no. 118: quarterly

This substack might be turning into the Quarterly Review of Sandwiches and I’m OK with that.

I am not too proud to state that two of the best sandwiches we ate over the course of two trips to Philadelphia came from the refrigerator at the Bread Room. Mortadella-mozzarella-rabe and a roasted vegetable number. I was there early, the rolls weren’t yet firm nor the fillings fully chilled, but they’d been assembled long enough to achieve a sense of unity. Both perfectly seasoned and texturally complex, without relying on crispness or crunch.

We ate them in a WeWork nearby, sitting on zoom calls with our cameras off, with pesto running down our fingers.

A cheese steak with Cooper Sharp, onions, peppers, and yes, broccoli, from Jim’s West, eaten on a Bryn Mawr lawn at the end of summer. A beautiful mess. Hawker food.

Half the pleasure of this sandwich is the standing in line and watching people order. Soap operas play out upon their faces. The short menu creates paroxysms of indecision. Entire social networks are laid out with each order. You have time to do this while the line crawls past the long, long griddle – an expanse, whether you measure it in yards or minutes, or spans of the cook’s jowly, grease-lacquered arms. Upon it, as you wait, a cinderblock of beef slowly turns into a fantasy.

The cook was wearing a tank-top that day, and gave the impression of wearing one every day. He didn’t talk because he didn’t need to. He worked with spatulas the length of my forearms, and grill covers that looked petite in his hands, aluminum beaten to daintiness.

Three observations. First, this was the right amount of cheese – an almost invisible quantity, a strong force holding the sandwich together. Second, the sensation of juiciness, a rare and precious quality when a sandwich is filled with meat. Juiciness is table stakes in a competent burger. But I can think of few meat-based sandwiches that are actually juicy rather than sauced. Third, the broccoli didn’t alter the fundamental eating experience at all. Mock me all you want, and put veggies in your sandos.

A mortadella panino from Paffuto of expletive saltiness and crunch. They seem to have changed the bread since this was taken, but that day the ciabatta had been griddled to kindling, quite appealing in its way. The filling needed either tempering or confrontation – two unsalted fried eggs, or a pugnacious hangover.

We felt similarly assaulted by the tomato and mozzarella panzerotto, a sort of miniature, deep-fried calzone. Lusty food made by young line cooks for their friends and peers, food for the end of a long carouse, in a restaurant that’s mostly open in the morning. Sincere and not inexpert, but for people who stay up much later than me. By contrast, the maritozzo was both deft and expertly judged: buoyant, replete, and barely sweet. Perhaps it had just gone to bed at 8pm and was in a good mood in the morning.

On our second trip to Philadelphia I chose our lodging specifically for its proximity to Farina di Vita, which was a good idea. We got a Damien and a Veggie Bronco, respectively: chicken cutlet with sopressata, mozzarella, cayenne peppers & pepper seeds, sliced pepper shooters; and eggplant cutlet, sautèed spinach, rose blush sauce, shaved parm, EVOO, and spices.

The line is two guys in a scattered kitchen with no haste in their movements no apparent system, and no division of labor. And yet sandwiches emerge in a metronomic adagio while they joke with their customers and each other. There’s a stack of bus bins in front of them, filled with chicken cutlets stood on edge, a radiator breaded and fried. Some of the radiators are clearly eggplant.

The sandwiches were marvels. Look at the construction of the Damien, that double run of mozzarella as moistener. The Bronco was sodden in the most appealing way, miraculously rich to spite its meatlessness. Everything tasted like what it was. The sesame crusts seduced with their fragility. Eating at your desk in a dim AirBnb is not going to make anything taste better, and these were still at least on par with Defonte’s, or the monuments to excess at Mama’s Too.

Ameritalian food will take a giant leap forward when it escapes the tyranny of the chicken cutlet. I haven’t eaten that many cutlets, but these weren’t dry and they didn’t smell like overused oil – facts which immediately set them among the better ones I’ve had, and explain why I haven’t eaten that many cutlets. Splendid as these subs already were, they had better cousins in my dreams. There, each cutlet was replaced with a single thick slab of eggplant, floured – no egg, no crumbs, no batter – and fried so that it ate like custard and tasted like Sicily and sunshine.

The sandwiches at Grace & Proper tilt at greatness before they turn away. The breakfast sandwich was filled with clouds turned to gold by sunset, but it also pled for cheese, or just more butter. With their homemade hot sauce – martini dry and savory – it lent a real briskness to our day.

It’s hard to imagine a better bread for a pub sandwich than these delicately crusted papos secos, sized to fit the hand. Their evanescent crumb and eggshell crust made for a nearly dainty counterpoint rather than a test of the jaws, and the bifana’s roll took well to its drenching.

But I can think of a half dozen ways to improve the bifana without trying. They all involve doing something different with the pork, at least a couple of which can be found in actual Portuguese tascas. Shave it cheesesteak thin, braise it till it unravels, or better yet, abandon convention and stop using pork loin at all. Pot roast a coppa, braise a shank, pork belly with crackling or without, or tenderloin dry-brined, grilled just pink, and sliced to order. Any and all of these would be a better canvas for that sauce. Maybe these wouldn’t be bifana any more, but Grace & Proper is an ocean away from Lisbon.

Smoked ham and asparagus, and an Italiano, from the Heavy Metal Sausage Co. There’s a kind of perfection that’s only born of the most intense desire. They’re ostensibly a butcher shop, but they mill their own flour to bake their own bread for the sandwiches they fill with charcuterie and garnishes they make themselves. I think the only thing they didn’t make was the mustard.

I’m not going to say much more about these because I’m still reeling. The experience was so deep and pure it would be sacrilegious to unpack it.

And if you’ve read this far, please take a split second to stab that little heart at the bottom of this post, it actually helps. The magic of our algorithmic overlords is puissant! All hail!