Sandwiches We Have Loved

Earl of Sandwich, 18th century, cribbage, blah blah blah—let’s
cut to the chase: The sandwich is a superfood, and summer (grass, lake,
sun) is the season of the sandwich. Some say Seattle doesn’t have good
sandwiches, but they are wrong. Herewith, our odes to the handheld
marvels of food found near you.

Firecracker Sandwich,
Tubs Gourmet Subs (11064
Lake City Way NE, 361-1621)

Tubs Gourmet Subs shouldn’t be as good as it is. It’s in a strip
mall in Lake City. It has furniture and decor that look like they came
from your grandmother’s living room. It’s often packed with loud,
obnoxious kids from a nearby high school. The (mostly surly) staff
doesn’t always pick up the phone to take orders, the service is
painfully slow, they stop taking call-in orders at 6:45 p.m. (WTF?!),
and the sandwiches are surprisingly expensive. The 26-year-old sandwich
institution has survived this long by doing one thing right: making
forearm-sized sandwiches with bizarre combinations of toppings that
would just be too laborious and/or messy to produce at home.
Raspberry-chipotle sauce? Tuna, wasabi, mayo, and avocado? Tubs has it.
Bonus: Tubs also puts bacon—nature’s greatest condiment—on
just about everything.

Tubs’s Firecracker sandwich is a thing of messy beauty. It’s
chicken, bacon, a secret “firecracker seasoning,” pickled
jalapeños, Monterey Jack cheese, ranch dressing, mayo—yes,
ranch dressing AND mayo—and the obligatory lettuce and tomato,
accompanied by a tub of barbecue sauce for dipping, all on a massive
roll that has the mysterious ability to sop up barbecue sauce and still
maintain structural integrity.

I hate you, Tubs. But I just can’t hate your sandwiches. JONAH
SPANGENTHAL-LEE

Fire-Roasted Yam Sandwich, Hillside Quickie’s Cafe (324 15th Ave E, 325-6429)

This isn’t just the sandwich you eat when you’re starving, this is
the sandwich you eat when you don’t plan on moving for at least an hour
afterward. It’s the exact opposite of the “healthy alternative to meat”
dishes that most vegan sandwich shops serve up—the fire-roasted
yam sandwich is sloppy, hot, and hardcore.

When you take your first bite, your lips glisten with grease, and
sweet, bright orange yam mash collides in your mouth with salty, smoked
seitan. Thank god for those yams. The big chunks of seitan are so rich
and chewy—sopping up every bit of oil they were cooked
in—that the thick layer of slow-cooked, creamy yams is the only
thing that keeps your body from going into shock.

For those of you not looking for a gut bomb that’ll put you in a
coma for the rest of the afternoon, Hillside has a number of less
intense sandwiches that are just as delicious. Sissies. That just
leaves more fire-roasted-yam goodness for me. MEGAN SELING

Canadian Bacon Sandwich,
Olympia Pizza &
Spaghetti House III
(516 15th Ave E, 329-4500)

Imagine the crispy, flaky, steamy, savory masterpiece called GARLIC
BREAD. Then imagine making it one thousand times better. Truly, you
have not lived and died of cardiac arrest until you’ve consumed the
Canadian bacon sandwich at Olympia Pizza & Spaghetti House III on
Capitol Hill. It’s made on garlic bread, of course, which supports a
hearty cushion of melted mozzarella. But the savvy sandwicheur ratchets
up the haute-cuisine-o-meter by adding pineapples and a side of warm
pizza sauce. True, this is related to Hawaiian pizza—but pizza is
not served on crispy, steamy, delicious garlic bread, is it? And
Hawaiian pizza does not come with soup or a salad. And this salad, you
must understand, is what you want, because this salad may be ordered
with BLUE CHEESE DRESSING, and the blue cheese dressing at Olympia
House is where they put the mind-control drugs. All this—the best
sandwich ever and the most addictive salad this side of crack
cocaine—for only $8.50 (sides not included). Please note: There
are two other Olympia Pizza Houses in the city, but different people
own them and the sandwich is not as good. DOMINIC HOLDEN

Any Sandwich, Salumi
(309 Third Ave S,
621-8772)

I’m sorry, everybody else, but my sandwich wins. Armandino Batali
has kept meat-loving people in a state of swoon since he opened Salumi,
a family business that expertly cures its own meats—soppressata
with garlic and cayenne, agrumi with orange peel and cardamom—and
serves them with the finest oils, cheeses, and grilled peppers and
onions. Everything they make there is the best thing you’ll ever have
for lunch. People stand in line at Salumi every damned day, and not
just Seattle people. On my latest visit, my linemates were diversity
itself: an African American and her Italian friend, a gay couple (one
Spanish, one Spanish American), and too many other people to talk to.
While we waited, the lady behind the counter cut us slices of
culatello. “The heart of prosciutto,” she said. “Nothing extraneous.
Good, huh?” The cured-meat sandwiches are a dream—prosciutto,
fig, and goat cheese will make you a believer—but their stewed
lamb, pork, and meatball are also the best sandwiches you will ever
eat. Vegetarians can eat a margherita. Winos can pour a cup from the
bottles always sitting on every table. Doesn’t matter what your lunch
plans are. Change them. BRENDAN KILEY

Midnight Cuban Press Sandwich, Paseo (4225 Fremont Ave
N, 545-7440; 6226 Seaview Ave NW, 789-3100)

12:04PM What’s the name of the damn sandwich again? 12:07PM Straight
fucking uphill for like twelve fucking blocks. You said Fremont. I feel
like I rode to Bellingham. 12:09PM I’m having an asthma attack. This
better be worth it. 12:13PM Line out door. Can’t breathe. Extra fifteen
minute wait for this particular sandwich. No lunch item worth time,
trouble if not served with side of fries, blowjob. 12:22PM Got
sandwich. Very greasy looking. Heart attack next? 12:27PM Sandwich
delicious. 12:28PM Impossible to eat in dignified manner. 12:29PM Worth
trip, wait, attacks (asthma, heart). 12:29PM God, this is good. 12:32PM
Haven’t been this greasy since… I won’t say when. 12:37PM Told self
to think of ass, health, only eat half. 12:38PM Ate whole fucking
thing. SUBMITTED VIA TEXT MESSAGE BY DAN SAVAGE

Tat’s Italian Sub, Tat’s Delicatessen (115 Occidental
Ave S, 264-8287)

My favorite sandwich doesn’t exist in Seattle. In Maine, where I was
born and raised, every corner store sells an Italian sandwich for three
dollars or less. It’s never anything fancy: ham, cheese, peppers,
tomatoes, olives, onions, and pickles on a foot-long roll, cut in half
and doused with olive oil, salt, and pepper. It’s kind of a honky banh
mi. The always-crowded Tat’s Deli (subtitled “East Coast Steaks &
Subs”) in Pioneer Square doesn’t make this kind of Italian
sub—instead of waxy American cheese, they use provolone, for
instance, and three types of cured meats to create a tangy, filling
mess of a sandwich. It doesn’t cost three dollars, either: An 8-inch is
$7.50; 12-inch is $12. But it is by far my favorite twist on the
classic Italian sandwich on either coast: a ham-and-cheese sandwich
that bites back. PAUL CONSTANT

Any Sandwich Made by Maria, QFC deli counter, 1401
Broadway, 860-3818

Her name is Maria. Her face hides nothing, and her heart and hands
are one. She makes the most love-filled sandwiches in Seattle. Maria,
who works at the deli in the QFC on Broadway and East Pike Street, has
this gift: She can transmit the love she has inside of her into the
core of a sandwich. No matter what you select—ordinary rye bread,
ordinary slices of roast beef, ordinary tomatoes, ordinary onions,
ordinary Swiss cheese—her hands transform into it a feast. And
love is nothing but the condition of abundance. This is why the sun
(our star) loves us most: It never stops giving us light. It just gives
and gives and gives. Maria’s sandwiches are so thick and rich and
hearty; you have only paid $5.99, but the sandwich feels like it’s
worth much more than that. Indeed, it feels like a part of it, the very
soul of it—which is nothing else than Maria’s love—is
priceless. CHARLES MUDEDE

Banh Mi, Pretty Much Anywhere in the ID (but
especially Seattle Deli [225 12th Ave S, 328-0106] and Saigon Deli
[1237 S Jackson St, 322-3700, with downtown, U-District, and Bellevue
locations, too])

If there’s anyone out there who still doesn’t know about banh mi,
ENOUGH. The time for not knowing about banh mi is past. The time for
knowing about banh mi is now! Banh mi is Vietnamese grilled pork (or
tofu or ham or whatever—just get the pork) stuffed into a chewy
French baguette with pickled carrots and daikon, cilantro, mayonnaise,
jalapeño, and cucumber. Banh mi will make you want to KISS
COLONIALISM ON THE MOUTH. This sandwich costs less than $5 and
sometimes less than $3, and it’s available all over the International
District. Here is the very best thing to do: Travel to International
District. Exchange dollars for banh mi. Take banh mi across Jose Rizal
Bridge to park/viewpoint on other side. Sit at picnic table, consume
banh mi, observe downtown and the Sound, and feel overcome with love
for a city that gives you such perfect sunshine and perfect
sandwiches. LINDY WEST

French Dip Sandwich,
Cafe Flora (2901 E Madison
St, 325-9100)

I’m not usually a fan of vegetarian-
switcheroo food: “Mock
chicken” simultaneously mocks chicken, tofu, and mockery. But Cafe
Flora’s veggie French dip sandwich is a miraculous exception. Meat
impersonation is kept to a minimum: The “sliced beef” is a
not-even-faintly-beefy sliced portobello mushroom (garnished with
caramelized onion and Swiss cheese), while the would-be meat-dripping
jus is an herby, salty, garlic-mushroom broth. But what matters
is the bread: an herbed baguette from Columbia City Bakery that’s
ambitiously crusty on top, fully poppy-seeded on the bottom, and of an
exactly correct sturdiness for the crucial component of a French
dip—the mini tug-of-war that accompanies each bite as the roll
softens, eventually yielding perfect jus-soaked deliciousness. The
aforementioned ambitiously crusty, fully poppy-seeded baguette
guarantees that every bite is as rewarding as the first. DAVID
SCHMADER

Reuben Sandwich, I Love New York Deli (93 Pike St #4,
381-DELI)

The New York–style delicatessen sandwich should not be upheld
as the Platonic ideal of a sandwich. Almost any sandwich can achieve
greatness—even the quotidian grilled cheese—and to hold one
type above all others is foolishness, especially if part of your
argument rests on the slippery slope of authenticity. That being said,
the Reuben at I Love New York Deli, in Pike Place Market, is
irrefutably the best sandwich in the city. In the mode of such
sandwiches, it is massive. (Overheard: “This is honestly too damn big.”
Oh, Seattle.) Likewise, it is laden with meat: three-plus inches at the
center, imported from New York City, steamed prior to being packed on.
The absurd amount of meat on a New York–style deli sandwich is
not necessarily a virtue—it can get dry or monotonous—but
this corned beef, moist and rich, is empirically good. The bread: your
choice of four kinds of rye. The sandwich is grilled on a noncommercial
electric griddle in the back of I Love New York’s tiny stand, possibly
by New York import/owner Jon Jacobs (a big sweetheart) or Elena (she of
the sonorous accent—”It’s a biiig sandwich! And a
yommy one!”). When it gets to you, it’s hot and toasty and
tangy; it’s also disintegrating under the weight of its own goodness.
You don’t even have to be especially fond of Reubens to recognize this
sandwich’s inherent awesomeness. This sandwich will convert you. BETHANY JEAN CLEMENT