Canyon bakes all their own bread (but they get bagels from House of Bagels). My Friday morning routine is to walk my dog down and buy a sourdough baguette for my daughter, they’re my favorite baguette in SF, grab one next time you are in.
I’m partial to the No. 23 - Salami and Coppa with balsamic vinaigrette, provolone, and olive tapenade on ciabatta (which used to be the No. 6 - their sandwich numbering system is a mystery to me).
the banh mi at Charles Phan’s newest - Chuck’s Takeaway.
it’s pricey, but bread is spot on - made in-house, and all the meats were fresh and delicate. only thing missing for me on this were pickled carrots/daikon.
Creamy but not too, beautiful orange-yolked eggs, and again, fresh, in-house made, pillowy bread.
I also tried Jo Jo’s Bollito last week - braised beef belly - incredibly tender, with a surprisingly spicy enough salsa verde. needed a touch of salt, but otherwise swoony in its extreme juiciness.
Is a shawarma a sandwich? Lamb and beef shawarma, Shawarmaji, Oakland, CA.
This is “arabi style” - cut up and served with tahini and toum sauces, potato salad and house pickled veggies. I remembered to ask for hot sauce this time, the shawarma needs it for the richness. Toum and pickled veggies are boldly flavored, I like that they don’t dumb things down. Prices have gone up quite bit since I was last there (before Esquire named them one of 2021’s best new restaurants).
We were there just last weekend. I really like this style, which you don’t see often–a nice change from stuffing shwarma into a pita (which would definitely be a sandwich). And it’s tasty too. I think the prices are right in line with Uptown Oakland.
Yet another really good sandwich for my review of Chuck’s Takeaway - a meatball banh mi. I am a little confused as the description lead me to believe it was an Italian-style meatball sandwich (tomato sauce) but it’s clearly not, no tomato sauce in sight. It wasn’t necessarily a Vietnamese meatball sandwich either, tho leaning more towards that - scallion-y. In any case, the Mom’s pork meatballs were the most tender I’ve encountered, and the house-made baguette again was perfect. As with a couple of his other sandwiches, this could have used a touch more salt and/or heat, but still quite delicious. Pricey ($16, 15% service charge already added to the total) but super filling. With the Thai iced tea ($4), I’m sure I’ve eaten my calories for the day.
The tuna appears to be off the menu for now, replaced by a mackerel sandwich, but when I got there they said the fish hadn’t arrived yet. They’re also having trouble with their online ordering site, so I had to walk over and order in person - you can’t call, either - but the wait was only about 5-7 minutes.
right. my lunch total was $24.99, including that service charge. definitely a splurge.
I’m sure you could but, you know, home made bread, fresh, local, organic, wild-caught seafood, pasture-raised poultry, meat without hormones, steroids, antibiotics blah blah blah does count for something, for many… sure doesn’t mean i won’t go to Saigon Sandwich, or Duc Loi, for that matter, again.
I tried the shaking beef sandwich from the Castro Dinosaurs location and it’s definitely good enough that I’ll try to check out their other sandwiches if I happen to be near them. The description says the beef is sauteed with onions but it’s a pretty light touch if so - I don’t particularly care for onions and I didn’t notice any.
I wonder if Chuck’s has increased their sandwich size - the bahn mi I had from them the second day they were open was seriously maybe 1/2 to 2/3 the size of the one in Maria’s picture. On the other hand, I was told that the beef belly sandwich was good and very filling, so maybe I just got unlucky. I’m sure I’ll be back to try the other sandwiches at some point, but it’s hard to compete on value with Duc Loi. The Chuck’s version is tasty but it does kind of feel like a fine dining take on a bahn mi.
On a side note, I live very close to the commissary, but I had no idea it was Charles Phan’s place, or that his brother runs the upholstery shop next door. During the pandemic they were running some sort of food delivery service out of an unmarked side door (probably where Chuck’s is now) and there were an awful lot of confused delivery drivers milling around on the sidewalk trying to figure out where to pick up food in those days.