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):

Anyway, back to Financier. I noticed the word “fried” in the sandwich’s description. “Fried green tomatoes”, specifically. Yes please – I may have been vegetarian, but I was by no means a health nut. I no longer work down there (thankfully) and I am enthusiastically back on the meat wagon, but whenever I’m in the neighborhood I make sure to pick up “Le Vegetarian” ($7.25). This sandwich is awesome: fried green tomatoes lie between layers of mozzarella cheese, basil pesto and fresh arugula. Pressed into a panini, it’s gooey, fried, cheesy, basil-y goodness – but it never oversteps the boundaries of the chewy bread. The pesto is slathered on both slices of bread, and soaks nicely into it without soaking through. In fact, it’s noticeably easy to eat neatly (no CounterForce or Patrolling needed!). This sandwich is sophisticated, and like a well-dressed Frenchman snubbing his nose at slovenly American tourists, it stands tall above the usual tomato blandness.

While you’re at Financier, you should probably pick up some pastries and/or cookies. You won’t regret it.

The tomato-frying pushes it to a high level of strategy, and good cheese, bread and pesto earn it high execution marks as well.

A classy package for a classy sandwich:

A crisp fried tomato peeks out:

Stratas of tastiness:

The SANDWICHLab set out to build a bridge to these sandwich refugees and bring them home safe and sound: a sandwich that didn’t offend their meat-less sensibilities, but was good enough to get excited about. Also, it couldn’t be a salad dumped into a roll/bun/wrap. Those sandwiches are lame (yes, I’m talking to you “chicken cesear wrap”, your days in this town are numbered). What we arrived at was a fresh, tasty, filling little number called the “Balsamic GASP” (Goat cheese, Arugula, Shallots and Portobellos). It’s delicious.

A few post-lab tips:
- Scoop some of the inside of the roll out. It’ll help keep the bread in check and let the other ingredients shine.
- Don’t burn the shallots. If they are cooking too fast, take them off and add them to the mushrooms when they’re nearly done.
- This sandwich is more filling that it sounds.

Balsamic GASP:

Ingredients

• 2 shallots
• Fresh arugula
• Goat cheese
• 2 Portobello caps, cleaned
• 1 roll of fresh French bread
• Balsamic vinaigrette (red vinegar, olive oil, salt, pepper, tarragon)

Directions

1. Peel and dice the shallots. Sautee on medium heat in an olive oil-ed pan.
2. Before they brown all the way, add the portobello caps. Drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper. Cover.
3. While the mushrooms cook, slice the bread into two sandwich-sized portions, about 8 inches long. Slice lengthwise, almost to the opposite crust.
4. When the mushrooms are tender throughout, remove from head and cut into half inch slices. Spread these evenly inside the sandwich. Cover with browned shallots.
5. Spread a generous amount of goat cheese to the top inside surface. The cheese will crumble and melt into the ingredients, doubling the delicious.
6. Add a friendly helping of arugula on top of the portobello slices and drizzle the entire sandwich with a little balsamic dressing. Don’t use too much!
7. Eat your sandwiches immediately! Notice the cheese melting and dancing with the portobello! The balsamic and the arugula sing together!

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vegetarians!