In my mind, I've always grouped Illinois's horseshoe sandwich alongside Kentucky's famous hot brown. Both are open-face sandwiches so decadent you have to eat them with a fork, and both emerged during Prohibition to fill the booze-soaked bellies of late-night revelers. Check out this fun video on the sandwich from the Wall Street Journal.
Of course, when it comes to decadence, the roaring '20s ain't got nothing on today's cooks: restaurants in Springfield are engaged in an unofficial competition to see who can make the horseshoe eve unhealthier. Two words: deep fried.
I'd opt for the simplicity of the old-school horseshoe: an open-face sandwich featuring bread, ham, French fries, and cheese sauce. Originally, it also featured egg — yum. The sandwich gets its name from the horseshoe-shaped piece of ham and potato wedges that resemble nails. It's like a cross between the mornay sauce-covered hot brown and the famous French fry-laden sandwiches peddled at Primanti Brothers in Pittsburgh. A calorie bomb, to be sure, but worth trying for the historical significance, right?
San Francisco magazine chimes in with its sandwich treatise this month, entitled "An opinionated guide to the sandwich." It's all over the city map, in a good way, with a few expected stops: Bakesale Betty's fried chicken (pictured), The Sentinel's Reuben, and the grilled cheese at Tartine Bakery.
The list is a tad higher-end than mine would be, leaving off Saigon Sandwich and Estela's. But the article mentions several sandwiches I've never tried, or even heard of. To see the five that are going on my list of must stops, keep reading.
San Francisco is a city of foodies, which can get annoyingly bourgey at times but also tastes pretty damn good. A local magazine called 7x7 even publishes a list of 100 things to eat before you die, and on a recent trip to Zuni, I ordered #1: the roast chicken and bread salad.
The chicken was definitely some of the best and moistest I've every eaten — though in my opinion, not quite as good as Nopa. Still, I was ecstatic about my leftover sandwich, and even with two people picking at the chicken, there was plenty of meat to spare. Since Zuni serves its chicken with a currant bread salad, I opted for a sweet complement: fig and pistachio bread from La Boulange.
To take it over the top California-style, I added avocado to the predictable stack of Swiss, tomato, lettuce, and Dijon. I'll tell you what should be on 7x7's list next year: this sandwich, that's what.
I'm partial to savory sandwiches, or at least salty-sweet ones. But as proof that pretty much any food can be put into sandwich form, we've invented everything from ice cream sandwiches to sandwich cookies and, if Trident has anything to say about it, even sandwich gum. Here are seven of my favorite sweet ways to enjoy sandwiches.
Mojo Cafe on Divis just got one of the urban parking space "parks," with a lovely outdoor seating area where cars would usually park. I parked myself there with The Bird, a yummy spicy chicken sando with avocado.
This takes sandwich loving to a whole new level: the Rainbow Motel in Chicago — one of the city's themed "love hotels" — offers an Out to Lunch suite, where couples can bed down in a giant sandwich.
It's one of several tastfully decorated (more like "tastily decorated!") fantasy suites at the Rainbow, apparently designed for anyone who has ever fantasized about making love in a giant sandwich, then taking a dip in a Jacuzzi tub.
When the footlong slab of snapper arrived on my dinner plate (really more like a platter) at Suppenkuche the other night, I immediately had visions of serving it as a sandwich, pork tenderloin style. I saw it spilling over the sides of an undersized hamburger bun like the Wiener schnitzel-inspired pork sammies of Hoosier land, its golden bread a glistening testament to German cuisine.
I ate about half my fish, and so did my future mother-in-law, so I ended up with a whole serving of snapper leftover. I abandoned my Indiana sandwich dreams and instead turned to New Orleans for inspiration to create a sort of makeshift po'boy. To hear about my supper, read more
Whether you need a healthy breakfast or hangover cure, Subway is here to help. Starting in April, the sandwich chain will roll out a breakfast menu featuring egg sandwiches on your choice of whole-wheat English muffin, flatbread, or yes, Subway's usual six-inch or footlong rolls.
I love breakfast sandwiches with an all-consuming passion, especially after a night of drinking. But 12 inches of bacon and egg seems a bit excessive. On an English muffin, though, the other choices sound reasonably healthy and yummy: Western egg and cheese, ham, egg, and cheese, and steak or bacon with egg and cheese. You can even garnish them with veggies or order egg whites only.
Oddly, the article makes no mention of Subway's first attempt at breakfast sandwiches on round kaiser rolls many years ago. Am I the only person who remembers those?
I've never had the pleasure of a pork tenderloin sandwich, be it homemade with nostalgia or purchased from a purveyor in Indiana, where the recipe originated. Someday, I hope to make it to the legendary Mug n Bun drive-in in Indianapolis.
Who wouldn't want to eat at a place called the Mug n Bun? Plus, you can wash down your Hoosier pork tenderloin with homemade root beer. For the uninitiated, Indiana's most famous sandwich involves a dinner plate-sized piece of pork, pounded, breaded, fried, and served on a bun that looks tiny by comparison. For more on its history, keep reading.
Dinner at Blue Jay Cafe on Monday night (half price drinks!) begets blackened red snapper sandwich for lunch. It tasted as colorful as its description. If only I'd saved some of the collard greens served on the side.
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