One glorious holiday afternoon I went to Hi Rise (208 Concord Avenue, Cambridge, MA) and sampled their amazing sandwiches. While it’s a bakery first, they’ve gone bonkers and decided to sell sandwiches, coffee and wine. What else could you want? Obviously all their sandwiches use their amazing breads, but many also use other delicious house-made ingredients (like pulled pork). The “bakery” has a rustic, back-of-the-woods feel with a cobblestone floor and a huge wooden table. The menu is on a huge chalkboard above the counters and all the sandwiches have cute little names (see below). It’s all very cozy.
I had:
Dan’s Havana Heaven: pulled pork, ham, Monterey jack, special sauce, pickles on concord bread, grilled ($10.50)
and sampled:
Andi’s Loose-knit Crew: grilled portobello, Gorgonzola cheese, crispy bacon, Monterey jack, spinach, red onions, special sauce on concord bread, grilled ($10)
Fern’s Problem Solver: turkey, Monterey jack, avocado, Russian dressing on Semolina bread, grilled ($10.25)
I liked my pork-heavy selection the best. The pulled pork was incredibly moist and savory. It was wonderfully offset by the sauce and pickles and the bread was fantastically soft. My only complaint was that it was so heavy, I could barely finish the whole thing, but that’s really my fault for ordering a double-pork sandwich. My sandwich companions had this to say about Andi’s LKC: “the perfect combination of hearty bread, fresh veggies and strong gooey cheese.” She doesn’t usually talk like that, for some reason she was stuck in billboard-speak whenever I pressed her for her thoughts. My other companion liked the Problem Solver very much, though I thought it tasted a bit too strongly of Russian dressing.
All together, the sandwiches are fantastic. Yes, $10 is way expensive for sandwiches, but I’d rather pay this than eat two “$5 foot longs” from a certain underground transportation chain. Most of them could have easily doubled for two meals, so if you have a little restraint, they’re really not too expensive; then again, restraint is hard when they’re this good.
['wich plot coming soon!]
Fresh pork, hope you’re hungry (Havana Heaven):
Look at all that fresh pork (Havana Heaven):
Fresh greens (Loose-knit Crew):
Crunchy and rich (Problem Solver):
