You Say Sandwich, We Say Yeah!

I was told to order the breakfast sandwich on a bagel, not the bun, but this bagel was dry as a cracker so I wonder how bad the bun must have been. But the cook and a civil servant (I can't remember if it was transit, postal, or maybe she just had a blue navy coat on) had a great conversation, and it made this greasy and expensive bacon and egger feel like I was paying for my role in the gentrification of South Brooklyn. En route one morning to a studio visit in Prospect Point, I stopped at this corner bodega for a sausage and egg on a bun. A row of cops was waiting for the same and I drank a shitty berry tea and waited with them. It was definitely not great, not even close to the eggy cheesy goodness from just a year ago, and it is with a heavy cholesterol laden heart that the era of the good and cheap bodega sandwich in Brooklyn is over.

The basic breakfast roll pictured above was four bucks, already twice as much as it once shortly ago. I got it somewhere near Sullivan Street, starved out after some bad, expensive coffee that cost just as much. I don't see many bodegas in Manhattan proper anymore, so when I do, I pay my respects. Staying in Brooklyn, the corner bodegas still offer this type of sandwich, but more and more, they are being pushed out by the cafe bistros that already dominate Manhattan by offering upscale versions of the classic, like the greasy mess of a Reuben pictured here, which was no Reuben in my books. Putting together more expensive ingredients does not a good sandwich make, especially if the maker is unskilled in sandwich preparation. While your storefront may showcase the finest baked sweets, if you don't know how to make a sandwich or pull a long shot, then you are charging twenty bucks for me to look at your haircut. Gentrification has ruined entire neighborhoods, if not entire ...

Attending a conference in uptown Manhattan is a disaster for cheap breakfast options. Nothing is even that good, and overpriced, so on the second day of said conference, I stopped for a breakfast roll at one of the many corner shops in Bedford. I haven't had anything called a roll since Scotland times, and here lies a cheesy eggy bacon roll made fresh to order. I also eyed the pulled pork, but I restrained myself. Eating it as I waited for the subway, the train ride into Manhattan seemed half as long for some reason.