More bacon, more eggs

I said I'd explore more breakfast-as-lunch options and I did not lie.

I've found a better option for Bacon and Egg Salad Sandwiches in the Kew Gardens area thanks to the ever-wise Bryan, who ordered an egg salad sandwich with bacon from our office's friends next door last week. Although not perfect, Friends offers several advantages over Redwood's comparable mega club sandwich. Such as ...

1. Humility. Redwood is all pomp and circumstance with its giant dish, quartered wedges, coleslaw in the middle, etc. Friends' version is wrapped in paper and foil and tossed in a paper sack. Simple, effective.

2. Price. $3.80 for the egg salad on a roll plus $1.50 for bacon. Admittedly, this is too much money just to add bacon, but all together, it's still cheaper than what you get across the street.

3. No portion ambiguity. This one's abstract but important, so allow me to explain. Friends gives you what is clearly one meal's worth of food. Redwood gives you about 1.4 meals. Two wedges aren't quite enough. Three would be about right, but that leaves you with a fourth wedge, which is definitely too much. You must choose the lesser of two bad choices at Redwood: split the sandwich in half and have two not-quite-enough meals. Or, power through, and eat $7 worth of egg salad sandwich.

So it's established -- Friends is the place to go for a breakfasty sandy. When Queens Blvd. thaws, I expect I'll venture out to distant delis in search of new lunch choices. Rumor has it that there's a Friends II, or maybe it's called Friends III, down the road. I don't think they're connected to the more familiar Friend's next door, but it might be worth a vist once temperatures climb above freezing. Until then, I'll be eating my Bacon and Eggs and Grilled Cheese and Tomatoes from next door when I fail to bring leftovers.

I joined the club today

I'm not normally a fan of the club sandwich, but I couldn't resist today. I walked into Redwood Deli knowing I wanted two things: egg salad and bacon. It's as if I were pregnant and egg salad and bacon were pickles and ice cream.

I had a feeling Redwood might have something along those lines, since they have about 20 menus on display. They added another one recently — the "stimulus" breakfast menu, featuring pancakes and something containing acai berries. Eventually I found what I believe was called the Bacon and Egg Salad club, and of course ordered it.

Despite being tainted with hateful amounts of filler lettuce, I enjoyed Redwood's bacon-egg sandwich thing with pickles. The bread was toasted and the egg salad was plentiful. It occurred to me that an egg salad sandwich with bacon and toast is essentially breakfast for lunch. While I refuse to eat lunch or dinner for breakfast (see reheated pizza), I wholeheartedly support breakfast meals for all-hour consumption.

What Redwood's done here is lunchize a bacon, eggs and toast breakfast, and I salute them. If they invent a lunchy sandwich involving pancakes and bacon, hugs are in order.

Will I continue to pay $8 for four wedges of bacon and egg goodness centered by coleslaw? No. Will I seek a way to pay far less for a way to eat eggs and bacon together for lunch for cheap? Yes. Stay tuned.

Scratching another sandy off the list

For someone who considers himself a huge fan of both sandwiches and Vietnamese food, I've been slacking on the bánh mì front. The bánh mì is the definitive Vietnamese sandwich and its popularity soared in 2008 judging by the number of times I read about it in food geek blogs and articles.

Well I tried it and I liked it. In San Diego, a local expert took me to Hamilton's Tavern, where they dish up the "Banh From The Pubs" sandwich. My understanding of the bánh mì is that it must be made of a baguette stuffed with Vietnamese ingredients. By this possibly inaccurate definition, Hamilton's sandy probably meets the standard. As the menu says, it was a (sic) "lovingly crafted version of a Vietnamese Banh Mi. it's tasty, its cute, its healthy, its a mix of CUCUMBERS, CARROT AND DAIKON SLAW, RED ONION, FRESH BASIL, CILANTRO, daveys PCS SAUCE and oh yeah ITS VEGAN!!!!!! With PUB CHIPS whooo!"

Excessive excitement aside, the sandy tasted good. It was like I took a Vietnamese noodle bowl and stuffed as much of it as would fit inside of a halved baguette, which is a good thing. Now the challenge is to find the real deal in NY. My esteemed colleague and Vietnamese connoisseur Kim has gone to great lengths to find quality pho in this big city; will the A+ bánh mì be as hard to find? Does anyone understand why New York City's Thai and Vietnamese offerings lag behind those of Denver? Next up I'll check out Banh Mi Saigon Bakery at 138 Mott St. thanks to a tip on SeriousEats by user Dragonguy.

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