Short of baking the bread and smoking the ham, we cooked everything from scratch. Sure it took a while, but anything else might taint the beautiful potential of the axis of pork. We grabbed: challah rolls, fresh pork cutlets, black forest smoked ham, potatoes, gruyere and some eggs. In short: warm the oil, fry the potatos, pound and bread the pork, fry the pork, fry the french fries, melt the cheese, construct the sandwich and worship the swine. [Update, 8/2/09: Somehow in my porky-delusion I forgot to mention that we fried everything in a mixture of duck-fat and oil! Why not, right?]

Mr Bourdain wasn’t kidding. This sandwich is mind-blowing! The roll starts the taste off soft and slightly eggy, the smoked ham gives a nice cool texture and then the cutlet provides crunch and heft, the bacon more crunch and butter and the egg and gruyere give it a wonderful finish. I couldn’t talk much during the sandwich other than to mumble incoherently while my brain tried to unravel the explosion of flavors and the synapses untangled. Yes, it’s that good.

On the show, the chef said a bartender made it one night to sober a few people up. I had an extra sandwich from the night before and set out to see how well it works. After a few vodka tonics, I can report that there is no finer sobering-food than the three little pigs. Everything about this sandwich just soaks up the booze and leaves you ready to rub your eyes, scrub up and walk into the operating room with a clear head and a steady hand. Okay, maybe not THAT good, but it’s pretty incredible. (Plus it tastes like magic.)

I can’t (and won’t) say that it’s the best sandwich in America, but it’s definitly on the short-list! Go forth and celebrate the 3 little pigs!

Nearly Finished:

Awaiting an Egg:

In Process

Plated:

Grandaisy’s bread, which contributes to both the wonderful flatbread pizzas and the rotating selection of sandwiches, is the brainchild of Jim Lahey, who recently attracted attention with the opening of  Co. pizzeria. This bread is serious stuff – it takes something as simple as the pomodoro pizza (just bread and tomato sauce) and makes it into a complex eating experience: chewy, flavorful and satisfying.

But this is a sandwich blog, so I’ll move on to the sandwiches. Grandaisy offers a daily selection of 2 or 3 different sandwiches, both vegetarian and meaty. On recent visits the most interesting options have been the veggie ones, so I present you with the most breakfast-y sandwich I’ve eaten for lunch in a while (since I scarfed down a Defonte’s egg and potato sandwich after their Manhattan location opened).

The spaghetti squash, butter, and apricot jam sandwich ($5), studded with golden raisins and walnuts, would have been way too sweet without the bread. I think throwing in some salty prosciutto or peppery arugula would have evened things out a lot, but even with the sweetness, I couldn’t find fault with this sandwich. The squash provided mostly a background texture, with the flavor coming from the jam and the ungodly amount of (excellent) butter slathered everywhere. Encountering the occasional raisin or walnut was a nice surprise, though there could have been a few more nuts, in my opinion. And the bread – the crust was so crisp my entire office turned towards me when I first bit into it, yet the interior was perfectly moist and chewy, with a lovely, open crumb. The bread perfectly balanced out the softness of the fillings. While the sandwich felt more like eating jam and bread for breakfast, and probably won’t fill you up if you’re starving at lunchtime, it’s a tasty snack from a fantastic bakery – and if you’re still hungry, there are pizza slices and baked goods to tide you over.

The sandwiches are straightforward, but made with fantastic ingredients:

Full frontal:

Check out the crazy amount of butter:

The packaging looks nice (even if the name is silly):

When I went around 1pm, there was no line and just two tables were taken. After staring dumbly at the boards for a few minutes, I ordered a prosciutto with mozzarella and roasted peppers and a meatball with sauce while chatting up the counter guys, trying to get some secret Italian sandwich mysteries. Instead I got two gigantic sandwiches. The first thing I noticed (after the bland decor) was how heavy these sandwiches are. They are massive! Though the total came to $17, which is way too much for regular sandwiches in this economy, I held faith that they would deliver. Plus, by weight, they were probably equivalent to 4 sandwiches.

These are delicious sandwiches! My meatball was perfectly cooked, not gray, tough and chewy. It tasted almost homemade, almost. The sauce was used sparingly, thank god. I hate it when excessive sauce just lubes the meatballs to go flying out when you pick it up. In this sandwich, they’re just there to add a hint of tomato and oregano. After a while the bread got nice and soggy. When in comes to meatballs subs, I think soggy bread is fantastic, as long as it doesn’t fall apart and drop meatballs in your lap. [Aside: why are there so many songs about meat balls? Don't believe me?]

The other sandwich was prosciutto with mozzarella and roasted peppers (at the counter guy’s recommendation) and a little oil and vinegar. It was massive (see photo below). The prosciutto was salty and left the perfect buttery-meat flavor in your mouth after a bite, unfortunately the mozzarella seemed to wash it out. I’m not really sure why I eat cold mozz, it always tastes like nothing to me but cold mushy texture. I took it out. Without the mozz to wash away the prosciutto, it was fantastic. The bread gave just enough resistance and held everything together nicely, despite the soggy-potential of added oil and vinegar. Yum. The portions of this sandwich are incredible! Compare the amount of meat below to that given by Despana. Despana gives a one layer covering while Biellese gives a little brick! Horray for Prosciutto!

[They also sell 6-foot cold-cut "party" sandwiches, which is creepy, becuase I've had dreams about sandwiches that large...]

Biellese had high execution and high strategy:

Meatball ‘wich unwrapped, without excess sauce:

Posed like a Prizefighter:

Prosciutto Unwrapped:

Prosciutto ‘wich looking very elegant :

Prosciutto Up close, layer after layer (The shine isn’t from nasty-rot, rather oil and vinegar):

The menu has all the deli basics: egg sandwiches, omelets, cold meat and vegetable platters, burgers, fries, soup and dessert. The setup is familiar but the specifics are sometimes different. For example, for $8.50 you can get a cold plate of “chopped Vegetables with cottage cheese and sour cream.” (yuck!) Most of the menu is sandwiches and breakfast foods, and there ain’t nothin’ wrong with that!

I sampled three sandwiches: the tuna salad ($7.25), the pastrami on rye ($8.50) and the BLT ($6.00). All were absolutely fantastic. Each sandwich is a bit basic: just simple ingredients served on regular uneventful bread. Each sandwich was simple and heavenly.

The tuna salad was the best I’ve ever had. I don’t usually order it because it tends to be too mushy, too lemony, full of chopped vegetables or just kind of soggy and gross. This one was none of the above. It was balanced and flavorful, simply prepared on rye bread with a tomato slice and some iceberg lettuce. It did suffer from a bit of flavor creep, but given how tasty the fillings were, I was glad to have a little extra at the end.

The pastrami was on par with the best in the city (2nd ave Deli and Katz). It’s that good. It’s warm and buttery, served on plain rye bread (best complimented by a healthy dose of mustard.) With flavor just short of Katz’s and almost half the price, bring your pastrami loving tourist friends here.

To finish the hat trick, the BLT was amazing. Again they used simple ingredients: toasted white bread with a slather of mayo, iceberg lettuce, bacon and tomatoes. It works beautifully. It was crunchy and flavorful. The veggies do a perfect balancing act with the intensity of the mayo and bacon.

Who knew amazing sandwiches could be this simply prepared? Eisenbergs is a welcome relief from the legions of foofoo chefs who think that good sandwiches require portobellos sauted in aged balsamic, on imported focaccia. Ugh. Time to get back to basic’s people! These are the sandwiches your mom couldn’t make this good. Dig in.

Eisenberg scored high marks across execution, with low-to mid strategy sandwiches.

Triumphant Tuna Salad:

Powerful Pastrami:

BBBLTTT (Best Basic BLT Totally Triumphs):

While seemingly nondescript, the sandwich is well constructed. The soft, hot roast beef never exhibited any signs of filling creep, the mozzarella was melted through and the bun kept it all in a neat package while helping the texture and not masking any flavors. That is what this sandwich is all about: texture first flavor second. Sure it tasted good, but the thoroughly soft and warm texture was more inviting. Never was it mushy, or crumbly. Each ingredient provided a slight resistance and came together to soothe like a warm blanket. The portion was large, but not holy-crap-I-can’t-believe-I-finished-it-,-I-can’t-stand-to-walk-and-will-just-take-a-nap-here food-come large. It was the right size.

While I wouldn’t make a weekend event of it, I’d head back there without hesitation. The prices are a little high and the food certainly isn’t gourmet, but Champ’s Gourmet Deli is worth a stop if you’re in the neighborhood (or really like to help tourists with directions). The entrance is really on the south-east corner of Trinity and Rector Streets.

Manhattan Special: Roast Beef, Mozzarella cheese on garlic bread (or in this case a sesame seed roll), $6.75

The sign on Trinity St:

Christmas Surprise:

See all that delicious:

Mmm: