You Say Sandwich, We Say Yeah!

  I have been skeptical of this place as I only ever passed it later in the day when it was empty and I couldn't wait 15 minutes for a sandwich. However, after a week of not eating out, and finding myself at the intersection of College and Spadina, I stopped in for a sit down lunch at the Clubhouse Sandwich Shop . The place was packed with bodies sitting and standing all over the place. The cashier called out sandwiches to the kitchen and to the room with no distinction in tone or range, so that every time somebody ordered your sandwich, heads jerked up, teased about their hopes for sandwich readiness. The wait was very long, as people kept coming and going, and you know what? It was worth it. Not shy about its proportions and fillings, this battered cod sandwich was piping hot and so delicious. Not overly seasoned nor was the sandwich overly dressed, it was the perfect ratio of filling to bread intake, and I did appreciate the pre-cut. A lot of students we...

  When, Where, What, Why? I remember nothing about this. Any help will be appreciated.

I totally at first mistook this array for an airport meal! But alas, this was an impulse order from this tiny soup and sandwich place on the West side of Spadina between Adelaide and Richmond. I can't remember the name or find it right now, but it's a few steps down and they also offer sushi and other treats. I always forget about that place, but it's always pretty good. Their soups are all home made and delicious, and between the egg salad sandwich and tuna salad salad, I was taken care of that day.

  I always find it weird when rye is in this shape and not in the oblong shape. However, I won't hold it against this sandwich as it was substantial, even if there was no middle piece of bread. What kind of club is this? I almost wonder if I had ordered a BLT, but it's highly unlikely I would have ordered one on rye, and that there is a piece of chicken sticking out on the left. I must have been too hungry to notice at the time. As far as convenient sandwich salad bars goes, this place is pretty decent. I would return if I worked around the corner, but there didn't seem to be a lot of options or competition either. As a meal on the road, it felt healthy and hearty, almost making it feel like I wasn't traveling at home. Recommended by people who had been in Halifax for a few weeks already, this was a nice retreat from the seafood tourism I was on.  

Here it is, the toasted baguette banh mi, which has been sorely missed in this town so far. Baguette & Co. has been on my radar, if not because people keep telling me how they keep trying to go for a sandwich, but they always sell out. A sign of fresh bread! Having an early meeting nearby one day, my co-worker and I stopped in for a sit down lunch. She got the tofu and I got the chicken, and we ended up splitting half and half. The bread is what I remember, as the crunch is so essential to what I consider a banh mi. The owner agreed, and she went on a rant about the colonial history of the banh mi by the French and the necessity of toasting a fresh baguette to make it an actual banh mi. I was into it. 

Pre-flight breakfast sandwiches at home, with the rest of the baguette making more sandwiches for the plane and the other side. Apple and brie with fig jam on the left and avocado and egg on the right. Open-faced sandwiches are debatable at times, but here, no cutlery required and the addition of a top baguette would bring more harm than good. 

So on one of my social media profiles, the last line of my bio reads: "Somebody please bring me a sandwich!" I included that because I'm always hungry, and I am rarely prepared for the condition. I try to keep granola bars in my bag, but I often forget to refill the supply once consumed. After a recent meeting at my office with a new community colleague I had never shared much of an interaction with, she pulled out a ziplock bag of two homemade cheese and eggplant pita sandwiches and two apples. She shyly said that she had read this on my profile, and thought that I could share this lunch with one of my office co-workers. How nice! I did just that, and the bread was still warm. I can't say i actually expected anyone to ever bring me a sandwich, but now that it's happened, I am forever spoiled, and grateful.

I keep passing this place on Gerrard Street in East Chinatown, but I'm always en route to a lunch or dinner, if not a second dinner, so I have never had the stomach time to try out one of Rose's Vietnamese sandwiches . While it's more common now than ever to call these sandwiches banh mi's, this linguistic disparity made me realize that this place has been around for a long time. At last, I had an hour between meetings one day, and even though I was downtown in the central Chinatown, I hopped onto the streetcar and went over the DVP for this guy. Rose's also offers lots of other treats, but I stuck to the the game plan and just got the assorted and a juice box to go. Even wrapped in plastic, the scent was incredibly overpowering, as I could smell it the entire way back downtown even if in my bag. This is quite a feat coming from a cold sandwich! Chomping it down outside before a screening, I also couldn't bare to eat this inside as there's no way this c...

  A rare sandwich meeting between Young Elvis and J.D. Salami. Meeting at Forno to sample their treats, this is JD's version of the story. Having previously sampled the ham on fresh foccacia already with thin slices of lemon (that was a full on flavour pool party in my mouth), I went back to the classic porchetta on dark bread sweetened with morsels of chocolate. While both sandwiches are cut in half, we did not share. We had a long overdue catch up, facing each other straddling the bench of treats, and cruised people coming east and west on King Street, contemplating how our tastes in sandwiches, in people, have slowly overlapped over the years, and how they have also remained distinct.

  Stopping into Northern Belle for a very last minute birthday party for a new friend en route home, I was several drinks in before I realized I hadn't had dinner and couldn't get my bike lock to work. Having a couple more drinks, I ordered the only sandwich available, which was an espresso BBQ chicken on Turkish bread. The fillings were not my jam, being more spicy in the fashion of paprika more than anything else, but the bread was very crusty good. A dense little thing, I had to withdraw from all party chatter until I finished this business here. I should have ordered the cheese platter to share if I was a more social creature, but alas. Looking around, besides the large group I was with, the place was clearly a destination for first dates. I would not recommend this sandwich for a first date.

I work a lot. I know this about myself. I live to work. Things I do not know include why I only eat bagels on the road. The same bagel. The everything bagel BELT. I can't resist it. But if that was the option at the downstairs cafe, would I get it over this homestyle bacon and egger? They fry the egg up fresh so it's that it's the last thing to be slipped into the sandwich before they wrap it up for my trip upstairs. It would be nice to have options beyond eating at the office or eating on the road. Maybe one day.

Being back in Edmonton for a wedding, the last one I'm returning for I have said, I stopped into a few old haunts, including Van Loc. The same little old ladies were behind the counter, and the prices had gone up another 50 cents. I tore open the wrapper, almost if I knew it would be the last time, and took this photo. I may never be back again, and the taste echoed that sentiment, as it was no where near as good as I remembered. I didn't grow up on these banh mis, or what I have been calling Vietnamese sandwiches. I changed all the tags today on the blog, to update where this blog has come from and where it is now. This sandwich may not have changed at all, but after all these years and all these different flavours encountered, I am saying farewell to this Vietnamese sandwich from my past. It has shaped me, and set a standard for all banh mi's, but I can't keep holding onto past sentiments. Good-bye! It's been swell.

  Art Imitates Life Imitates Art   I was very rude and brought this sandwich into a meeting and did not share. How could I share? It was so messy and hot and delicious I could not share for lots of reasons. Here below is me trying to candidly take a photo of said sandwich during the meeting under the table. The heavy scent of marinara and fried meat was a lot to take, and I took it. Oh man, I can't wait until the next meeting!

I can't remember where this was or where it was even within the city of Windsor, Ontario as I was being driven around and had no sense of the flatness. I know there's a lot of farmland around Windsor, and the city reminded me of Red Deer. However, I was treated to lunch at this unnamed place by some people I did not know very well on some hip street somewhere in the city and the menu did describe their fish burger as a modern take on the filet o' fish. After several deep google searches, I still can't find the name of this place, as apparently other restaurants in Windsor do modern takes on filet o' fishes and they didn't fare that well. This, however, was delicious. A crisp cod battered with a healthy dose of tartar sauce and pickles on a sweet brioche bun. Very good. The crisp slaw was also a real nice starter, opening up the palette with just enough tartness, and chopped sweet basil. I thoroughly enjoyed this meal, even if I will never know where it took p...

This little diner style cafe is cute enough, with several locations I keep walking by, I finally popped my head in one day between meetings on Ossington and sat at the counter. Ordering a cherry soda and a pressed sandwich, I realized with each bite that I would not be returning. The sandwich was fine, reminiscent of all the grilled paninis of the early 2000s I ate throughout my undergrad, but this was an uninspired sandwich at best. A mess of flavours between salt and grease, I quietly ate this thing, drank my cola, used way too many napkins, and will not be fooled by their turquoise trays and palatable fonts. All style here, folks, and not much substance.

What can I say? A short stop over in Vancouver led to a lot of scheduled eats to hit up all the key sushi, ramen, dim sum consumption possibly in 48 hours, but one unscheduled visit led me back to Duffin's Donuts. Lacking options in the downtown core, we actually took a cab to Duffin's to maw down a couple pieces of spicy fried chicken before getting into a chicken banh mi sub. The buns are super fresh and soft, and the carrot to the rest ratio is out of control. The woman behind the counter said it was her favorite, and I can see why. My dining companion ate everything, and I only manged to eat half a sub after the chicken appetizer, which was originally meant as a snack for later. That chicken never lasts for later. Like other sandwiches I have loved , the thin wrapping paper is somehow essential to my overall enjoyment of its contents.

  St. John's, Newfoundland has really good food. I don't know why I was so surprised by this, but I was. But most of it was very expensive, and the sandwich options were limited. Above here is a smoked Atlantic char number as The Fixed Coffee 's daily bagel special. I don't remember much about it, except that it was toasted, and that the cream cheese was prepared with pickles or dill or some blend of both. Taking it to go, I walked a few blocks in the cold August rain before I got to eating this proper, and I mostly wolfed it down before teaching a workshop. I unfortunately don't remember much of this, except that the char was really fresh, and I could have ate another one. I personally can't wait for the St. John's airport to expand as right now, the food options are terrible. Of the four options, I have tried 3 of them, and one of them is a Timmy's without a sandwich counter. This is a pre-prepared Chicken Ceasar sub, which most...

I continue to be obsessed by Forno Cultura 's sandwiches. I wrote about it only once before several months ago, and since then I've tried them all now. Still I still have no clear favorite, but the porchetta and the prosciutto are in it to win it. Here above is the rainbow of porchetta on their dark baguette with hints of chocolate baked into the bread. I sometimes don't know what is happening in my mouth. Once I went there three times in one week. The same women work there every day, and I feel I like I want, nay, need to be their friend. Their other fares like their breakfast options and their cookies are amazing, too, and sometimes I don't even get a sandwich, but looking at this now I should probably go get one tomorrow.

I had this exact same sandwich 2 years ago at Marco Polo airport in Venice. It's from the gift shop which is basically an over priced Italian deli, but that doesn't stop me from getting dry pasta and oils and a sandwich every time. Even if it's an airport sandwich, it's my last bites of a great Italian sandwich filled with young mozzarella and delicate prosciutto on a fresh crusty roll before I land somewhere in North America where the ingredients will just fall short. This is somewhere in Amsterdam en route to Germany en route to what became the longest train ride of my life. What should have been a simple 2 hour train ride became a hellish 6 + hour journey that led us to the border of Germany and back and then south and then over and then through the German city line where I had to follow a young student who kindly made small talk with me on her way home for a summer break who found America fascinating. Thank goodness I ate this weird tuna melt from Starbucks (w...

I had many a lobster roll in my one week sojourn across the Maritimes, but I lost some photos as I do whenever I reset my phone, and so, this is the only one I have. Where I do not remember, but it was in a restaurant that appeared to almost be floating in the middle of a lake. Was it in Cape Breton? Prince Edward Island? I honestly don't remember anymore even if it was just a couple weeks ago. I know by the salad it was near the end as I just wanted greens, and I didn't get the fish and chips as I couldn't handle anything more that was fried. This lobster roll was okay. It was pretty tame, not a lot of butter, just some cold lobster between two slices of bread.

Being on a mission, and hungry as hell for no other reason than being on holiday, I ventured out into the small capital town on Prince Edward Island for a decent espresso and breakfast that is not hotel related. Drinking at the hotel bar the night before, the bar keep who grew up on the island recommended I try Casa Mia Cafe , as she said they were doing the basics, but doing them really well, and with a twist. In fact, unprompted, she said that their breakfast bagel was her favorite thing on the menu, and that was reason enough for me to try it out. Above is my dear Americano with three creams, the breakfast bagel on bottom right, and being greedy, a benny on the run sandwich in the upper left. I should have just stuck with the bagel, as the twist was an aioli that had a kick to it, green if I am remembering correctly, perhaps pesto mix, or just a healthy dose of fresh herbs. Whatever it was, it was sorely missing in the benny on the run, which was just a poor man's McMuffin ...

I've been walking by this place on College Street for months now wondering what the deal was. The Fish Store had an unassuming demeanor and its name does not lie. Part fish monger, part cafe, the allure of fish tacos on their sandwich board kept beckoning me, but running errands with a colleague one day, he said that this place was his favorite sandwich place, so we obviously took a break here. Resembling a fish shack found in fishing villages or on beaches anywhere but downtown Toronto, I ordered a daily fish special sandwich amongst the varieties on offer. I was warned against the burger, and with the option of a fish sandwich to burger, a sandwich always wins. Grilled to order, this delectable offering was served up well seasoned and with fresh veggies on a fresh roll. The sandwich was tasty, and light, like I wanted another one, but we got gelato down the block and that was pretty good, too, but I will be back for another.

I have yet to make it to a Caplansky's in Toronto, not even its food truck, but having an extra 45 minutes at the airport, I decided to stop in for a pastrami and matzoh ball soup dinner before I boarded a red eye to Amsterdam. Not as rich as its New York counterparts, but decent flavour and reasonably proportioned. The matzoh ball itself I've had better, but in a pinch, I would go back as there is nothing that quite satisfies when you're craving a matzoh ball. The coleslaw was oily which apparently is a thing here and the pickle I expected better, but I will factor in the airport experience and one day hit the lunch counter on a slow afternoon and see if it compares.

I'm usually such a purist when it comes to the grilled cheese. Melted cheese, butter, good bread, maybe a bit of onion. Maybe. Pickle on the side. Why deviate from what is solidly a delicious combination? The Melt Room looked like a mall kiosk with its shiny plastic decor, but I was brought there by a friend who was craving the lamb shoulder melt she read about in the paper, and I opted for the BBQ chicken, even though I hummed and hawed about the original. I should have just had the original. We shared half of each other's choices and I was put off by the romaine lettuce inside of her grilled cheese sandwich as well as the bland chicken in mine. The sourdough was rather good though and heavily buttered, but the fillings just really did not work. Located deep in Soho, I don't see how this place can last long, but then again, I have never understood British cuisine.

Every once in a while I will find a photo on my phone that eludes my memory. I have no recall as to where this came from, but I can make some guesses. - The bread reminds me of the plain panne from Le Gourmand - The filling looks like melted cheese and marinara sauce, likely with a cutlet as this looks too flat for a meatball - Le Gourmand doesn't do a marinara sauced sandwich. - The paper wrap looks greased through, like a fast food joint - I have no recollection of eating this or if it was delicious or disgusting. - That probably means it wasn't very good, but not bad enough to be offensive. - Would I remember if given the option again? - And would I order it again?

1. Nick and Tony's Meatball Sandwich I ate two of these meatball sandwiches in one week it was so good.  I want to try them all. And I will. 2. Veal Sandwich, California Sandwich I wish I had put a pencil next to this sandwich to give a better sense of the size of this monster.  Each half was a two hander and I went through a stack of napkins the size of this loaf. It was so spicy and I had immediate heart burn and I liked it.  3. Veal Sandwich, San Francesco Foods I was less impressed with San Francesco.  Over sauced soggy bread. This was not finished. 

When Buna's opened up I thought my lunch woes were over. After a few visits, however, I have gone back to bringing my lunch more often than not. While delicious, each lunch has costed around $20, and I'm just mildly satiated.  Above is a "comfy" duck hot sandwich, which as a combination is great mixing slices of fatty duck with a fried egg and arugula. It's real picturesque, but the flavours don't actually work that well together in my mouth. The bun was also not working for me, which is too bad, because they are really trying to do something different. The tomato soup was too salty, but I think almost all soups are too salty. However, if the soup is saltier than the sandwich, that is an imbalance on the palette especially when with duck and egg, the flavour desired is pepper, or some heat, which you think the arugula would provide, but these rocket greens were immediately weighed down by the duck fat and ceased to be peppery. Big points for presentat...

Wandering down to St. Lawrence Market Antique Market for the first time as I had only visited the farmer's market in the past, I didn't know what sort of food options would be available. I had come with expectations of a peameal or one of those crazy thick cut bacon sandwiches, but instead I went to the corner food vendor that resembles most kiosks of skating rinks and community centres, and ordered a veal on a bun with cheese. Made fresh to order, this sandwich was good. Real good. A juicy crisp slab of veal on a lightly toasted bun with the cheese still melting, it was an amazing snack to have as you wandered the aisles, which was not the most appetizing environment, but that clearly did not stop me.

Baos have really become all the rage and I first wrote about this during a Taiwanese food festival that I stumbled across in Vancouver a few years ago. The steamed bun sandwich, or bao, has made its way across North America as the latest sandwich craze following the rise and plateauing of the banh mi, including Mean Bao , which already has two locations in Toronto and dedicated to all things bao. Sampling a bao and some dim sum one afternoon, the baos were heftier than I had imagined. Incredibly filling and large for a bao, this pork belly and cucumber number definitely has satisfies appetites with North American sizes and Taiwanese flavours. My dining companions were very pleased with their selections, which included the Tofu and Enoki bao and the Pulled pork bao. The sui mai dumpling shared amongst us was subpar at best. As I work pretty close to both Mean Bao locations, I have surprisingly not returned, as the soft bun is something I associate with desserts or best on thei...

I never order vegan. Ever. This is more Young Elvis territory, and yet, I found myself at a vegan restaurant, the Loving Hut,  which a colleague loves as it was his one saviour as he traveled through Indonesia. Ordering their tofu club that uses tempeh as the bacon substitute as well as tofu, I thought it would be at least edible. It was not. I had to take out all the slabs of tempeh as its marinade overpowered the entire sandwich. The tofu did not taste fresh, which is how I prefer tofu if I am to eat it, or lightly battered and fried. Their french fries were decent, and good ketchup, but having the tables turned, I should have just eaten fries as many of my vegetarian dining companions have had to do at BBQ joints.

You try to plan ahead for travel by buying a nice sandwich/salad combo from a fancy place downtown, then arrive at the airport, catch one whiff of thai express and the possibility of enjoying that sandwich evaporates.  Like delays, travel moods and cashew chicken cravings cannot always be anticipated. What I'm doing at the airport with a vegetarian white bean ragout sandwich I can't say. Regardless, today downtown does no better than Pearson's food services, so I'll propose some cranky renovations. First, apply Nigela Lawson's chickpea recipe to the white beans. Delete all the small chunks of filler veggies (carrots? really?) and eliminate or drastically cut the salad greens, then substitute long strips of grilled zucchini seasoned with lemon. Throw in some fresh mint or dill, and feta. Or whateva. Just an ingredient , I don't even care what. Look at what's beside this thing: more salad greens. I want to shout, what's the poi...

At first, not salty enough, though the curried creaminess dotted with mango and raisins builds in flavour and eventually, I don’t question it anymore. Still, the logic of tomato and lettuce on this sandwich escapes me. A crispy green apple might work better, but at the end of the day I've got no complaints because "The Potrero Hill" (as it's called at Klein's) ranks as the best airport sandwich in recent memory.

This right here is the best sandwich I've had so far in Toronto. Mark it. Slab of quality prosciutto and fresh Buffalo mozzarella with basil, in a perfecto Italiano baguette. Look at the density of that crust to bread ratio. It was magnificent. Forno has been a stop for espresso and cookies, but I am going back for their selection of sandwiches from now on. One of these monsters will satisfy the day. Such a beacon of hope in a largely disappointing downtown core.