Mercy, I love those. Was that in the Saigon mall that had the grocery with all the live fish? I used to go there and order a whole roast duck to go for $5. The little old lady behind the counter would whack it apart with a cleaver then put it in a round aluminum pan with a cardboard top. The whole time, she was muttering to herself and clearly pissed at me for being in there. But the duck was definitely worth it.
Worst. Sandwich. Ever.
I still have to buy them, though. My sis thinks they're heaven-sent.
I used to go to Detroit a lot. A bit north of the city, there's a large collection of the diaspora and more hellacious good delis than I could possibly ever visit. If I lived there, I'd weigh a thousand pounds.
I still treat myself to one every month or so. Soooooo good.
Good choice.
Almost all the sandwiches above are pretty close to my favorite. Add in some quality BBQ (fatty and burnt ends and pieces of brisket, rough chopped, with just a little sauce, on a buttered and toasted bun) plus a particular few deli and Vietnamese sandwiches and you probably have my top 10 sandwiches that I can get today.
The original question, though, was "favorite sandwich".
I have one favorite sandwich. I ate it when I was 18 years old.
My dad and I were at a pistol match in Uvalde, Texas. We'd been so busy we'd forgotten about lunch. Mom had made us breakfast sandwiches but we had eaten those on the way to the match.
We were both leaning up against the car, starving, hot, dusty, sweaty, and about ready to leave just to get food even tough we really wanted to stay and shoot some more. I went into the car to get our last water and I saw some plastic on the seat. I pulled it out. It seems one of those breakfast sandwiches, scrambled eggs on white toast with a little mayo, had gone down the seat and I had sat on it during the drive to the match. It had been in that hot car for hours and not in the cooler where it belongs.
The two of us split our last water and split that flattened, soggy, been-in-the-car-all-morning-in-the-hot-summer-sun sandwich. I can still remember the two of us, dog-tired, completely silent, savoring every bite as we stood next to each other, leaning against the car. At some level, even my teenage self realized that life could never be better than that moment. A couple of years later, Dad was gone.
That was the single best sandwich I've ever had in my entire life. Nothing in this life can ever top it.
