What happened was we decided to find five places in the neighborhood, actually four in the neighborhood and one outside the neighborhood… Brian: but not too far away – George: and check out their sandwiches. This was at lunchtime on different days, and each of us had half the sandwich. The idea was to go to these places and ask the people who worked there to give us their favorite sandwich.
George: The first place we went to was F & M Cafe and Restaurant, which is here on Van Brunt Street not far from the office. Frankie made us his favorite sandwich, which was… Brian: The Ruben. George: Describe the Reuben sandwich. Brian: Usually I don’t like sauerkraut that much, but it had sauerkraut, corned beef, Russian dressing, and cheese. I like that it was toasted. Somehow, the sauerkraut fit in really nicely, so in this case I did like it. George: To me what was the best thing about it was the warm sauerkraut, which was a sour taste, and the delicious taste of the corned beef and I think it had mustard?
Brian: Russian Dressing. George: Oh, wait a minute, we can’t really say Russian Dressing anymore… how about Ukrainian type dressing? Brian: how about European – Asianish Dressing.
George: I can’t think of anything wrong about this sandwich. Brian: Me too. George: Even better than a hot dog!
George: The second place, we went to this place because of an article last April in the NY Post that talked about a bodega in Red Hook which has become an international Tik Tok success. Brian: Yes, we went to the Red Hook Food Corp to get a sandwich from Ocky. George: Yes, we asked for a sandwich the Ocky Way. Ocky, by the way, is from Yemen.
Then we listened to the video of Ocky describing his sandwich. Ocky: So, we got a chopped cheese the Ocky Way which is basically a burger, we chop it up with peppers, some of our seasonings, you got mozzarella sticks, bacon, spinach, and tomatoes, and we add the mixed cheese, on the Jamaican patty, which is basically the Ocky Way! And as always, you’ve got to have the Bev! George: I picked Yoo Hoo.
Brian: Now this was a big sandwich! George: Did you look at the Tik-Tok Videos? Brian: yes… they are quite entertaining. He has all kinds of sandwiches in the. Some have marshmallows, some had candy…. But I like the mozzarella sticks. (here we start looking at some of the photos we took). Brian: Look at the height of that one! George: Yeah, three breads. Brian: Subways has foot long sandwiches, they have foot high ones! George: So here’s the thing. We took this sandwich, we walked out to Bush Clinton Park, sat town on a bench in back of the big swimming pool, actually, and we opened the sandwich, and it was unbelievably heavy, and it was unbelievably juicy, lets say, and having a sandwich in a Jamaican patty was unusual… and I happen to like the jalapeno peppers… Brian: I like the mozzarella sticks a lot. George: Yes, that was an amazing touch… all in all it was such a meld of different flavors.. bacon, I remember the bacon, it had one green thing, Brian: That was the spinach.
Brian: But the fact is we each ate it because it was so good, but by the time we walked back to the office, at least for me it was feeling a little heavy in my stomach… Brian: I usually eat dinner at like 6 o’clock, but that night I couldn’t eat anything til around 9. George: Well, what happened to me was… lets just say I spent a lot of time in the bathroom that night. And even the next day I had to have, like, light food. Brian: It was a serious sandwich!
George: The next day we went to a traditional Red Hook place that’s celebrating their 100th anniversary this year, called DeFontes. Everybody knows Defontes.
Brian: We had the Nicky Special. Hot salad, pastrami, ham, capocollo, provolone. George: This was a sandwich that was the perfect sandwich after the sandwich with everything fatty and hard on the stomach, to eat. This was a good sandwich for the stomach, it seemed that way to me, because you had vegetables, you had mushrooms, you had carrots, you had celery, in a very nice marinated style with a nice vinegary taste. The hot salad, which Defontes makes themselves, made it unique, at least in my long life experience eating sandwiches. Brian: It tasted very fresh, like if you had just picked the stuff from a garden… George: This sandwich was humongous, and the bread was good too! Brian: It’s the biggest sandwich I’ve ever seen! One half of the sandwich was bigger than most full sandwiches. (We look at a closeup).
Brian: You know what… did I taste cucumbers on it too? George: Yeah, and also, don’t forget this… EGGPLANT! Gently fried eggplant. Brian: Yes, the eggplant was the key! George: It was reminiscent of mozzarella sticks slightly… but more refined. George: With the cucumbers and all, this was about the healthiest sandwich that you could possibly eat, if you’re going to have a sandwich. Brian: Yes, it had a lot of healthy stuff.
George: It doesn’t quite qualify as vegan, because of the capocollo and ham and stuff like that, so Eric Adams couldn’t eat it, but maybe he could take out the meat and still enjoy it. Brian: Tremendous eggplant! George: OK, Defontes, lets say it’s different than the other sandwiches, but lets say so far we have two of them no complaints at all, the third one the only complaint was maybe a little too fatty…. Maybe our stomachs weren’t exactly ready for it. Brian: But all very good. George: A very good mélange of flavors in each one.
George: So then, we took the car this time to a place on Myrtle Avenue called Farmer in the Deli, that features something I had never heard about before: Chopped Sandwiches. You see how they take everything from the sandwich and chop and chop and chop, unbelievable amounts of chopping, and then put it in the hero (looking at video and pointing). George: : I think that’s a chopped cheese – we’ll have to go back for that someday, but what we had, at the suggestion of a fellow customer, was a chopped hamburger. So look at that – he cooked the hamburger and then chopped it up, and then added what seemed like Velveeta – a very soft cheese, and I see lettuce in there, Brian: and tomato, and then mayo. George: It looks unbelievably luscious. Brian: And the bread was toasted, a toasted hero.
George: You know what.. we have to do this every week! I would say my experience at Farmer in the Deli was like eating a very good Whopper or Big Mac on a hero, and lots of it. Brian: It was almost like a Philly cheesesteak, but different. George: So we’ll put that maybe slightly below the other places, but an unbelievably good lunch.
George: The last place we went to was in easy walking distance from the office, a place called Edward’s Lunch. They feature lots of things besides sandwiches, but for this day we got the Cuban sandwich. The difference between this and the others is that it wasn’t just toasted, but it was put in something that modern people call panini makers, but if you go to South America, they have them all over the place, two pieces of metal that press and heat the sandwich at the same time. Brian: yeah, they had lots of other stuff like empanadas, rice and beans, chicken – it’s a full restaurant with tables.
George: I couldn’t resist adding something to our sandwich order – the avocado salad. In fact, I feel like having it again right now – I have to go back. This was the healthiest part, even though technically it wasn’t part of the sandwich. Brian: it went really well with the sandwich too. George: Better for you than fries. So here’s the sandwich – what do you see. Brian: Pickles, you got cheese, maybe swiss cheese, ham, lots of pork. George: It’s a traditional Cuban sandwich. Brian:Really good!
A very good experience! George: Say goodbye!
For the full story of this walking tour through sandwich heaven, check out our original unfiltered recording at
https://youtu.be/c1gMmdTVLO8
