From Jerusalem street classics to Vietnamese banh mi made with proper bread, your guide to unheard-of handheld satisfactions
Sandwiches are the daily bread of Buffalonians and other Americans, for their combination of versatility, affordability, and portability.
If you’re hankering for a Danny’s Favorite on sesame with seasoned oil, you probably know where to find a Wegmans. Where Four Bites may make your eating better starts with identifying sandwich options you might not know about.
My goal is to fill the blind spots in your map of the eating environment. Toward that end, I would commend these estimable purveyors of handheld satisfaction to your attention, in six categories of excellence.
Italian
8202 Main St., Clarence, louiesdeli.com, 716-632-4906
Hours: 9:30 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday. Closed Sunday, Monday.
Turned on to Louie’s by tastespotter and fish fry whisperer Dave Lyman, it’s been my Little Italy safe place ever since. Louis Yanello and crew bread their own cutlets, marinate their own eggplant, and run up an assortment of stuffed breads (muffaletta, royal, habanero-powered Cry Baby) weekly.
Puerto Rican
800 Tonawanda St., thehouseofsandwich.com, 716-342-2684
Hours: 8 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday-Wednesday, 8 a.m.-8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, 9 a.m.-6 p.m Sunday.
You probably know about Niagara Cafe’s Puerto Rican reliable comfort food, and you might know about the excellent panaderia La Flor Bakery across Niagara Street. But if you don’t head north to Riverside to visit House of Sandwich, I would suggest that you have not encountered the best boricuan efforts in my jurisdiction. Consider the range of the build-your-own tripleta. The counterwoman’s suggestion of chicken, pastrami, pernil made my whole week.
Buffalonian
Mayback’s Deli
1598 Niagara Falls Blvd., Tonawanda, see menu here, 716-835-0115
Hours: 10 a.m.-7:30 p.m. Monday-Saturday. Closed Sunday.
A recent online stinger discussion prompted me to write this guide, because so many of the eaters who sink into the chain restaurant tarpits on the Amherst side of Niagara Falls Boulevard never heard of Maybacks. As impossible as that may sound to those who rely on its Buffalo-calibrated sandwich wheelhouse, the club, stinger, and chicken onion cheesesteak, it’s true.
Vietnamese
2940 Union Road, Cheektowaga, phamskitchen716.com, 716-901-7663
Hours: 9 a.m.-8 p.m. Monday-Saturday. Closed Sunday.
Crackly-tender bread baked every morning makes Pham’s a welcome addition to the Western New York must-eat sandwich tour. Ngoc Lan Nguyen and Vincent Duong Pham make their own charcuterie (liver pate, Vietnamese bologna, headcheese) for the Special, which is still just $7.75 as of this writing.
South American
5835 Buffalo St., Sanborn, tortugasandwich.com, 716-216-6003
Hours: 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday. CLosed Sunday.
Ten minutes from Exit 24 on I-190, Tortuga is closer than Sanborn sounds. Get your traveling clothes on and you won’t be sorry you made it to Tortuga. It’s a sandwich shop in name only, since each carefully calibrated South American payload can also be a salad, grain bowl, or wrap. Don’t sleep on the alfajores, butter sandwich cookies filled with dulce de leche and rolled in coconut.
ISRAELI
3545 Sheridan Drive, Amherst, thefalafelbar.com, 716-436-7000
11 a.m.-8 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday. Closed Monday.
Oded Rauvenpoor’s Israeli background stands out in his chicken schnitzel, crispy as it gets and sprinkled with sesame seeds. Get it Israeli style with honey mustard, or in lettuce, tomato, onion, hot sauce, and blue cheese dressing, as is the local custom. Or indulge in Western New York’s only example of sabih, a genius Israeli street meal of fried eggplant, chopped hardboiled egg, falafel, salad, tahini, and amba, a savory sauce of Baghdadi Jewish origin made of pickled green mango, fenugreek, and more.
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