3 (More) Crazy Big Sandwiches I Ate When My Wife Was Out of Town

My wife left town again, and I scurried back to the Omni Grove Park Inn in Asheville to finish working my way down their seven-sandwich menu.

My gustatory adventures had apparently become legend there in a short period of time. On my first visit back, when one of the bartenders spotted me walk into the Edison Craft Ales + Kitchen, she said, “How many more do you have left to try?” On subsequent visits, I heard basically the same question from two or three other servers.

The answer, Dear Reader, was three. Three sandwiches left. Let’s see how they “stack” up, shall we?

The Knuckle Sandwich, at Edison, Omni Grove Park Inn, $26. This is their take on the classic lobster roll. They dress the Maine lobster in a tarragon emulsion (think vinaigrette), place it aboard thick-cut toast with bibb lettuce and shaved fennel. I’ve enjoyed lobster rolls in the past, so I was prepared for sticker shock. Lobster rolls are always expensive, and you always end up feeling like you paid more than it was worth. This sandwich was very large, but—notice!—it’s not so much a lobster roll as it is a lobster stack. The open-faced nature of the sandwich made it impossible to fold and eat, but you end up with more meat than you do with those New England hot dog buns that they usually serve lobster rolls in. There was no mayo in sight, so you don’t get the creaminess typically associated with lobster rolls. But it was still freaking tasty.

Grilled Cheese, at Edison, Omni Grove Park Inn, $15. Probably my favorite of the three, the grilled cheese was cut into three hefty slices and pressed with three different cheeses, and each wedge of the sandwich came stuffed with a slice of local bacon. It also came with a cup of tomato soup and a side salad (or fries). What can I say? The cheese was very cheesy, almost to the point that it was oozing out of the sandwich. I’d tried this sandwich years ago, and last time the tomato soup was weirdly thick. Not anymore. I’m told the chefs changed it up. Now it’s perfect for dipping. I did notice that was a little hard to bite the sandwich without pulling each bacon slice completely out. Maybe if they didn’t cook the bacon so crispy?

Veggie “Burger,” at Edison, Omni Grove Park Inn, $15. This was the surprise out of all the sandwiches I tried. I tried it last because I don’t usually like veggie burgers. Too often they end up tasting like a big muddy ball of black beans. This sandwich corrects for that by packing in as many different distinct flavors as possible. You get smoked almond spread on the hamburger bun, the peppery crunch of arugula, the spiciness of an orange-red peppadew sauce, and the pungency of a classic chermoula herb sauce. The patty itself is bright red—thanks to the beets that infuse the cumin-tinged beans.

I’ll mention just one more interesting thing. In the course of these three visits, many of the servers asked which of these sandwiches was my favorite. I held off responding until they told me their fave. Every single person praised the club sandwich, which I discussed last time. In fact, without knowing what my favorite was, one manager told me, “If you ever hate what we’ve brought you, just send it back and order the club sandwich. You can't go wrong."

So that’s it. Three disturbingly large and tasty sandwiches in the course of five days. Denise is out of town for a few more days. I’ve got a line on some panini at another place in town. I’ll be there, if I can get out of my chair.

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Related Post: 5 Crazy Big Sandwiches I Ate When My Wife Was Out of Town

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The Hoboken Sandwich

Yesterday I reviewed some of the best sandwiches in Asheville. But once upon a time, I did a post on what is still my favorite sandwich. A sandwich I’m extremely sentimental about. I’m reposting it here in an effort to collect all of my old blog posts in one place. This piece first ran May 29, 2012.

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Prosciutto and mozzarella in a Hoboken bread. Photo by Silby.

You were probably comatose last week if you didn’t come across Neil Gaiman’s commencement speech. Every website under the sun linked to it.

One part that caught my ear was this bit where Gaiman revealed himself to be—at least to my mind—a sandwicheer:

“We're in a transitional world right now, if you're in any kind of artistic field, because the nature of distribution is changing, the models by which creators got their work out into the world, and got to keep a roof over their heads and buy sandwiches while they did that, are all changing. I've talked to people at the top of the food chain in publishing, in bookselling, in all those areas, and nobody knows what the landscape will look like two years from now, let alone a decade away. The distribution channels that people had built over the last century or so are in flux for print, for visual artists, for musicians, for creative people of all kinds.”

Buying sandwiches, Neil?

His reference reminded me of the late Warren Zevon’s last-ever appearance on David Letterman’s show in 2002. Zevon was dying of cancer when he  suggested that the key to a good life is remembering to enjoy every sandwich. When he died, his friends did a tribute album with that very name.

Sandwicheers are guys who love themselves a good sandwich and figure out ways to work discussion of said sandwiches into commencement speeches and poignant TV appearances.

I know these guys. I had one for a roommate once. And I’d like to think that I’m at least an associate member of their club.

Years ago, when I was living in Hoboken, New Jersey, I wrote an article about my favorite sandwich, which appeared in The New York Times. I was a freelancer for the newspaper back then, writing each week about fun, weird, quaint things to do in New Jersey for the now-defunct New Jersey section of the Times. 

According to the newspaper’s search engine, I probably wrote about 120 articles for the paper during this period of my life. (Unless I wrote 60 and the paper ran 60 letters of complaint.) 

But one of my most personal pieces was this essay about the prosciutto and mozzarella sandwich that is so popular in the delis there in town. My family and I had a long history with that sandwich stretching back to my childhood.

The article begins:

There was a bitter, if forlorn yet stubborn beauty everywhere you looked in Hoboken.'' So wrote Edward Abbey, the naturalist and writer, who lived in the Mile Square City for a single year in the 60's, or maybe the 70's (he was not clear on the point).

A year is not a long time, but he stayed long enough to sing the praises of the town's 25 bars, only two of which—the Clam Broth House and the Cafe Elysian—survive. In one passage, he says Hoboken is ''too sweet, too pure, too romantic'' to be lumped in with the rest of New Jersey. Sometimes I think he has a point.

For me, the town's magic comes wrapped in wax paper.

I’d reprint the essay in its entirety here, but those stories were all work-for-hire and the Times owns the rights. Boo-hoo-hoo.

As God is my witness, I’ll link to them all one of these days.

If you want to read it, though, you can go here.

Thanks to sandwicheer Jack Silbert for providing the photo.

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