Let’s talk about Cuban sandwiches. They have two kinds of pig, cheese and pickles. They are universally delicious. They are warm and cool and refreshing, pretty much good any time of year, any time of day. These were my thoughts, so I ordered one “Cuban Mojo” ($8.50). Then my thoughts were, ‘My god, why is this bag so heavy?’ This sandwich is absolutely huge. I could only make it through half and had to save the other half for dinner.

It was delicious. Juicy roasted pork, happily co-mingling with cool sliced ham. The bread was toasted perfectly and provided wonderful crispy resistance, without being too chewy. I could have done with slightly less sliced ham, but in the end, who can complain about slightly too much sliced ham? That’s like being annoyed that you have too many one dollar bills, you just don’t have a valid complaint.

Luscious is delicious; I’ll be back to try the rest of the menu.

Not the most complicated sandwich, but they roast their own pork. That’s worth a strategy bump!

This thing is massive!

Nom nom nom, “Oh, I’ve been meaning to grab some jade bracelets, how handy!”

When I heard of this place, everyone says it’s “in the back of a jewelry shop” and I imagined I’d have to walk through rows and rows of a crowded jewelry store, past a pile of boxes, under the secret curtains and then give the password to be let in, as though I was meeting an arms dealer in a crowded bazaar. What is actually there is a lot more pedestrian (and sanitary). The fact of the matter is that the place is a sandwich shop that happens to have a small jewelry counter in the front. Most people are there for sandwiches and there’s zero confusion about how to find it, kind of disappointing.

The sandwich is delicious. I got the pork banh mi ($4.50) and was too full to have the usual second lunch. The sandwich is huge and cheap. I could barely finish the thing and was totally full. You can dissect the photos below, but it’s packin’ nuggets of roasted pork, cucumber spears, some weird processed pork product (stand in for pate?) and some julienned carrots and cucumbers. The bread it a bit chewy and rather filling, but not terrible. The whole thing tastes like alternating cool and crunchy, sweet and veggie. It’s pretty good, though by the end of the second half I was pretty much done with the sweet pork.

If you’re in the area and hungry, definitely worth a stop. I don’t know that I’d bother traveling across town for it though. On second thought, if the jewelry is this big for this cheap, maybe I should get some while I’m here…

Doesn’t this look cozy:

Also cozy:

Sittin’ Pretty

Yum

I was temped by all the pre-packaged foods such as lasagne and chicken salads, but I stuck to my guns and got the Spiced Rub Pork with provolone and sweet & sour cabbage on a semolina fennel, grilled. It was delicious. Not too big and not too small, with the bread nice and crispy and the cheese all gooey and warm. When it’s raining, this is what you want to eat. It’s that feeling you get when you put on socks fresh from the dryer, mid-cycle on high-heat. It just makes you purr a little bit under your breath.

Predictably, it’s got great ingredients in a relatively simple sandwich:

Fresh from the grill:

Fresh from the dryer:

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):

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:

The sandwiches from Porchetta are delicious, if a bit expensive ($9.75 with tax). They place a large portion of slow roasted pork (juicy topped with cracklins) in a sliced ciabatta rol. That’s it. No sauce, no olive oil, no lettuce. Yes! The simplest of sandwich complexity: a single ingredient. (Aside: This isn’t terribly different from a pulled pork sandwich. Is pork the only meat that can be happily enjoyably with only bread?)

The sandwich was a pleasure to eat. There was no filling creep, no trouble fighting to keep the sandwich in tact and no struggle to bite through the bread. The pork was juicy with slight variations in texture and flavor as you bite into more and less fatty pieces (naturally, the more the better). The cracklins were tasty and did provide an alternative texture, though some were MUCH too hard and crunchy and if I didn’t expect them would have screamed and thrown them on the floor. Ask for the non-crunchy skin parts and extra fatty pork bits. The bread did a good job holding in all the fat, grease and juice without ever becoming soggy. The crust was slightly too tough and occasionally felt too chewy. I recommend that they find slightly softer-crusted bread and carve out a bit of the insides to focus the flavor on the pork.

Since they are loaded with pork, they are a bit heavy in your stomach, but since they’re not too big you don’t risk feeling ill from too much pork fat. After one sandwich I was a bit hungry, but would not recommend ordering two. Get some sides or an empanada at Rubens around the corner (122 1st Ave).

This sandwich is delicious. Go eat one.

Starting with this review, all sandwich reviews will be plotted on the ‘wich plot (for background see the ‘wich plot primer). It should be no surprise that this one falls under very high execution (amazing pork and decent bread) and low strategy (only one ingredient). I’ve appended the plot with the price, so you can decide for yourself if $9.75 is worth it.

Cracklin’s and fatty pork:

Simply beautiful:

Take a closer look, no biting please:

Onto the sandwich. The bread was perfect: soft on the inside, lightly toasted and crunchy on the outside. It was never chewy or disturbed the fillings. The sandwich was delicious. The veggies give it a very fresh snap and cool contrast to the warm baguette. The pate provides a sweet aftertaste that was a bit surprising at first, but grew on me bite after bite. Overall it was filling and delicious.

They also have amazing lemonade, get three.