1) Club Sandwich
A club sandwich is so simple, so well-proportioned, that it has topped my favorite sandwich list since before I can remember. The toasted white bread, American cheese and low-quality turkey tastes like an adult Lunchable, and that’s before adding the fatty taste of mayo-covered bacon. The best part of a club sandwich is actually the crust, where you get the best ratio of crispy bacon, cheese and mayo, without being distracted by the turkey or vegetables. Luckily for the club sandwich, it gets cut into four sections, which means four delicious pieces of crust to eat through one at a time. The club is also one of the few sandwiches where I’m actually happy to be served chips instead of fries – they just seem to pair very well.
2) Philly Cheesesteak
Before going into this one I need to admit something: I eat my cheesesteak with lettuce, tomato and mayo. Gasp! Is that even a cheesesteak? If you haven’t gathered from the above post, I like mayo, and there is no way I’m going to eat a cheesesteak without it. Find me a greasy meat and cheese sandwich that doesn’t taste better with mayo (or for you squeamish types, “aioli”) and I’ll give it a shot, but until then I’ll take my cheesesteak like a heretic. The meat on a cheesesteak, when it’s made right, is so finely chopped that every single little piece seems to get perfectly coated in cheese. Any Philly local will tell you that a huge part of the cheesesteak is the bread, and they’re right. On a good one, the best bites are towards the end, where you get slightly less meat and where the crunchy nose of the loaf has filled with gooey, cheesy juices.
3) Cuban
A Cuban sandwich may be the most polarizing one on this list, simply for the sheer number of people who dislike its staple ingredients: mustard and pickles. For those that do enjoy them (count me in!), the sandwich is delectable, a flavor cross between a salty hot dog and a grilled cheese. I’m sure the best Cubans have something to do with the way they roast the pork, but for me it all comes back to the bread and the ratio of fillings. A good Cuban should have a strong crunch, taste overwhelmingly like mustard and the pork should hardly need to be chewed. Might be my favorite sandwich on the list if only it were offered in more places.
4) Crab cake
As a Baltimore native, this had to be on the list, and I do love crab cakes… just not really on sandwiches. So this one counts mostly because crab cakes are so f*cking good that if you have to waste a bun to get one, do it. A good crab cake to me in still wet in the middle, almost like the filling was left uncooked. Otherwise, you’re left with dry crab meat, which hardly tastes like anything. I’ll never understand why the majority of crab cakes are served on brioche buns, which have way too much bread for the size of a crab cake and end up overwhelming most of the flavor, but the good places will typically serve it with crackers and call it a day. My guilty pleasure, whenever I can, is to dip my crab cake in blue cheese dressing. That alone would probably get me banned from Baltimore for life!
5) Chicken Salad
Based on the above, this should really just be titled “Chicken & Mayo – Enough Said,” but in reality chicken salad is a lot more than that. A good chicken salad has a variety of textures, like diced grapes (assuming they’re very small) and celery. That said, truly exceptional chicken salads are ones That are best not seen prepared, since there’s a direct correlation between amount of mayo and deliciousness – that’s why the best versions always look so damn creamy. “It’s not really chicken salad unless your stomach hurts after eating a lot of it” should be the sandwich’s new slogan.