Also, I meant to add that we love Semolina Kitchen in Medford, basically on the Tufts campus. It’s an outpost of Dave’s Pasta in Davis Sq Somerville, and they have the Dave’s pasta and high quality charcuterie. We love to go for an early Saturday lunch. The meatball sub is great but we like the meatballs so much we get them in the appetizer form, with some great ricotta and garlic toasts. The Italian sandwich is amazing. I don’t eat cold cuts, this isn’t cold cuts, but their own charcuterie. We get it pressed with extra hot peppers. Best sandwich ever, for us.
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No need to panic. MFD is closed – just for their annual July 4 break. Quirkily, just when people want meat, they take off – every year. They’ll reopen on July 9, and are staying put till the fall, when they do plan to relocate.
Nothing to see here.
Thanks. I do now remember this from past years…they close right before July 4 when people want to grill??? I would hope for sandwiches, too, but might require dedicated staff for that as opposed to running that huge machine to cut through meat with bones.
it ain’t much to look at, but their roast beef sandwich is the best one around imo. fried seafood also pretty aces.
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How’s their lobster roll?
Was going to try Semolina this evening but they are closed, as is Mae, and Futago Udon… Argh, feed me and take my money!
4th of July week closures aplenty, we’re finding.
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yep, Dave’s Pasta often closes for long holiday weekends, and neither DP nor Semolina Kitchen are open on Sundays…so extra long weekend for them. Juliet in Somerville is closed for a week and I think smaller places, it’s not that uncommon.
Semolina Kitchen stops serving sandwiches at 5 pm when they are open, Mon - Sat. Recently some of the dinner entree specials have become available at lunch, at least on Saturdays when we go for lunch. So if you want a sandwich, go for lunch.
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I recently had a fantastic lobster roll at the Saltie Girl counter in the Time Out market. It was fairly expensive ($28? I don’t remember exactly) and not particularly big, but wow was it good. They offer both warm (“maine lobster, griddled brioche bun, butter sauce”) and cold (“maine lobster, griddled brioche bun, house mayo”). Mine was the warm version.
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Thanks. Was the market crowded, or did you go at an off-peak time?
It was on a Friday between 5:00 and 6:00. It was surprisingly (considering the pre-concert crowd at Fenway that was jamming everything in Kenmore) not too crowded. I think it’s just far-enough away and unobtrusive enough to not be mobbed by that. By 6 it was filling up a bit but still manageable.
I am always surprised to hear people complain about the quality of the food at Sam LaGrassa’s. I usually can’t help but wonder what they order. Quality pastrami is my favorite meat for a sandwich. If there is a better pastrami on light rye with spicy mustard than Sam LaGrassa’s in all of New England, I would like to know about it. Nothing I have had has some close. That being said, not the same ballpark as Katz.
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I tried the Italian at Jackson’s ant it was very good. Now, this is about the fourth Italian I have ever had. It had a good selection of charcuteries and the bread was good. When I got there, Jackson looked at me and asked if my name was Peter? Turns out he remembered me from Breakers poolroom in Woburn where I used to hang out. This was a long time ago and pre beard.
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That’s amazing!
What I’m about to say isn’t about “notable” sandwiches, as such, more about mediocre ones, but “Mediocre sandwiches in the Boston area” does not seem thread-worthy.
It’s remarkable how many places make somewhat bad sandwiches – not spectacularly bad, just lacking in some way. The bread is either too thick, or (more often) the fillings overly-elaborate, and too-fussy. It’s getting harder and harder to find a good, simple turkey sandwich (with meat that comes from a single bird, not pressed together from a flock), or one with house-roasted beef. Composed sandwiches now rule the day.
Hi-Rise used to have well-composed sandwiches, by and large, but their new sandwich menu sucks. I’ve had two or three so far and they’ve been bland (undersalted on every occasion), awkward to eat and very expensive. For $13.25, for example, you get a tuna sandwich with watery tuna not quite held together by a smidgen of mayo and slices of hardboiled egg on a doughy roll. A halfhearted attempt had been made to cut it down the middle, but the effort had stopped when the knife hit the bottom layer of bread. One bite and the filling started to crumble out. Their kids sandwiches used to be good value in the class of the simple sandwiches that I like: for five bucks you once got a decent amount of turkey or ham between two slices of good challah, with a mustard or mayo on the side. Now they charge $6.75 and the filling has been reduced to two thin splices of meat.
The sandwiches at Flour are a mixed bag. They have a very good roastbeef sandwich, elevated by crunchy fried onions and horseradish mayo, but the greens that also come in the sandwich are very variable in quantity. Sometimes they’re the right amount needed to balance the sandwich, at others there’s an entire vegetable garden between two slices of bread. The same overenthusiastic hand with the greens was at work in my one experience with their roast chicken sandwich. In addition, the chicken itself was so bland, although texturally decent, that if you closed your eyes and ate it by itself you’d need tastebuds far more sensitive than mine to identify it as chicken. Their mozzarella and tomato sandwich suffered from too-much of everything except the mozzarella – if the milky sweetness of the cheese cannot be the star of the show, why bother with the production?
The roast beef sandwich at All-Star (“beef on weck”) has been consistently good over many years, but almost everything else is hit-or-miss. I had a very unbalanced cuban there recently – very salty ham, bland pork, not enough pickle. To make matters worse the bread was burnt not grilled.
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The best things at All Star are their fries and the free Oreos at the register. Not great for a sandwich place.
Hey, I stand by their beef-on-weck and I, fd-hamilton, am willing to duel you, uni-burr, on that point.
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Although Boxford probably wouldn’t be considered “Boston area” by most I have to give a shout out to West Village Provisions for some of the best sandwiches around. Real sandwiches on real bread. Well put together with plenty of fillings, many they make on site. Our office gets lunch from there at least once a week. Best tuna around.
I recommend a stop for lunch and then a trip up the road for ice cream at Benson’s. Their red raspberry is so good, peach should be available soon.
http://westvillageprovisions.com/
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Good point, this.
For me, the composition of a sandwich is mainly what takes it from meh to mmmm. When all elements are in pleasing proportions, even a sandwich made with so-so ingredients can shine.
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