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...