I love sandwiches and have made a lot of terrific ones, but usually from scrounging in the fridge, not a "recipe" that gets repeated. There are three sandwiches I can think of having out that come to mind when I think of "memorable sandwiches" and two are egg! One is the "omelette" sandwich they had where I worked when I lived abroad, which had eggplant and other interesting things in it. The other was a fried egg sandwich I had in Los Angeles a couple of years ago, and posted about here. It was perfect! The last sandwich of the three was a French lamb sandwich at a little place near the coast here, that was dead on perfect as lamb sandwiches go. I can't name the ingredients in any of these, however. There was another defunct place in a beach town, where they had wrap sandwiches using all organic ingredients. Their veggie wrap was amazing!

This isn't a useful post, but the sandwiches were memorable. :)

ETA: Another one was from decades ago at TGIFridays. It was chicken salad (the diced chicken in mayonnaise kind) with white grape halves and some crunch bits, and iceberg lettuce, in a chimichanga. It was a seasonal offering, and so good!

I am a sandwich person for summer and winter evenings meals.

One of surprises was when I made Pioneers Woman Favorite Sandwich.

We all liked well.......Try..... Pioneers Woman's Sandwich

I didn't make it, but in my current breadless life I often remember a sandwich I had in Brussels several years ago. It was very simple, just roasted vegetables with tapenade on a ciabatta baguette, but every single thing about it was just perfect.

Once I first got mobile about a week or so ago -- I mean, that I was medically cleared to DRIVE my car -- I just really really wanted to Go Places. One place I went is this little "Irish" restaurant that has a great lunch menu. I hadn't been there before.

I ordered a shrimp and cucumber sandwich on toasted rye. (They usually serve it on a hoagie or something way over-bready for me) It was awesome!

I think I'd love a grilled asparagus sandwich -- yours sounds awesome, but too far to travel for it. Umm, maybe I should try to invent my own version here?

PS: my favorite sandwich growing up was Mom's Egg Salad sandwich. She'd hard-boil some eggs, shell them, chop them up chunky style, add mayo and mustard and curry powder, and a little chopped dill pickle, and spread this over some slices of bread. Sometimes there'd be a lettuce leaf or two in there. This was served up still WARM from the eggs just having been cooked. AWESOME! We'd have this on some weekends, or during the summer.

Recently, a ...

"Croque Monsieur/Madame $12/$13
French ham and Gruyère with béchamel
sauce; Croque Madame topped with egg
sunnyside up. Served with mixed-green salad."

A quick lunch at friends restaurant, Les Enfants De Boheme.

Easily done at home with a broiler and good ingredients.

Love the Rosy Chicken Salad at a tiny little café on site at a nursery on Bainbridge. And I don't think it's because I'm starving those days I can get there, in a hurry by then, needing to get back on the freeway after my errands and headed for home (140 miles) to beat traffic.

Chopped chicken, red onion, bit of celery, walnuts and currants served in a pita with lettuce (pita= I can eat in the car as I'm driving) ;) There may be a little berry (raspberry?) in the dressing. I've tried to duplicate and have used a sour cream dressing when I've made it, not quite the same but close....

I have a long time memory of a hamburger in some little joint in Florida, near Palm Beach...but far away from the hype. it was simply a beautiful burger on a perfect bun, with lettuce and an amazing topping made from chopped sweet onion and chopped kosher dill pickle....and maybe somethign else!
And Then there was the place in some little berg in Iowa, half way between Des Moines and KC, that served the biggest and the best pork tenderloin. When I would go to KC I would drive hungry for about ah hour and a half so I could get one of those tenderloins.....but one time I stopped....and it had closed....nothing there!! No breakfast.....thought I would faint before I found something to eat!

The best sandwich I make is veal cacciatore. I first ate them at the Italian Catholic Church summer festival in our town when I was a girl. By my teen years, I searched out the woman who made them and asked her to teach me. They're cubed veal, slivered onions, green and red peppers, and quartered mushrooms cooked in marinara sauce and served on crusty rolls.

Well, there was that lobster roll in Maine, but I've never made one myself. I also eat ONE tomato sandwich per year, when the tomatoes in the garden are ripe. Occasionally I'll eat a Rueben or BLT but I'm not crazy about sandwiches, there's just too much bread for me. I like bread, I'll have a slice of toast with an egg for breakfast and had an open faced egg salad sandwich last night, but one slice of bread is sufficient. I'd just as soon have a slice of bread to dunk into my chili as have a grilled cheese sandwich. I'm not a huge fan of wraps either. Yeah, I know, I'm weird.

So, I guess I'm not helpful either.

Annie

There's this sandwich I had in Europe years ago: 2 rather thin slices of whole wheat bread spread with a very thick layer of very good butter, with extremely thin smoked bacon rashers in between. One delicious fat with another delicious fat - just my thing, plus I was starving when I bought it.

I'm not that into sandwiches for some reason....probably because so much bread, the commercial stuff, is more like sawdust than anything resembling food. When we eat out, it's usually a convenience thing vs being a destination/ experience. But there are a few that stand out in my memory...

There was that Hattie Burger in a roadside cafe in Mooreland, OK many years ago...the perfect griddled greasy-spoon burger that, even then, was a disappearing wonder. More recently, a wonderful Kobe beef burger in a bistro here in Wisconsin. Last winter, DH ordered a wonderful Mexican grilled beef torta at El Zarape's in Yuma. I had ordered tacos so I had only a taste...:-( I don't remember what combination of ingredients was in DH's sandwich but I do remember the excellent, excellent beef on that sammie. It was one of those beef experiences where you say: "I want the rest of the cow that this meat came off of!"

And the all-time best were the stuffed sopapillas at the Elkhorn Cafe in Pagosa Springs. Seasoned crumbled ground beef stuffed into a yeasty, just-fried sopapilla and smothered in green chile sauce. That was years & years ago but I still remember those stuffed sopapillas and still crave them.

The theme here is that, with the exception of the sopapillas, all those memorable sandwiches were made with excellent, excellent beef. (El Zarape's touts that they use Prime Angus.) With the sopapillas, the yeasty sopapilla & green chile sauce were what elevated the meal to near nirvana.

My all time favorite sandwich was a veggie wrap from a little beach side deli in Reddington, FL. It had tomato, red onion, lettuce, avocado, sprouts, cucumber and few other veggies. The veggies were very fresh and cold, the sauce was amazing and the multi grain wrap/flatbread was homemade on the premises each day. Perfect lunch for a day at the beach! It's been 20+ years and I still think about that sandwich. I ate it every lunch for a week! LOL

My memorable sandwich is being able to cross-country ski first and then have a day nice enough to crank up the grill in the snow... grill some portabellas and/or eggplant, then make sandwiches of choice with things like sliced tomatoes, roasted red peppers, fresh basil, and cheese. yum! Haven't done this in a long time.... too long! it's on my list! :)

ETA: tried this recently, and it would probably go great with these sandwiches! Chipotle Aioli

Does anyone else notice that we've nearly all associated a special place or experience with our memorable sandwich? ;^)

My dear MIL loved, loved the Maid-Rite loose meat sandwiches in Iowa, where she lived. They opened a store around Portland OR a few years after she moved there and was in total heaven. I was not impressed, at all, at all. She tried to duplicate it at home and decided the secret ingredient was root beer. I still didn't care for it much.

My all time favorite is Monte Cristo. Ham, turkey, Swiss and Dijon inside Brioche slices that is dipped in French toast's eggs and milk and grilled, and then to dip in maple syrup per bite. Haven't had that for a very long time. Never had the original croque-monsieur with ham and Gruyere because I've never been to France, where it was originally baked not fried, as bistro fare, in the early 1900's. Hmmm, I may have decided what's for lunch today.

Another is the Reuben, anywhere, anytime. There is a tiny deli in the next little town whose owners had a big deli in NY and know how to make it perfectly. We visit often.

My best sandwich ever was at Zingermans Deli in Ann Arbor, Michigan. My daughter and I were doing a college tour and had walked all morning around the campus and city and we were both super hungry by lunchtime. I chose Abra's Nutty Yard Bird.

Chicken salad (chunks of hand-cut Amish chicken, mayo, onion, celery) & Garden Works locally grown organic sunflower sprouts on lightly toasted pecan raisin bread from the Bakehouse.

Alas, my daughter is not choosing to attend the University of Michigan so I doubt I will ever eat at Zingerman's again.

I was
raised in Tampa so Cuban sandwiches are a staple whether a grab and go,
party platter, or lunch at a Cuban restaurant, it's the norm. There are
so many great Cuban restaurants but of late I get my Cubans at
Brocato's on Tampa.

My other favorite is my grandmother's Italian sub. Every day she made a stack of them to sell in their store--DiCicco Groceries in New Hampshire. My dad called them guinea grinders. I grew up with them; I hope that I have come close to replicating her subs.

Before cholesterol was invented, my favorite sammich was pan-fried Spam on toasted Jewish rye with mayo and a slice of tomato.

Well, nothing like a good lobster roll. We plan our road trip so we hit our favorite in Bethel, NovaScotia...

So many in NYC. Katz's. It is a meal and a half. Stuck in the city in a hotel room...ate barely half...the rest fed us all weekend.

Katz's was a "must" whenever I worked in NYC. With their prices, it was good that I was on an expense account.

Latest memorable: We've been on a kimchi kick lately (I finally figured out how to make decent kimchi). A couple of weeks ago DH had me try the sandwich he'd made for lunch...Dave's Killer bread, a little mayo, ham and sharp cheddar, and kimchi. Ohmy it was good. So last week we threw the same sandwich in the panini press. He's been into shredded cheese on the outside of his grilled cheese, so he sprinkled one side before grilling. Even better.

Most memorable: A slab of Dad's home grown (probably beefsteak) tomatoes and Best Foods mayo on Wonder bread. Sometimes my mom would gussie them up with some iceberg lettuce. Not necessary.

Other most memorable: l make these once in awhile...Peanut butter, honey, banana, raisins and sprouts on whole grain bread. What can I say?...it was the 70's.

Lobster rolls are on my bucket list.

Cleo, Zingerman's does have mail order, you can get a Reuben "kit" for only $100. Ahem. President Obama says the Reubens are "killer", and Oprah says on a scale of 1 to 10, they're an 11. Food and Wine magazine says they're the best Reuben in America. Mario Batali calls Zingerman's his "temple of deliciousness".

I live in Michigan. So, all the times I've been in Ann Arbor, did I ever have one? Nope. I just couldn't pay $15.50 for a sandwich and I was far too impatient to ever wait in the line they had on weekends while I was there, so the only thing I've ever eaten from Zingerman's was the ginger gelato! I guess I should have tried lunch. And now they have a new sandwich that contains hot pickled beef tongue...

Annie

I used to love the veggie baguette at Cafe Fanny (now closed, co-owned by Alice Waters). It was often copied, but never duplicated.

I love a good banh mi and a good lobster roll. I love the little chicken tikka baguettes that I could get in Switzerland.

I always order a Farmer's grilled cheese at a place near our loft (grilled Tillamook on cheddar with over easy egg, bacon and thin slices of yukon gold). That one is easy to replicate at home....

Now, I'm hungry.

Both in Mountain Brook, AL: the "Meg Special" at Wanda June's restaurant (roast beef base, homemade sauce, absolutely delicious by all who had he pleasure of tasting it; mom & pop place run out of business by big corp. Another establishment named Browdy's who featured the "Steve's Special Steak Sandwich" (ribeye sandwich with caramelized onions, Colby/Jack cheese, oh-my-goodness taste that could not be reproduced at home, except by my employer (tee! hee!). Will have to request she make some soon ;-D Y'all shut up, already!!

Old Zingerman's (I was in Ann Arbor in 1986 - 1987). Pastrami with chopped liver. I loved that sandwich, had it once a month. I didn't see it on the menu when I was there in October of 2014, but the place had changed so much, and the bus tours coming in intimidated me. I did like the lunch that I had at Zingerman's Roadhouse.

I just bought my annual beef tongue "sandwich" from Harold's Deli in Edison, NJ. You buy a "sandwich", but for take out you get approx. 1.5 lbs of meat, 1/2 loaf of rye bread, small container of cole slaw, mustard, and pickles. Enough to feed 4+. If you eat in the restaurant, you order the meat, then go up to the bread and pickle bar to load up (they have pickled tomatoes on the pickle bar).

The pastrami with chopped liver at Zingerman's was a thing of wonder (and heart attacks, but, whatever). It wasn't on the menu when I was back there a year or so ago. I was crushed.

I had a great breakfast sandwich at a total little hole in the wall cafe
driving across California from Tahoe back to San Francisco last
summer. Split and griddle fried linguinca sausage, whole fried egg, and
cheese on toasted rye that was then grilled again (like a patty melt).
Insanely good. Greasy. But insanely good. Instantantly became the
best breakfast sandwich we had ever consumed.

When the garden tomatoes are at their peak (usually around the first or second week in August), I hold my annual BLT party. Homegrown heirloom tomatoes, homemade bread, pesto mayonaise, 15 or so pounds of bacon and all the usual summer garden sides for anywhere between 20 and 50 people. While there are many great sandwiches, a BLT like that is just the best.

I worked at a sandwich shop when I was a teenager. My favorite sandwich was not on the menu and I don't remember how or why I starting eating this when I worked. Wheat berry bread ( very important) cream cheese with a sprinkle of golden raisins and alfalfa sprouts. I haven't made this sandwich in ages but I think I must do since I have been thinking about it even before this thread showed-up.

I love sandwiches. A local (now sadly defunct) place made a red rueben that was wonderful. Pittsburgh's pride Primanti's is pretty darned good too if heart stopping.

For make at home sandwiches we really like this one Turkey Sammie.

Fun read! My fave is a NY corner deli Bacon, Egg, and Cheese on a hard roll...salt pepper ketchup (one word basically lol). Simple ingredients but just not the same anywhere else.

in recent travels...Chicago Beef at Ravinia...

Philly Cheesesteak at Jims South Street...all about the bread! Insane!

And no pic but a street fried oyster po boy outside of jazz fest in NOLA last April was heaven.

Oh my.....almost forgot.....Grilled Taylor ham with lettuce and tomato on a hard roll, with mayo!....Best at any number of Jersey diners.

Aside from a deli Reuben, I didn't think I liked restaurant sandwiches all that much. Guess I was wrong! These all sound wonderful.

My homemade favourites are Italian Beef, and mozzarella slices and fresh Basil leaves on ciabatta bread grilled in olive oil with a hint of garlic salt. Oh. And spam'n'eggers on English muffins. Well, then there's fried peppers in tomato sauce on Italian bread. And then there's Italian sausage with giardiniara, no tomato sauce. Plus, oh never mind. I'm hungry!

Sheesh

Fawnridge, I too had many fried spam sandwiches as a kid. But it of course it was on Wonder bread (I'm a card-carrying white-trash redneck) and Miracle Whip. (Oh, yeah, and Velveeta cheese.) Mustangs81, I too grew up in Tampa with the Cuban sandwiches, also had to have a stuffed potato or deviled crab with it. But believe it or not, the little town North of Tampa and just south of me in Brooksville - (Masaraktown) makes Cuban sandwiches that beat all in Tampa. When we first went there I said to DH, oh, boy, I can imagine what this is going to be up here in BFE. I was amazed at how good they were.

Thanks to all who posted. I never imagined what a variety of delicious and interesting sandwiches would result on this thread.

My very first memorable sandwich was at age six when my aunt took me to the Crystal Room at John Wanamaker's in Philadelphia. We had tea sandwiches, which to my amazement had the entire crust cut off the bread!!! They were triangles of three alternating slices of wheat and white bread. One kind was pimiento cream cheese and ham salad; the other, olive cream cheese and egg salad.

This started a lifelong love of tea sandwiches and I've made at least a thousand of them in my lifetime, in addition to visiting tearooms to try new varieties of them. Best this year was cranberry butter with smoked turkey and baby arugula.

maggie2094, Jim's! Yes! Visitors to Philly should go to Jim's or John's Roast Pork.

ruthanna_gw The Crystal Room at Wanamaker's was lovely. My first taste of caviar was there when I was a youngster. So fancy!

Rita, I had family in Masaryktown and Brooksville so I am familiar with the area but didn't know about the Cubans. I take the grands to the corn maze in Masaryktown, I'll have to check out the Cubans.

Brocato's has the BEST stuffed potatoes or deviled crabs! We should met up there...then I can go to IKEA too.

I also associate certain specific sandwiches with places: Tortas in Mexico City, Muffulettas in New Orleans, Anton's Armenian Po' Boys with Houston. I've never had a lobster roll, and so I feel like I'm deprived. I recently bought a restaurant quality meat slicer, and so I make my own deli style sandwiches at home, using turkey breast that we smoke at home as well. I also use the slicer to slice Italian salami paper thin.

Last night I made empandas and the night before I made calzone, both of which are sort of like sandwiches, since they are made with bread dough. For picnics, I make a type of braided calzone with cold cuts inside and have it cold.

Other favorite sandwiches include falafel and Reuben, but I do not associate either of those with specific places. I like a lot of sandwiches made with pita bread, especially with grilled chicken, Greek or Lebanese style. I'm not fond of hamburgers, however, generally because there are so many better alternatives.

Cuban for me too. I made Cuban pork one time but the highlight was the sandwich the next day. It was so good. I would imagine an authentic one would be better but I did my best to replicate.

Mustangs81, the name of the place is Cafe Masaryktown, on the main drag, a big, old yellow house converted. I guess it was a hotel once upon a time. The Cubans there are always pressed, and they don't come with lettuce and tomato which I don't think they should, but I suppose if you insist they will. They have the Cuban pork in them. I remember there were some of the so-called Cuban sandwich places in Tampa that didn't even put the pork in them.

Rita, Thanks, I have been to Cafe Masaryktown! But didn't think to order a Cuban...right?!

Agree, we don't consider it a real Cuban sandwich unless it has pork. The place here in Lutz that we have been going to presses first then adds L&T.

I grew up right by Masaryktown in Springhill! small world. My son was born in Brooksville. I used to show my horses at the fair grounds just south of Brooksville. I agree if you grew up in the Tampa area nothing beats a cuban sandwich. I think it is born into us :) There used to be a place in Springhill and small little store that sold spanish and indian food and they made the best steak sandwiches ever. I have tried and tried to make them at home but could never get them right.

First thing I did when I moved back to the area this summer was take a drive to see if the store was still there but sadly it isn't.

Also 2 places in Chicago have the best Beef sandwiches ever. Boston's and Portillos combination italian beef with italian sausage in them soooo good.

April, Welcome back to the area!! My granddaddy was sheriff of Brooksville.

We should get together for a...sandwich luncheon. Others on the CF can vouch for me, I'm not dangerous.

Yes Mustangs! I have not forgotten our Trader Joes date either, life has seriously gotten away from me since I moved back. I have either been at the doctors which I spend a lot of time at, sick or recently and upcomming hosting friends who I haven't seen since I moved away 20 years ago and catching up on the activities I have missed so much like going to the State Fair last weekend and enjoying the Strawberry festival which will be here soon. I also plan to go to the MacDill airshow which was something my grandfather and I did together when I was a child.

In April I have 3 straight weeks of company coming 1 set comes in first week of April leaves the 9th and the next set comes in the 10th of April leaving the 20th whew.

I will be attending the Food and Wine Festival at Busch Gardens first week in March do you go to that at all? Also going to the Bands, Brew and Que at Sea World next weekend.

The last weekend in March I do plan to do a Wholefoods and Trader Joe shop in Tampa I believe off of Dale Mabry to prepare for the incomming company I will have maybe we could plan to meet up then, do some shopping and have some lunch?

Tofu sauteed in light olive oil until crisp with soy and nutritional yeast seasonings, good mayo, avacado slices and sprouts on pita bread. Sounds dull, but it's not.

Wow--what a schedule! We will shoot for the end of March. Whole Foods and TJ's aren't too far from each other and both are on Dale Mabry.