuce, carrot, onion, cucumber, beetroot) and aioli sauce on the bottom, then a spicy kebana sliced horizontally with a heap of pepper sauce and a slice of cheese on the top layer. Quick toast with butter so the outer slices gave a tiny bit of crisp and the cheese starts to sag and voila.
Another one they added to their menu board was the “xxxx trucks special” which was named after a local business. All the apprentices there used to buy this one because it was cheap and filling. It was a fresh toasted hotdog roll, with a sausage roll instead of a sausage, and a heap of butter and tomato sauce.
In a restaurant that no longer exists called The Night Owl in Guildford BC they had a Monte Cristo sandwich. It was two thick slices of french toast with a ton of thin slices turkey, a nice slice of ham and a few thick melted slices of Swiss cheese with a decent pile of french fries served next to it.
In 20 years I haven’t found another place that made it as good as they did.
They were replaced with another restaurant that made incredible pasta, but that is another post entirely.
#8 Beef Lemongrass banh mi style sandwich from a place called Baguette in Corvallis, Oregon, USA. I ate it many times in the short while I stayed there, probably 8-10 years ago. Sometimes I think about going back just to have it again…
Slightly toast two slices of whole grain bread in a buttered pan, between them, you put butter fried chanterelle mushrooms, sprinkle with a pinch of salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste. Bonus points if you found the the chanterelles yourself.
I was in Dingle, Ireland. We were walking around, enjoying the town, and popped into a pub I didn’t catch the name of. Their menu looked good, so we decided to get some food. I ordered the tuna melt, and it was the best damned tuna melt I have ever had. The fish tasted great, and there was very little dressing. The red Cheddar was perfectly melted, and the rye bread was toasted, but light.
This was almost 18 years ago, and I still think about that sandwich.
I’m gonna go the other way with this one. I got a reuben on a pumpernickel bagel last week and they put thousand island and cream cheese and wet ass saurkraut on it and it was a soggy fucking mess and it ruined my lunch. I may never go back to that bagel place.
This local lunch restaurant have what they call Mississippi club sandwich, with bacon, cream cheese, pesto, tomatoes and avocado. It’s a seriously great combination of flavors.
When I was 14 i flew to california to visit my grandmothers place in sacremento. Down the street there was an ice cream shop/diner called Vic’s my grandmother would take me there every few days and I’d get their reuben. I don’t know what it was specifically about that reuben but I still think about it.
It was pretty heavy on the swiss cheese and there was a significant amount of beef. The saltiness from the cheese and beef mixed with the sour and slightly sweet of the thousand island and sauerkraut so perfectly and I had a chocolate milkshake and some ruffles too. The sandwich had been pressed and pan fried in butter too so it had a really nice crisp to it