Home > The M.O. > Archives > 2009 > October > 07 > Entry
Sandwich stories
- Photos: Check out photos of some of the best sandwiches in town according to me and Statesman restaurant critic Mike Sutter.
Fricano’s Deli
104 E. 31st St. 482-9980, fricanosdeli.com.
A hole-in-the-wall located near the Bermuda Triangle that is the melding of East 31st Street and Speedway , Fricano’s feels like a sandwich shop in a small old college town. The kind of place that, despite being open only three years, feels like it has been around forever. And it feels like the kind of sandwich shop I’d want to open. There are small shelves stuffed with books and board games, a few seats at the counter bar, seating for about a dozen people at tables for two and about two dozen sandwiches and hot dogs on the menu. If my old, imagined, pipe-tugging college literature professor - replete with patched-elbowed corduroy blazer - had a portal in his office that led to a kitchen, this would be the spot.
The sandwiches refrain from trying too hard, offering just the right number of ingredients to provide good flavor without putting on a show. Take, for example, Jamilio’s Italian Cheesesteak ($7.25). Though the only thing Italian about it is the mozzarella, the combination of Boar’s Head pastrami, grilled onions and peppers, homemade Rocket sauce and the cheese on a crunchy, flaky hoagie provide a wonderful combination of savory and spicy. It comes warmed to perfection on a panini press that looks like it gets a thorough workout each day .
It might not perfectly mirror some of the Reubens from the East Coast, but Paul’s Spicy Reuben ($6.95), my favorite on the menu thus far, benefits from the personalized touch of its creator. The bread from the local bakery Panaderia Chuy is pressed and grilled to a perfect crunch that yields to the teeth but not the touch. The sauerkraut, historically an overwhelming feature of a Reuben, is happy to play a minor role here, with the sandwich relying on the Rocket sauce (a combination of spicy mustard, regular mustard, mayonnaise, balsamic vinaigrette and Tabasco) for its mouth-puckering zest.
Longtime Austinite Paul Fricano and his business partners, the husband-and-wife team of Jamil Muhaisen and DeeAnne Bullard, take pride in their attention to detail, fresh ingredients and the fact that almost everything in the store is homemade, except the ketchup. And, really, people can be fussy about their ketchup, so it’s probably safe to stick with the store-bought.
House-made offerings include potato and pasta salads, salad dressings, a red-and-green cabbage slaw, five original spreads that can be added to any sandwich and a soup of the day. Although I have yet to yield to my sweet tooth, one of these days I will give in to the allure of DeeAnne’s Cupcakes , which she bakes daily.
Fricano and his crew are naturals behind the counter, which makes sense when you discover his parents once ran a Chicago-style deli. He and his partners, with their affable vibe and steady stream of regulars, have created a neighborhood joint that, while somewhat new to the block, already feels like a classic.
Tam Deli & Cafe
8222 N. Lamar Blvd., D33. 834-6458.
It’s rare that a sandwich that costs less than $5 would make you want to buy a plane ticket that costs $1,000. But that was exactly what I felt compelled to do after spending an hour at Tam Deli and Cafe on my first visit. If this is what Vietnam tasted like, I wanted to go.
Tam Bui opened the clean, simple shop tucked in a nondescript industrial strip mall on North Lamar Boulevard in 1999, building a menu based on the food she grew up eating.
The menu features close to 100 dishes, but it’s the traditional banh mi that keeps me coming back time and again. The sandwich, full of flavor and history, balances the culinary traditions of Vietnam and its former colonizer, France.
The crunchy cucumber and jalapeño slivers, cilantro and pickled carrots speak to the Vietnamese love of fresh and abundant vegetables. The French might have left decades ago, but their influence remains in the form of fresh, homemade French loaves dressed lightly with tangy mayonnaise. A wonderful marriage of gastronomic cultures. The sandwiches come with a choice of meats or pâté, with my favorites being the grilled lemongrass beef ($4.99) and char-grilled pork ($4.75), which are always juicy and never chewy.
Bui is joined in the restaurant daily by her sister Tran Ngoc and Ngoc’s self-effacing husband, Nick, who will often take his lunch break from his job as a petroleum engineer to offer his services and wit. The charming and friendly women lend their small, delicious deli, which serves not only blue- and white-collar crowds but also chefs from some of Austin’s finest restaurants, a warm and inviting atmosphere.
My trip to Vietnam might have been postponed, but it’s nice to know that I can make the drive up to Tam Deli to satisfy my cravings.
Quality Seafood
5621 Airport Blvd. 452-3820, www.qualityseafoodmarket.com.
When he wasn’t building houses, my grandfather was a shrimper. By the time I was old enough to ride on the boat with him, his seafaring habits trended toward family outings. But it’s safe to say shrimp and their saltwater home in the Gulf of Mexico are in my DNA.
Austin might be landlocked, but you can almost smell the Gulf when you enter Quality Seafood.
The restaurant/market, which has been in the same location on Airport Boulevard for four decades, expanded and added an oyster bar in 2005 under the ownership of Carol Huntsberger. The array of seafood can be tempting to the point of distraction, but I hardly ever waver from the fried shrimp po’-boy .
The fresh, wild-caught, hand-peeled shrimp are dragged through an all-purpose breading, the crumbs sticking to the moisture of the shrimp, and receive one more coat right before being dropped in oil. Cooked at the perfect temperature for just the right amount of time, a paramount chemistry, the shrimp consistently arrive golden brown with a crunchy exterior that does nothing to detract from the moist, tender interior.
The shrimp come served on soft rolls from the New World Bakery in Kyle and are topped simply with lettuce and tomato from Segovia Produce in Austin. The minimalist sandwich allows for personalizing, which I usually achieve by mixing a little tartar and cocktail sauce with some spicy horseradish. You can order the po’-boy a la carte ($8.49), but if you’re going to indulge in Gulf Coast comfort food, it’s always wise to go all the way and get the plate ($10.99), which offers two sides. If you’re not scared to eat multiple fried dishes, the thin, crunchy french fries are a nice option, but it’s hard to go wrong with the combination of cheese and butter that comes from pairing macaroni and cheese with a small ear of corn.
When I want to take a stroll down memory lane and escape to the coast without the hassle of a three-hour drive, there’s no better transportive option than the best fried shrimp po’-boy in town.
Hog Island Italian Deli
1612 Lavaca St. 482-9090, hogislanddeli.com. Also at 407 Lavaca St. 276-8990.
Christopher Columbus. Michelangelo. Federico Fellini. Ferrari. Sophia Loren. Genoa salami.
Thank God for the Italians and their ingenuity, style and taste.
Considering I don’t really recall ever eating mixed Italian meat sandwiches while living in Italy, however, maybe my thanks here should really go to Italian Americans.
While the exact origin of the multimeat Italian sandwich (grinder, hero, sub, et al. ) is debatable, it seems the “hoagie” originated in South Philly . Named after the vessels built in the shipyards of Hog Island, near the convergence of the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers, hoagies were a favorite meal of immigrant workers, who would stack deli meats, vegetables and cheese on bread to form this twist on the basic meat-and-cheese sandwiches of old Italia. New World, new rules.
Philly natives, brothers Steve and Carlo DiMarco knew several years ago that they wanted to open a sandwich shop like their beloved spots in Philadelphia. With hoagie and cheesesteak shops dotting virtually every corner in their hometown, however, they pondered a move to South Beach, Fla., or Las Vegas to do just that. Fortunately, a relative of one of their original investing partners lobbied for a move to Austin. His power of persuasion led to our reward in the form of Hog Island Deli near the Capitol.
The DiMarco brothers, whose grandparents settled in Philly after arriving from Italy, combined Steve’s culinary skills with Carlo’s business savvy to open a deli they believed replicated the tastes of their hometown.
For my money, you’d be hard-pressed to find an Italian hoagie better than the one served at Hog Island. Although the menu is vast, I almost always end up with the Old Italian ($6.99 for a 7-inch and $8.99 for the 12-inch).
Featuring a harmonious quartet of semidry capicola , sopressata , Genoa salami and mortadella , the sandwich is a cured-Italian-meats-lover’s dream. The sandwich’s traditional provolone cheese provides a subtle creamy flavor without detracting from the meats. Crispy shards of lettuce, juicy tomatoes and onion slices drizzled with oil and a bright, savory balsamic provide a fresh crunch to balance the dense flavors of the meat.
Hog Island’s sandwiches were originally served on somewhat hard sesame seed rolls, but the DiMarcos said they eventually had to come to terms with the fact that Austinites prefer softer bread, so they made the switch to the soft, crunchy Amoroso rolls from Philly, thus eliminating the only complaint I had ever heard from fellow sandwich lovers.
Combining recipes they loved from their old haunts back home with a few twists of their own, the Phillies and Eagles fanatics have given some delicious Italian street cred to the Austin sandwich scene.
With apologies to the good people of Philadelphia, when I want a steak sandwich, I want a thick, juicy, grilled cut of meat, not shaved, frizzled pieces of meat. Maybe it’s the seventh-generation Texan in me.
When I think of steak sandwiches, I think of the day after a family dinner or cookout. Eating steak two days in a row can seem a little extreme, but if you throw that steak on some bread and garnish it to suit your palate ? well, guilt removed. If you can find steak experts to make that sandwich for you, all the better.
Opened in 1993, Austin Land & Cattle is Austin’s answer to the stuffy, country club feel of most steakhouses.
ALC offers class with a wink of kitsch (what other quality steakhouse would adorn its walls with a painting of an AC-DC-themed cow named Black Angus Young?) and without pretense and generally lets its beef do the boasting.
Offered only in the bar area - a crowded but not claustrophobic space that feels separate but equal to the main dining room - the steak sandwich ($10, $8 during one of the city’s best happy hours) features a succulent 6- to 8-ounce rib-eye steak cooked to order. I find medium to be about right for this dish.
Served on a flaky sourdough hoagie, the sandwich comes with lettuce, tomato and pickles. At home, I like to add a little blue cheese and horseradish. At Austin Land & Cattle, I have the luxury of letting the kitchen do the heavy lifting with homemade sauces for an extra $1.75. To get my savory and spicy fix, it’s always a tough choice between the creamy jalapeño horseradish and jalapeño blue cheese sauces. A side of crisp, thin-cut fries can be added for $2.75.
None of which is to suggest the sandwich doesn’t hold up just fine on its own. You could pull the meat off the sandwich and serve it with sides and have a respectable steak dinner. But sometimes you just need a steak sandwich the way it was meant to be served in Texas.
10 more sandwiches to love
- Lone Star beef torta from Izzoz Tacos, 1207 S. First St. 326-4996, www.izzoztacos.com.
- Gypsy Grove sandwich (minus the fried egg) from FoodHeads, 616 W. 34th St. 420-8400, www.foodheads.com.
- Pâte de France from Spec’s, 4970 U.S. 290 W. 366-8260, www.specsonline.com.
- Southside Authentic Italian Gourmet sub from Tucci’s Southside Subs, 801 E. William Cannon Drive, No. 240. 440-1850, southsidesubsaustin.com.
- Crawfish po’-boy from Sambets Cajun Deli, 8650 Spicewood Springs Road, Suite 111. 258-6410, www.sambets.com.
- Tartine with ricotta, fig and apricot preserves from Blue Dahlia Bistro, 1115 E. 11th St. 542-9542, www.bluedahliabistro.com.
- Apricot chicken salad from Central Market north and south. www.centralmarket.com.
- Chicken pesto panini from Blu Cafe, 360 Nueces St. 904-5666, www.bluaustin.com.
- Tuna melt from Jo’s, 242 W. Second St., 469-9003, www.joscoffee.com.
- Grilled pimiento and cheese from the Counter Cafe, 626 N. Lamar Blvd. 708-8800, www.thecountercafe.com
Permalink | Comments (7) | Post your comment Categories: Food
Comments
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By Dave
October 8, 2009 11:25 AM | Link to this
No article about sandwiches in Austin is complete without including The Little Deli in Crestview. If you stop by at lunch you will see what I mean, it is jammed. They do everything right. The sandwiches are fresh and delicious. They have outstanding pizza too.
By Alex
October 8, 2009 2:14 PM | Link to this
I love sandwiches, so I’m very interested in trying the ones I haven’t had. My big problem with the list would be the inclusion of Hog Island. I may never have had the Italian Hoagie there, but I’ve never been impressed with anything I’ve had from them and it’s way too expensive for a sandwich.
By Gretchen
October 8, 2009 4:25 PM | Link to this
Where can one get a lobster roll here in Austin?
By Matthew Odam
October 8, 2009 5:02 PM | Link to this
Gretchen,
Perla’s (on South Congress) has a lobster roll that is supposed to be fantastic. Have yet to order it.
As for lobster, Quality Seafood has been having a $19.99 Saturday 1.5 pound of lobster special.
By West
October 8, 2009 8:05 PM | Link to this
WHAT! No mention of Greg and Sarah at the NeWorld Deli on Guadalupe in Hyde Park? Oh, you have yet to truly live life without having their Sloppy Joe made with homemade cole slaw, turkey and swiss on rye. I can’t even mention the Rueben variations without a respectful moment of silence. The remainder of their menu is too wonderful to mention to the unworthy. Throw in poetry night, music and the Connect Four tournaments and there’s no better place.
By Ross
October 8, 2009 8:28 PM | Link to this
I’m a big sandwich fan as well and I have to agree with Dave, any Austin sandwich list or article has to include Little Deli. Every sandwich I’ve had there is great, but my favorite is the Roast Beef and Cheddar. It’s always prepared to perfection on a Poppee Seed Kaiser Roll. Also have been to Fricano’s Deli (just once though) and was very impressed. Look forward to making it back there soon.
By Matthew Odam
October 9, 2009 11:42 AM | Link to this
To all, thanks so much for the recommendations.
Of course, with such a short list, I was only able to list a few of my favorites. I am a big fan of Little Deli, Avenue B and have had many a good sandwich at New World Deli. I used to visit all of those places much more often when I lived in Hyde Park, and don’t get to make it to them as often as I should. thanks again.