Posted by Zach Brooks, May 7, 2008 at 1:00 PM
Photograph from the blog 'We Are Never Full'
In France, if you order a "sandwich américain," what you'll end up with is a chopped beef, hamburger-like substance, topped with french (ironic right?) fries, and stuffed into a baguette. It is unclear whether the name comes from the notion that french fries are now fully associated with America (rather than Belgium, where they are probably from), or whether the French just consider us gluttons—either way, I'm not ashamed to admit that the sandwich sounds amazing (and I'd be happy to shout that out while waving a giant American flag).
Even better though, is a variation on the sandwich américain, where the hamburger is replaced with merguez sausage, and served from a street cart. Vendors can be found dishing out the delicious merguez frites, as they're called, on the streets of Paris, from stalls at flea markets, or at the fireworks display in Carcassone, which is where Amy and Jonny from the blog We Are Never Full discovered this Moroccan inspired, French treat.
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Posted by Zach Brooks, April 30, 2008 at 1:00 PM
Photograph from BKMD on Flickr
With the all important Cinco de Mayo holiday less than a week away, my thoughts turn to using the day as an excuse to transform ordinary sandwiches into lessons in excess. For example, adding guacamole to every single thing I eat. From a sandwich standpoint, is there a better condiment than guacamole? In fact, I can't think of many sandwiches that couldn't be improved with a giant spoonful of guac.
Here are some of my favorites.
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Posted by Zach Brooks, April 23, 2008 at 1:15 PM
Photograph from entitee on Flickr
One of my favorite parts of doing a sandwich column is that now all my family members send me photos of ridiculous sandwiches from all around the country. Take this one, for example, which my brother in law sent me from Sacramento. The Squeeze Burger with Cheese Skirt, as it is widely known in and around California's capital, is clearly a feat of modern engineering. And while the actual burger that is hidden underneath there (somewhere) is not necessarily anything to write home about, this sandwich has many other secrets that make it quite the serious sandwich.
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Posted by Zach Brooks, April 16, 2008 at 3:00 PM
Photograph courtesy of thewx4.com
Despite being subjected to the familiar "don't play with your food" parental instruction throughout my childhood, as an adult I can't help but succumb to a little makeshift breakfast sandwich action. The most popular (and easiest to assemble), has got to be the irresistible pancake-bacon combo, or you can get a little more serious, as in the case of the waffle sandwich I posted about here last September.
It's always fun to create your own monstrosity, but I have a tremendous amount of respect for the chef who saves you (and by that I mean my wife) from the embarrassment of a self-made sandwich at the table. Such is the case with the seared smoked pork loin and French toast sandwich served for brunch at Thuet, a Toronto restaurant-bakery-boulangerie-atelier run by Alsatian chef Marc Thuet.
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Posted by Zach Brooks, April 2, 2008 at 1:45 PM
If you are in Miami, Florida and looking to eat the "best sandwich," you'd be hard pressed (terrible pun intended) to find something better than a Cubano. Sliced pork, ham, cheese, mustard and pickles, ironed flat inside a French-style Cuban bread—it's a near perfect creation. I say near perfect because you will always find that person from Tampa who insists on salami, but in all my years growing up in Miami, genoa was something you got on an Italian sub, not on a Cuban. Salami or not, it's about as serious as sandwiches get.
And yet, this past weekend when I was visiting Miami, I found myself craving a totally different pressed sandwich. A sandwich whose soul is about as far away from Calle Ocho as you can get, and possibly my earliest memory of eating what we would now refer to as a "Serious Sandwich": the pressed duck sandwich from the Deli Lane Cafe in South Miami.
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Posted by Zach Brooks, March 19, 2008 at 1:00 PM
Since my "real" job (whatever that means) is in the "music industry" (radio is still part of the music industry, right?), I've always dreamed of going to the SXSW music festival. I've heard great things about Austin, Texas, and my friends and co-workers always have amazing stories of great shows that I am bound to love that take place in a really cool town. But this year, I discovered a new aspect of SXSW that makes me feel jealous about not getting to go: all the serious sandwiches.
Thanks to blogs, Flickr, and most important, the invention of the iPhone, the SXSW food porn has been pouring in since last week—and I have to say, the sandwiches look pretty damn delicious. Using previous years as a guide, you would expect me to be super envious of missing My Morning Jacket tear through their new songs at the Austin Music Hall, or Michael Stipe playing at the all too famous Stubb's. This year, however, I think I'm bummed because I missed out on all the eatin'.
After the jump, my recently created, hipster food porn-based, Austin sandwich checklist.
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Posted by Zach Brooks, March 12, 2008 at 4:45 PM
Photograph from Fabrizio Rizzo on Flickr
Whiskey can be an amazing or terrible cooking ingredient depending on who is using it. For example, Jack Daniels in the hands of an old college roommate led to some pretty obscenely terrible "bourbon burgers," "bourbon whipped cream," "bourbon marinated steaks," and "bourbon everything else he ever cooked"—and none of it could've been eaten in enough volume to fill you up before it got you trashed.
On the other hand, give Dirk Flanigan, chef at the Gage in Chicago, a bottle of Jameson and a brisket and he'll make you a serious sandwich that is so obscenely good, you'll have no problem getting stuffed on it.
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Posted by Zach Brooks, March 5, 2008 at 1:00 PM
Photograph from drewleavy on Flickr
We have no shortage of delicious bagels here in New York City. (Is there a better bagel city in the world?) We also have no shortage of fat laden, drool inducing corned beef. (Is there a better corned beef city in the world?) Yet, explain to me how London is the city that has combined the two into what looks like a pretty outstanding sandwich. It's called a hot salt beef bagel, and it leaves me wondering, "How on earth did we got scooped on this?"
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Posted by Michael Nagrant, February 29, 2008 at 10:15 AM
It would seem that a man who wore a Jason (of Friday the 13th) mask for a living and took more than a few discs of frozen rubber to the head during his career isn’t the best person to take food advice from. But Tony Esposito, the Chicago Blackhawks hall of famer was, in hockey parlance, a serious grinder. And as it takes one to know one, Esposito definitely knows his grinders. His framed signed picture hangs in the back of Bari Foods, an Italian grocery brimming with tinned cans of San Marzano tomotoes and gleaming jars of pickled goods, praising the house giardiniera
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Posted by Zach Brooks, February 13, 2008 at 12:45 PM
Surprisingly, I actually like Valentine’s Day. Maybe it's not that big a surprise since I have someone I love, and against all odds, she actually loves me back (food obsessions and all). I know you can do nice things for people you care about “anytime you want,” but there’s something about Valentine’s Day that I like. Maybe it’s that you have an excuse to do something on a weeknight that you may not do otherwise. Last year my wife and I had the best Valentine’s Day—it involved a movie, some wine, and, of course, a pair of serious sandwiches. Fancy dinners and expensive flowers are nice, but I think hidden food snuck into a movie (with alcohol pairing of course) is the best option. And what better food is there than a sandwich? Perfectly portable, and easy to eat in a theater—silverware not necessary.
Lucky for us, there a place right between my office in Midtown Manhattan and our local movie theater on the Upper West Side of New York City that has a few serious sandwiches: the Bouchon Bakery take-out window, courtesy of Thomas Keller (French Laundry, Per Se). No matter where we eat, my wife and I usually order two different things and share (to cover more ground), but when it comes to the Bouchon Bakery vegetable jardiniere, neither of us are willing to give up a half…so two of the same thing it was.
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Posted by Zach Brooks, February 6, 2008 at 1:15 PM
Photograph of General Tso's Philly Cheesesteak from DJ Grocery
Coming up with a theme for this week's sandwich should have been easy. Yesterday was Fat Tuesday, but po'boys have been pretty well covered here on Serious Eats. It was also Super Tuesday, but I couldn't seem to find any mention of candidates' favorite sandwiches. Tomorrow is the start of the Chinese New Year, but "Year of the Rat" does not exactly make for sandwich inspiration.
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Posted by Michael Nagrant, February 1, 2008 at 12:00 PM
Jerry’s has a hundred and twenty plus signature sandwiches named after musicians, cartoon characters, customers, and pop culture icons. Given the wide choice, the journalist in me yearns to work through each and every one of them. But, while I stray occasionally, my stomach's desires trump my investigative nature, and I almost exclusively order the Marky B (named after owner Mark Bires).
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Posted by Zach Brooks, January 30, 2008 at 1:30 PM
Photo courtesy of chowdownphoenix.com
Obviously most of us can't afford to go to the Super Bowl, and quite frankly if you don't live in New England or New York City, I don't understand why you would want to. But, if I was going to Phoenix for this year's Super Bowl, you better believe I'd be eating one of these: the Navajo Lamb Sandwich from Arizona Native Frybread.
Invented by the Navajo people, frybread is normally served at fairs, pow-wows, and art shows and can come topped with powdered sugar or honey (think elephant ears) or beans, meat, lettuce, tomato, and cheese, commonly referred to as an "Indian taco." But for a truly unique and authentic savory Navajo frybread sandwich, you have to go out to Arizona Native Frybread in Mesa, one of the few permanent, year-round shops for an authentic Navajo frybread sandwich like this.
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Posted by Zach Brooks, January 23, 2008 at 11:30 AM
Since we started the Serious Sandwiches Flickr Group at the end of last year, there have been a ton of great submissions, but my favorite photo so far has got to be this one—the "king of the meatball sandwiches" posted by made by moxie. It comes from Zagi's, a 3 year old pizza parlor in the Ballard district of Seattle—a city I've never been to, but am now seriously considering visiting.
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Posted by Zach Brooks, January 16, 2008 at 1:00 PM
Today's Serious Sandwich post feels like one of those crossover comic books events, like the time Spiderman showed up in Daredevil. I don't normally write about sandwiches from Midtown Manhattan (I leave that stuff for my blog Midtown Lunch), but I had a sandwich for lunch on Monday that to not share with you would be a disservice to Serious Eaters everywhere. I found it while researching a piece for Midtown Lunch at Tina's Restaurant, a fast food Cuban place that I not only had no intention of eating at, but I wouldn't even consider a NYC destination or even the best Cuban food in Midtown. But then I saw it—the fried pork sandwich, with fried plantains (or as I like to call it, the "You top what with what?!?"). After spotting the sandwich on the menu, considering the consequences of my actions (I had plans to eat Cuban food with friends for dinner), I was forced to use the excuse that this wonderful column has afforded me on so many occasions: "I have to order and eat the sandwich. It's for work."
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Posted by Zach Brooks, January 9, 2008 at 1:00 PM
While traveling through Chile last week, I discovered that my new favorite Spanish word is completo. A word with a few different meanings when it comes to food, completo is best translated as "the works." Use it alone as a noun, as in "Yo quiero un completo," and you'll get a hot dog topped with everything but the kitchen sink (usually salsa, tomatoes, guacamole, sometimes sauerkraut, ketchup, mustard, and the requisite mayonnaise). Use it as an adjective, following the word churrasco and what you'll get is a very serious sandwich.
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Posted by Michael Nagrant, January 4, 2008 at 12:00 PM
Photograph courtesy of Ron Kaplan
It's often said Chicago is a city of neighborhoods. Taking it a step further, it's also a city of sandwiches, as each of those neighborhoods, whether it's the Will Special in Dunning, Al's Italian Beef in Little Italy, or the Bari prosciutto and mozzarella in West Town, has its own distinctive bread-and-meat combo.
In Logan Square, my new obsession is the juicy olive-studded ropa vieja or braised beef piled high with a smattering of lettuce on crisp grill-marked water bread from El Cubanito.
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Posted by Adam Kuban, January 2, 2008 at 1:00 PM
When it comes to tiny sandwiches, my devotion is huge. I love tea sandwiches in all forms. I'm totally in favor of the slider trend that's been rolling across the country the last couple of years. Heck, I even started a burger blog pretty much as an excuse to talk about White Castle and its awesome sliders.
So when I saw the Chick-n-Minis at Chick-Fil-A while visiting my parents last week in suburban Kansas City, I was all over them.
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Posted by Zach Brooks, December 26, 2007 at 12:30 PM
Looking back at my favorites of 2007 on Flickr, it's not surprising that most are sandwiches. It has become a new hobby of mine, sitting in the dark late at night, while my wife is asleep, trolling the web for photos of hot sandwiches practically begging to be eaten. I've found a lot of Serious Sandwiches this way. The waffle sandwich, the Rosino Panino, and Bakesale Betty's fried chicken sandwich were all discovered by typing sandwich into flickr and seeing what beautiful creations came up.
A few of my favorite photos never got written about, but I'd like to share them with you now. It seems pretty appropriate since all of them are pretty gluttonous and exactly the kind of sandwich you want to have just before your New Year's resolutions kick in. If you have your own tawdry sandwich photos to share, we've created a Flickr group called Serious Sandwiches. Post your favorites to the group and—who knows?—they may just be added to the Serious Eats sandwich canon in 2008.
The photos, after the jump.
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Posted by Zach Brooks, December 19, 2007 at 12:30 PM
Photograph from c(h)ristine on Flickr
With the New Year approaching, there is the possibility of the chance that maybe I would perhaps consider having an inkling to make a resolution to eat better. With that (50/50 at best) chance of "improving" my diet looming, it's time to stuff my face with not so healthy things, just in case I decide to abstain after January 1st.
In my book of guilty pleasures, the number one at the top of the list, has got to be fried chicken—and what better way to enjoy it then in sandwich form, served out of a bakery in Oakland, by a former cook from the birthplace of California cuisine.
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