Simply Sandwiches

Alidoro (105 Sullivan St, between spring and prince) is a little nook-and-cranny shop packed with delicious, lots and lots of delicious. It’s got tiny sandwich counter and the rest of the closet is decorated like an apartment (there are shelves of DVDs, music and who can forget the ceramic dogs and cats). How very adorable!

The sandwiches are phenomenal. It’s run as a human business, not a robot business (skynet?): when they run out of ingredients, they don’t serve those sandwiches that day. When you order something, it’s made fresh: you can see the huge chunks of cured meat being trimmed and sliced. To top it off the sandwiches are fantastic combinations of complementary flavors. The smoked turkey and the sweet peppers go perfectly together. The prosciutto and hot peppers and oil mix wonderfully. The bread is chewy and crusty without making you feel like an animal ripping through food with your teeth.

I had the Michelangelo (prosciutto, provolone cheese, hot peppers, arugula for $10.50) and tried my companion’s Marina (smoked chicken breast, fresh mozzarella, sun dried tomatoes, arugula, for $10.50).

Go to Alidoro, it is amazing.

So fresh (and so clean):

Prosciutto heaven:

Thank god there’s another half:

Fresh roasted Marina:

I’m lookin’ at you delicious turkey:

Shorty’s aka “Tony Lukes” (576 9th Ave, NYC; between 41st and 42nd st) is another place I want to love. Cheap beer, decent selection and cheesesteaks. Cheesesteaks. Just the word makes me relax. I can almost feel the wiz and beef fat coating the inside of my mouth (okay, okay, “wiz in the mouth” sounds awful, but you know what I’m talking about!). If I focus on it enough, I’m almost full and almost dozing off. Yes, cheesesteak. Take a minute to try yourself, I’ll wait.

Where were we? Oh right, at Shorty’s! I tried their “Shorty’s Classic” ($10 for a whole, $7 for a Shorty): grilled tomatoes, Italian seasoning, oregano, provolone and steak. The bread was fresh and fantastic: a little mushy and a little crusty to keep all that grease contained. The sandwich was cheesy and very salty from the Italian seasoning. Unfortunately among all that seasoning the actual steak wasn’t too flavorful and the provolone was hard to taste. I had fun eating it and would return if I had a craving near by, but it’s not worth much of a journey. Maybe their regular steak has more of that greasy punch that just takes me away? I’m going to test drive the regular wiz wit’ later this week and see how it measures up to the big boys.

Update, 9.27.09: I went back and had the sandwich I should’ve gotten the first time: the regular cheesesteak with wiz and mushrooms ($10). It was a whole different experience. Where the “Shorty’s Classic” was too salty and not cheesy enough, the regular cheese steak was fantastic: gooey, steaky, cheesy with just a hint of onions and mushrooms. It was nearly perfect. This is what I was expecting an uptown competitor to Wogies! It’s a little sad to see a place that serves such a good steak sandwich dumb it down by going ‘upmarket’ and taking all the flavor out. When you come to Shorty’s, do me a favor, don’t read the menu. Stick with what you know: wiz ‘wit is all you need to try.

In this case, the lower strategy is better, KISS I suppose:

The classic freshly unwrapped:

Melty classic: