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Padua Pasta Makers: 300 E Arrow Hwy, Upland

We’re loving the Summer of Sandwich. It’s not always perfect—sometimes those train tracks lead only to heartbreak, or shitty sandwiches, anyway. But more than simply delivering unto us good food, it’s had the ancillary effect of forcing us to do something we do far too rarely: the unknown.

The unknown is terrifying, of course, but also it’s exhilarating, right? (And also more often than either of those, it’s just as boring as the ordinary everyday known.) But still: it’s unknown! Which means: ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN. Which in and of itself is a good thing, or that’s how we’re feeling today, after two excellent recent sandwich outings. The first of these was midday Saturday, when we decided to drive down Arrow Highway in La Verne, which turns into 9^th Street in Upland, and then we took a left on Euclid and then a right on…Arrow Highway…?…which led us to downtown Upland.

Downtown Upland (nee North Ontario, almost Magnolia) is sort of hilarious. It’s a fairly built-up downtown, due almost entirely to the train station, and some buildings likely date to the early 1900s. It has about six solid blocks of business buildings. It has a candy apple store because what burgeoning megalopolis doesn’t need a candy apple store? And a gazebo in the middle of a roundabout! Also most of the businesses are shuttered. The most common open business seems to be the rock’n’roll T-shirt shop (we’re going back, don’t worry). There were a couple bars, a brewery, some coffee shops, tattoo shops…and lots of rock’n’roll t-shirt shops (and a bunch of sort of stray late teenagers wandering with skateboards underarm). Does it feel like downtown Upland was once a thriving spot of commerce? No, it feels like it’s always been this way—a little hungover, a little bored, never quite as exciting as it hoped things would be.

But adjacent to downtown is Padua Pasta Makers—which, who knew?! It’s basically a mini-Eataly without the ass-grabbing ginger in crocs. They make: fresh pasta, sauce, calzones, pizza; they sell 00 flour, spumante, Stracciatella, and all sorts of fun Italian condiments. Padua Pasta Makers is excellent. We will definitely be going back. And even better? Their sandwiches. We ordered a small roasted chicken with roasted red pepper ($7.50) and a small mortadella with provolone (also $7.50). These “small” sandwiches—each well over six inches—came in a complete sandwich roll, and the bread was by far the best we’ve had all summer. The excellent chicken had been roasted with oregano and rosemary, we think, and while it was a little dry, we went sans mayo, so that’s on us—next time we’d get the pesto mayo. The mortadella (with pistachio) was amazing, which is no surprise, because mortadella is the best cured meat. (Read more about mortadella!) Its almost ethereally light savoriness played nicely with a not-overly-funky provolone and that simplest deli sandwich topping: shredded lettuce drizzled with oil and vinegar. Done.

• Overall Balance/Taste: +2 points
• Quality of Ingredients: +2
• Bread: +2
• Integrity:
• X-factor: Italian market! +1

Overall: 7 points, or Xoco’s Milanesa Torta

Tortas Ahogadas La Guera: 1205 W 17th St, Santa Ana

Speaking of the unknown: today we went to a zoo! That cost two dollars!

We decided to be brave and venture not only into the unknown but also behind enemy lines, going deep behind the Orange Curtain. Why? We like zoos. Sure, they make us feel weird every time—don’t you, too, feel tempted to free the animals?—but this was a zoo we didn’t know existed until a few days ago. Everyone knows the LA Zoo, the San Diego Zoo, and the Wild Animal Park or whatever it’s been rebranded to these days. Most people know about the Santa Ana Zoo and the Santa Barbara Zoo. But…the Orange County Zoo? Who knew this zoo? You? We saw: kit foxes, enormous porcupines, eagles, bears, mountain lions, ocelots (Babu! because apparently Dali had an ocelot?!)…and snakes.

Post-zoo, we thought: sandwiches. Weird, right? The problem with being deep behind the Curtain is that mainly what they sell behind said Curtain is Subway sandwiches. Seriously, do a Google map search in the OC for sandwiches. I’ll wait. See? So. Much. Subway. So we were forced to branch out a bit … not out of our comfort zone so much as squarely in it: we went for tortas.

(Will tortas be the best of all sandwich styles? Tune in at summer’s end to find out!)

We went to Tortas Ahogadas La Guera, a food truck in Santa Ana. Why? Yelp, we admit it. We got there just before the lunch rush and ordered, of course, a torta ahogada (that means drowned, everyone). We got the carnitas, and it was ready almost immediately: a surprisingly high quality half-section of baguette filled with mounds of solid if not spectacular carnitas, the sandwich, yes, drowned in two types of hot sauce and piled high with sliced white onion. It was warm and spicy, just like red kibble, so, yes, it’s basically belter food. Was it amazing? No. Was it good? Mi pensa gut.

Good thing we got a regular torta, too! This one came on a telera roll (sort of like French bread but less puffy: crispy exterior, toasted on the inside, still with a nice chew to it: so it has both a crisp texture and soft pillowy sandwich goodness that keeps the fillings in). All it had on it was their al pastor (not shaved but griddled and chopped to beautiful sweet-spicy-savory caramelization), chopped green lettuce, and some onion and tomato (and a side of great salsa—which is fine with a torta, Mendocino Farms). No cheese. No avocado. No crema. Just the star of the show and some veg accompaniment–and that was enough, because this torta was insanely good. There is something about having a spiciness that underpins each bite of a sandwich—not the occasional heat of a jalapeno slice you get in banh mi but a constant heat, an ongoingness of tingling that gets you sweating just a little, making you want to eat another bite as if somehow that’s going to cool things off…not to mention, again, the big sabor interplay of flavors and textures.

Did we know we were going to see a freaking swimming beaver when the day began, or that we were going to eat a sandwich as good as any we’ve had all summer? We did not. Ah, the power of not-knowing.

• Overall Balance/Taste: +1 points
• Quality of Ingredients: +1
• Bread: +1
• Integrity:
• X-factor: food truck! +1

Overall: 4 points, or a perfectly tasty Pat’s Philly Cheesesteak (wit…and yes, this was weighed slightly down by the merely pretty good torta ahogada)

Plaza Produce

June 15: 303 W Foothill Blvd # 7, Glendora

Plaza Produce is a great little market near downtown Glendora, a market we’d never heard about until we started this sandwich quest. It was recommended by friends—a cute market, good meat and sandwiches, quality produce, excellent wines. And it really is that: a nice little bodega, and we’re admittedly jealous that we don’t have a Plaza Produce of our own in walking distance. (Aldi will have to do.)

The sandwiches? Solid. Similar to many grocery store delis, Plaza has a default checklist: choose your bread, cheese, meat, toppings, spread. They do have a couple pre-set sandwiches, and we went with one of those, the Suzi Special ($7.99) on sourdough, featuring turkey, avocado, mayo, alfalfa sprouts, tomato and swiss cheddar cheese. We were a little bit split on our opinion of the Suzi: the ingredients are solid (Boar’s Head, no surprise), but the sandwich seemed a little simple, if anything—lacking a touch in imagination, ambition, editorial angle. Still: a good sandwich!

Our second was a roast beef ($7.99)—the roast beef they make in house—with mustard, horseradish, lettuce, tomato, and pepper jack on the biggest damn sub roll we’ve seen all summer. So. Much. Bread. We were hoping the mustard + horseradish would give this sandwich some zing, but it was a little flat—the roast beef, maybe? And all that bread.

Quick aside en route to our Unified Sandwich Theory©: we all know the history of the “sandwich,” right? That in 1762, the then-Earl of Sandwich, John Montagu, wanted something manageable to eat in one hand while playing cards. A sandwich *should* hold together: that is its essential function. It should not fall apart. Let’s say it again: a sandwich should hold together. (Both these sandwiches held together nicely.)

Is Plaza Produce a place we’ll seek out when we need future sandwiches? Probably not…but if we find ourselves there in need of a bottle of wine and a cheese, or a little prepared food or fresh produce, or, heck, even a better sandwich, we wouldn’t mind at all.

• Overall Balance/Taste: 0 points
• Quality of Ingredients: 1
• Bread: -1
• Integrity: –
• X-factor: bodega!: +1

Overall: 1 point, or your standard PB&J

Mendocino Farms

June 18: 238 S. Lake Ave, Pasadena

Okay. We had high expectations here. Numerous best-of-LA sandwich lists recommend Mendocino Farms, a fairly pricey Southern California sandwich (and salad/soup) chain. Plus, Mr. Rat recommended it to us (or is it Mr. Sandwiches, Mr. Rat?). Plus-plus we were headed to Vroman’s to pick up some books by, variously, Felicia Zamora, Liliana Colanzi, and Raquel Salas Rivera, so why not give Mendocino Farms a try? (This isn’t our one Pasadena shot: We do plan on hitting Roma Market next week, and we’ll definitely get to Europane this summer.)

We left a little before noon and got to Mendocino Farms at 1:30 this particular Friday, so we figured we were in good shape: going in after the post-lunch rush, grab a quick sandwich or two, hit the road, get home by 2:30pm, make it a 2.5 hour trip door to door. A nice efficient Los Angeles County Friday afternoon. Well, no. Mendocino Farms was packed. Insanely packed. Twenty minutes to order. Twenty-plus minutes to get our sandwiches. By the time we left, we were firmly in the 210-East Friday afternoon shitshow, and we’re still there: it’s five p.m. right now and we’re still in traffic, and I’m composing this blog in the carpool lane. (Ha ha. Not really?)

Listen: The sandwiches at Mendocino Farms sound AMAZING. Go look at the menu for more, but here’s a start: One fan favorite is the “Not So Fried” Chicken ($10.95), with “shaved, roasted chicken breast topped with Mendo’s krispies, herb aioli, mustard pickle slaw, tomatoes, pickled red onions on toasted ciabatta with a side of chipotle BBQ and mustard pickle remoulade.” Vieve was excited about The Sandwich Study of Heat ($10.95) “shaved, roasted turkey breast, smoked gouda, smashed avocado, chili aioli, housemade jalapeno salsa verde, tomatoes, romaine lettuce on panini-pressed rustic white served with an extra side of jalapeno salsa verde.” Which: holy crap does that sound good! I planned on getting the Peruvian Steak, featuring “spicy aji amarillo marinated steak with Oaxacan cheese, herb aioli, red onions, tomatoes, shredded romaine on a toasted potato roll.”

Adjectives aside—“shaved, roasted chicken,” “smashed avocado,” “rustic white” (calm down, guys)—these are composed sandwiches, clearly, with intelligent design and interesting ingredients. Oaxacan cheese? Remoulade? Smoked gouda? We were excited.

Then THEY WERE OUT OF THE PERUVIAN STEAK.

So we got the other two. How were they? Fine. Solid. Good. Busynotbusy? Not great? Weird? The meats were good, particularly the “roasted, shaved” turkey. The “smashed” avocado was fairly sober, but it tasted just like avocado. The red onions were indeed pickled if not very pronounced. The “rustic” white bread was nicely grilled. The chicken sandwich almost tasted like chicken salad…which is not really suggested by the menu description, so that’s not great. We didn’t taste any smoked gouda on the turkey sandwich. Was there chili aioli? I dunno. The krispies on the chicken were some sort of fried thing meant to emulate the crunch of fried chicken. Which: Emulate not: Do, or do not. There was, again, barbecue sauce on the side of one sandwich…? Also there was salsa on the side of the other sandwich…? A new entry for the Unified Sandwich Theory©: unless it’s a dip, there shouldn’t be any sauce on the side. You think the Earl wants to be dealing with sauces? Hell no, man’s got pocket kings! Along those lines, the ciabatta was a huge mess—we’re quickly learning that ciabatta does not play well with the Unified Sandwich Theory©.

We’re not holding afternoon traffic or long ordering lines or high expectations against Mendocino Farms–we’re judging these sandwiches for what they were. The Sandwich Study of Heat, while not at all hot, was pretty good, extra side of salsa and taste-invisible gouda be damned. The flagship “Not So Fried” Chicken? More weird than good.

It’s been … oh, gosh … a whole week since we had a legitimately good sandwich! Will we ever make it home … to eat … another … good … sandwich …? Traffic is grim … our hopes are fading … we … need … some … thing … good … to … eat.

• Overall Balance/Taste: 1 point
• Quality of Ingredients: 1
• Bread: +1
• Integrity: -1
• X-factor: BBQ sauce?: -1

Overall: 1 point, or your standard PB&J

Sunday June 13: 1034 Arrow Hwy b, San Dimas

Another return visit! Though this one held a little less excitement than going back to Bánh Mì My-Tho. Papa’s Best is a sandwich place we ate at … wait … wait … just checking Google … because who doesn’t want technology to know more about us than us … March 5, 2017, apparently, and, no, we hadn’t gone back. But here we are, Summer of Sandwich, so Papa’s Best: The Return to: And More, which we weren’t entirely bummed about because after all, Papa’s sports a five-star rating on Yelp (!) based on 720 reviews (!).

• Because according to Google,
• and according to Yelp,
• and according to—welp,
• I don’t have a brain

Oops, glitch. Let’s just say that according to us: Papa’s is actually sort of charming. I arrived a little after eleven a.m., post-tennis, and two groups were sitting outside at tables, chatting and eating sandwiches. One table was great: at their meal’s end, one woman very conscientiously asked the others how they felt about the quality of the sandwiches, and then they talked about the pros and cons of Subway, and one man told a story about how he never ate a Big Mac until he was in Germany in his twenties and didn’t know how to ask for a plain burger in German so he just bit the burger bullet and was like, wow, Big Macs! All this took place not in a cozy neighborhood deli but a tiny little strip mall next to a Walgreen’s—all the more impressive.

Clearly some people love Papa’s, and it does have the feel of a beloved neighborhood place. We think the sandwiches at Papa’s are fine, is as far as we’ll go. We got two: first up, the Veggie on wheat ($5.75), which was stuffed with spinach, lettuce, tomato, onions, bell peppers, cucumbers, cilantro, pickles, olives, pepperoncini, provolone, jalapenos, a cilantro jalapeno spread AND garlic aioli. Guess what it tastes like? A so-so salad on indifferent and far too easily sogged bread. Was it better than a Subway sandwich? Probably?

Papa’s pride, though, is their pulled pork, so sayeth the counter workers. Our second sandwich was a somewhat new special, the Via Verde, named after a local road (which should be sort of mandated by every sandwich shop, right? Unified Sandwich Theory© alert: ALL SANDWICH NAMES SHOULD BE LOCALLY THEMED). The Via Verde ($7.75) features slow-cooked pork, garlic aioli, provolone, salsa verde, tomato, onion, cilantro, pickled jalapenos, and jalapeno sauce. This came on white—which while not special was a vastly superior delivery system to the wheat, as it seemed actually baked (chewy/firm exterior).

Here a quick note on bread: both of these sandwiches came on submarine rolls…and both sandwiches were clearly one half of a larger submarine roll. As Papa’s cut both of our sandwiches (or half-loafs) in half, it means that one half (quarter loaf) of each of our sandwiches has two open ends—which means we bid you adieu, toppings, as you keep falling out the back.  Come on. I mean, if you’re a sandwich shop, why not just get/bake bread that fits the size of your sandwiches? This is a small but meaningful issue. But: Care. Make it work well.

Finally to the general flavors of the sandwiches: both sort of melded into an overall flavor, meaning individual ingredients are mostly lost. For the salad sub, meh. Trying to highlight a particularly good spread and cheese or avocado would be a better route. For the Via Verde, the pulled pork (very flavorful, very, very salty) was certainly highlighted, and was quite nicely complemented by its supporting cast. We couldn’t distinguish (visually or through taste) any salsa verde or jalapeno sauce, but the overall flavor was whole and fulfilling. Will we go back any time soon? Hey, Google….

• Overall Balance/Taste: +1 point
• Quality of Ingredients: 0
• Bread: -1
• Integrity: -1
• X-factor: neighborhood feel: +1

Overall: 0 points, or your standard PB&J

Friday June 11: 9011 Garvey Ave C, Rosemead

When we decided to spend the Summer of Sandwich stuffing our faces with sandwiches, one exciting impetus was that we’d get to go back to Bánh Mì My-Tho, a fairly simple but well-loved (hey, it’s Aziz Ansari! wait, where did Aziz Ansari go?) bánh mì, broken rice, and summer roll place we’d gone to a few times over the last fifteen years. But never enough! Because (spoiler alert): bánh mì might be the best sandwich. Period. Tune in for our end of Summer of Sandwich recap, of course, where we might just come to a firmer conclusion. Anyway: bánh mì are great, so great that we half-want to open our own pop-up. (Bánh Mì Myself and I isn’t taken, is it?)

We aren’t really going to do that, since we’re not trying to, you know, perpetuate historical oppression through food so much. Itself an emblem of colonialism, the bánh mì is an interesting sandwich, historically (as probably all sandwiches are interesting historically). Quick history: The Terrible Colonialist French colonized “French Indochina” in the mid-19^th century, taking over parts of present-day Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and the Chinese territory Guangzhouwan … and, as colonizers do, they brought their food with them, including of course the baguette. And, as the colonized tend to do, they eventually fought off the idiot colonizers, and, along the way, made vast improvements to the food—no simple ham and butter baguette here.

Quick aside: There are many delicious foods that have come out of colonialism. The gin and tonic. The bánh mì. Jerk chicken. The green tea frappuccino. (Certainly our sandwich gold-standard: the Xoco Milanesa Torta.) Not the McRib which is just stupid. Would we give away our chance to eat all these great foods ever again to undo the actual times of enslavement, servitude, and the legacies that hang over us now? Well yeah, no shit. Take my delicious sandwich, take it, take them all. But I know that’s an empty gesture, and this is just a tiny blog that like three people are reading, and it’s safe, and fun, I mean we’re just talking sandwiches, after all…and maybe just raising a little shady context along the way.

So: Today we ordered three bánh mì: the ‘special,’ which comes with pate, grilled pork, and all the cold cuts (Vietnamese pork loaf, steamed and flavored with fish sauce; ham; and head cheese); the grilled pork (marinated with lemongrass and garlic, garnished with green onion & crushed peanut…supposedly); and the caramel chicken (tender slow cooked chicken leg meat in caramel fish sauce).

These sandwiches are good. Also: they’re $4.50. (That’s cheaper than craptastic Subway; the cheapest sandwich we’ve had to this point is almost twice the price.) Could we quibble with various details? Sure—there was no green onion or peanut on our grilled pork; the garnish distribution was wildly uneven, as some had plenty of jalapeno, some had none; some had cilantro, some none; the flavoring of the main garnish itself, the pickled daikon and carrot, could have been much more pronounced; and…that’s really it.

While we might not love the special—a little funky/mushy for us—and, yes, we admittedly and white-ily like the chicken (almost like a teriyaki? but better? says Vieve)…it’s really that grilled pork that’s most amazing: its chewy umaminess carrying along with it the sharp deep tang of lemongrass and garlic, the light acidic funky crunch of the garnish, the bright slip of cilantro, the fresh slice of cucumber, the faint heat of jalapeno, all perfectly encased in a soft but toasted baguette … all those flavors, the sweet, the spicy, the tang, the savory, the salty, all coming together into bite after doughy bite…? I mean: Yes, please. It’s true that the sad and too-familiar history behind them (basically: WHITE PEOPLE IN POWER ARE ALWAYS TERRIBLE) might be the sort of thing that would drive Angela Abar mad, but right now, the good people at Bánh Mì My-Tho are simply running a business that sells damn good sandwiches, for which we are and will continue to be grateful.

• Overall Balance/Taste: +2 point
• Quality of Ingredients: +1
• Bread: +1
• Integrity: +1
• X-factor: this!: +1

Overall: 6 points, or Xoco’s Milanesa Torta

(you can read our overview/prior entries here)

The Old German Deli

Thursday June 3: 40645 Village Dr, Big Bear Lake

Look! Big Bear! Last weekend we headed up to Big Bear, where I was dropped off for a semi-annual (meaning totally random) leadership conference. On the conference agenda: boating, axe throwing, bobsledding, and much more.

We only boated, to be honest…but also we ate sandwiches! We began at the extremely beloved The Old German Deli in the heart of Big Bear Lake (not the water, the city, but not Big Bear City which is a different city). We got the Schnickenwurst, a type of processed German meat that comes on a highly recommended sandwich along with a good white cheese (German Swiss?), smoked salami, and another German processed meat I can’t remember. The owners were pretty funny: direct, offended when I asked if Schnickenwurst were similar to mortadella—“That’s an Italian meat!”—and generally cheerful. The sandwich was meh—the schickenwurst itself was pretty good, but it was buried by the other ingredients, and everything just fell apart.

Leadership lesson learned: let the talent star!

• Overall Balance/Taste: 0 points
• Quality of Ingredients: +1
• Bread: -1
• Integrity: -1
• X-factor: So German!: +1

Overall: 0 points, or your standard PB&J

BJ’s Restaurant and Sandwich Shop

Friday June 4: 110 E Big Bear Blvd, Big Bear City

The next day we wandered further into the mountain scene by heading over to BJ’s in Big Bear City proper. Did BJ’s open at 11, as it says on the sign and on Google? No. Is mountain time a real thing? It very much is. Members of our group greatly enjoyed their turkey clubs. Those of us with the pastrami and cheese or the roast beef were less impressed. Was it bad? Not at all. Was it better than The Old German Deli? Maybe?

Leadership lesson learned: unless you know you know better, always order what the host orders.

• Overall Balance/Taste: 0 points
• Quality of Ingredients: 0
• Bread: 0
• Integrity: +1
• X-factor: lousy!: 0

Overall: 1 point, or your standard PB&J

BOLO

Sunday June 6: 905 E. Arrow Hwy, Glendora

Sunday afternoon we were off the mountain … but still somehow in need of sandwiches, and excited to try out BOLO, a Holdaak-styled chicken sandwich place…but much, much closer to us, located a few miles down the road in the relatively new Glendora Public Market, a dining and drinking hall set in a former Hostess Wonder bread factory. The BOLO sandwich comes fried and either standard or spicy (careful, the latter has a slow-rising burn), topped with a sweet-ish aioli, slaw, and served on a bolo, a Cantonese-style pineapple bun that sounds a lot more promising than it is.

This thing is a mess. It was such a mess. The messiest mess. They even acknowledge this on their menu. But … they don’t fix it? (We preferred the balance of Holdaak, by far.)

Leadership lesson learned: embrace your weaknesses so you can correct them. Embrace others’ weaknesses so you can accept them. Unless the others are sandwiches. Then just correct them.

• Overall Balance/Taste: +1 point
• Quality of Ingredients: +1
• Bread: -1
• Integrity: +1
• X-factor: bolo: -1

Overall: 1 point, or your standard PB&J

Wolfe’s Market Kitchen & Deli

Monday June 7: 160 W Foothill Blvd, Claremont

Finally.

First a memory. As an undergrad at the University of Arizona, I had a creative writing teacher trying to steer us students away from the popular if slowly fading minimalist prose style of the 1980’s.

His great line about minimalism? Less is less.

Well, in sandwich land, it’s starting to feel like the opposite maxim—less is more—might be more accurate, that it’s far better to be Raymond Carver (or is that Gordon Lish?) than David Foster Wallace. To that end, we have a tentative addition to our Unified Sandwich Theory©: a sandwich shouldn’t have more than 5-7 ingredients. Bread. Cheese. Spread. Protein. Vegetables (3 max).

We aren’t jesting, either. Wolfe’s is our first maker of great sandwiches here in this the Summer of Sandwich. They check all the boxes: the Triple T is perfectly simple: Peppermill turkey, havarti, tomato, avocado (we went sans mayo), and alfalfa sprouts, all served on both-sides toasted schiacciata bread. (Meat and cheese by Boar’s Head). Our second sandwich, the Veggie Delight, was a bit less successful: slightly overgrilled sourdough, sundried tomatoes, both jack and cheddar cheeses (pick one?), bean sprouts, and avocado. It was fine, just not great—the avocado got a little lost, and avocado should never get lost. (And: bean sprouts?!?! They brought crunch but also overwhelmed other aspects.)

Good bread, mostly thoughtful combinations, excellent ingredients: You know it, bub.

• Overall Balance/Taste: +1 point
• Quality of Ingredients: +2
• Bread: +1
• Integrity: +1
• X-factor: Boar’s Head: +1

Overall: 6 points, or Xoco’s Milanesa Torta

(you can read the overview of/find prior entries to our project here)

Wednesday June 2, 2021: 923 Decatur St, New Orleans, LA

Until getting an allowance and access to the school snack bar in seventh grade, far and away my most common school lunch was a simple salami and cheese sandwich. We’d buy loaves of sliced bread (was it Oroweat? didn’t Oroweat have an “H”?! am I suffering the Mandela Effect?), a cheap sleeve of pre-sliced provolone rounds, and a “hard” salami that I don’t think was Oscar Mayer? In about forty-five seconds before leaving for either the school bus stop (grades 1, 2, 3, and 6) or walking over to Rio Vista Elementary (grades 4-5), I could whip together two slices of bread squirted with French’s, overlaid with 4-6 slices of salami, and two cheese rounds. Done. (Hey, in junior high, lunch was a sleeve of crumb donettes and a cherry coke. I’ve come a way.)

Sometimes when I was in a hurry, my mom would make a sandwich for me. Once, my step-dad even made the sandwich. I got to school, took a bite, and … gagged. Each piece of bread had been clearly spread with mayonnaise, the Moriarty to my Sherlock, the very thing that repulsed me most from ages 3-43 (growing up takes time). It was simply butter, I learned later, but I didn’t care: you don’t, I told him, mess with a perfect sandwich.

Well, about that—here’s a poor segue. TODAY WE WENT TO NEW ORLEANS!!! Via a Gold Belly birthday gift certificate from some very excellent relatives. We ordered two (!) of one of the famousest sandwiches in all the national land: the Central Grocery muffuletta, named either for resembling a mushroom or the fact that its bread used to get moldy. This guy is the original, dating back to 1906 (pretending not to see you, Progress Grocery), the granddaddy and baddaddy of them all, featuring olive salad (chopped olives and giardiniera), salami, ham, Swiss cheese, provolone, and mortadella, all carefully layered on a muffuletta loaf, a round type of Sicilian sesame-seed studded bread.

How is it? The bread is a perfect delivery system (a round tightly packed brick, you could roll this sandwich to a friend a few blocks away); but, too, and acknowledging that this was shipped in a cold pack from New Orleans, the bread lacks a bit of its own flavor. The provolone is your standard funky provolone. The Swiss, salami, and ham are fine, though the mortadella quality is a little disappointing. The olive salad is the star, by far. Does the muffuletta flavor-singe itself into the halls of your mind palace? As I ate it, it occurred to me that I’d eaten one eight years before, at the actual Central Grocery, which I’d entirely forgotten. So, not really. Would I mess with this perfect national sandwich? Sure. I’d rather just eat the olive salad by itself on the bread. Or even with a spoon. Taken together, though, the muffuletta does attain a plane of existence higher than a certain nine-year-old’s salami and cheese.

The more important thing is the sandwich lesson to be learned, as we’re starting to slowly make our way toward a Unified Sandwich Theory©, and the Central Grocery muffuletta’s contribution is: that amazing olive salad. A good sandwich will have a good pickled element, a briny tang to cut through the savory proteins. It’s one of the Sandwich Musts©. We know that now, at least—and we hope we won’t be forgetting.

• Overall Balance/Taste: +1 point
• Quality of Ingredients: 0
• Bread: 0
• Integrity: +1
• X-factor: it’s old and famous!: 0

+2 points, or a perfectly tasty Pat’s Philly Cheesesteak (wit)