2012: The Year In Sandwiches Slideshow

Brooklyn, for all its specialty food shops and Jewish roots, was sorely lacking an appetizing shop until Shelsky's Smoked Fish opened in Carroll Gardens.

Peter Shelsky opened the store because he was tired of schlepping into Manhattan for whitefish, and he is restoring some heritage to the borough in the process. For a brilliant combination of all of the best that Shelsky's has to offer, the "Brooklyn Native" is the perfect sandwich — Gaspe Nova, smoked Whitefish Salad, pickled herring, and sour pickles are served on a bagel or bialy. I am partial to the bialy, which is every so slightly toasted so as not to sacrifice the fluffy middle. The sandwich begins with a layer of creamy whitefish salad, which, made with chopped cucumber and celery, has just the right amount of crunch. Next comes two layers of Gaspe Nova so fresh it practically melts in your mouth. Not overly smoky, this Nova goes really well with the next layer, a slightly sweet piece of pickled herring that is much meatier than the salmon, offering a unique consistency in addition to the new flavor. Finally, a few sour pickles top off the salty stack, all enveloped, of course, by the bagel or bialy. The distinct texture of each component in the "Brooklyn Native" is an integral part of this sandwich's character. -Alison Spie

While planning my trip to Boston over President's Day weekend it became clear that rather than work a half day and leave straight from the office, I had to take a full day off. Why? I had to go to Sam La Grassa's, a family-run sandwich spot in Boston's financial district. "If we leave at 1 o'clock, we'll miss it! They only stay open until 3 o'clock," pleaded my boyfriend, James. I couldn't really argue with him — our last trip to Boston, though a success overall, was a failure in his eyes because we didn't get there on time to try the beloved pastrami sandwich of visitors and famous faces alike. This sandwich would make his trip and give me leverage to make him go ice-skating.

In my defense, what kind of sandwich place opens at 11 a.m. and closes at 3:30 p.m. — oh! — and closes the entire weekend as well? This place, apparently. They're so popular that that's the last thing they're worried about.

Upon arrival at the no-muss-no-fuss spot, it became clear that Sam and sons are pretty serious about their sandwiches. Get in line prepared with a sandwich in mind, because the line moves super-fast and all of a sudden you're pelted with questions about bread, meat, and fixings.

With this particular sandwich, however, all one has to do is say the name and the rest is history. After the words, "Chipotle Pastrami," left James' mouth, the gentleman making the sandwich got busy. Ten minutes later, a pressed sandwich appeared, with an aroma that was embraced by our anxious stomachs and a huge smiles.

Between the two sides of a sesame-studded Italian roll sat layers of thinly sliced pastrami topped with Swiss cheese, chipotle mustard, and coleslaw. With closed eyes, we ate our first bites and a simultaneous "mmm" escaped our mouths. The tender meat and the sharpness of the Swiss were practically holding hands with the near-perfect vinegary slaw. The chipotle mustard was the icing on the cake and the bread, which is made in-house, was the out-of-the-park hit that made this sandwich a grand slam, with its classic semolina taste and crunchy exterior.

Neither of us spoke until there were only crumbs left — and that's no exaggeration. I didn't even have to bargain about ice-skating after that; it was his idea. -Francesca Borgognone

Two blocks north of the U Street Corridor on 14^th Street in Washington, D.C., in the shop front of a grubby gas station, sits the neighborhood's unlikely contender for the best bargain lunch. Fast Gourmet is located inside a gas station; you have to walk past the pumps to enter, and the café shares its space with the station vendor, purveyor of cigarettes and beef jerky from a cloudy Plexiglas booth. The café is scattered with spare black tables and lined by drink machines, and above the counter, in front of the exposed kitchen, hangs a board with the menu scrawled on it in colorful chalk. But Fast Gourmet is anything but generic. It delivers exactly what its name promises: sumptuous food at deli pace.

Fast Gourmet was founded by two Uruguayan brothers, Juan and Manuel Olivera, the former of whom trained as a chef in Italy and France, including at the prestigious Institut Paul Bocuse. The menu includes wraps, salads, and empanadas, but consists mostly of sandwiches. The first part of the sandwich menu, titled "Urban Taste," features traditional-seeming fare such as roast beef, pork, and tuna. But the real standouts are the sandwiches on the so-called "Flair" menu, including the breaded-tenderloin Milanesa and the succulent Chivito. The Chivito is a traditional Uruguayan sandwich, and upon reading the ingredient list, you might be skeptical. How can a single sandwich meld beef tenderloin, bacon, Black Forest ham, mozzarella, green olives, hard-boiled eggs, lettuce, and tomato without losing its head along the way?

The most remarkable thing about the Chivito is that each ingredient manages to hold its own. Pressed in a soft white roll, it is exceptionally juicy, and each ingredient is so well cooked — when you reach inside to rip off a piece of tenderloin, it will practically fell apart in your hand — that the sandwich achieves a lovely balance, the flavors at once complementing and playing off each other. Each bite has a slightly different combination of ingredients and therefore a slightly different flavor profile. The briny olives pop against the rich meats, and the melted mozzarella lends the whole affair a touch of creaminess. Too often are tomatoes nothing more than a soggy clump at the bottom of a sandwich, but Fast Gourmet's are firm and flavorful, and add a welcome tang. Perhaps the best compliment I can pay the Chivito is that, despite a potentially problematic addiction to hot sauce, the little bottle of DC Redbone sat untouched by my plate for minutes on end before I remembered it was there. I never so much as uncapped it. -Tia Subramanian

Amato's "Real Italian" looks like the results of a produce truck and a deli counter crashing into an overgrown lobster-roll bun. In fact, it's a combination of cooked ham and traditional, no-apologies American cheese, enhanced with big slices of green pepper, tomato, and onion, with chopped Greek olives and pickles and an olive oil-based dressing, stuffed into a soft roll cut open from the top. It's a big mouthful (the photo shows the "small" size; you can imagine what the large looks like), crunchy and salty and bright. Locals have adopted it as the "Maine Italian."

The sandwich dates its origins to 1902, when a young Italian immigrant named Giovanni Amato started selling rolls stuffed with meats and cheeses and a garden's worth of raw vegetables from a pushcart to his fellow immigrants working on the docks in Portland, Maine. He was successful enough to open a sandwich shop on Portland's India Street the same year, and today there are a dozen Amato-owned stores and a number of franchise locations throughout Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire (plus one in New York State), a number of them in Maplefield's and Irving Oil/Circle K gas stations.

In 1972, a seven-year veteran of the original location, Dominic Reali, bought the business from the Amato family. He added Greek olives to the sandwich, introduced a more strongly brined pickle, and developed his own dressing. The rolls, however, are made — along with a full range of other bread products available for retail sale — by Amato's bakery, said to be the oldest in Maine, which is run by Giovanni's great-grandsons, John and Anthony.-Colman Andrews 

In lieu of New York Italian submarine/torpedo-shaped hero bread, the Muff at New Orleans' Central Grocery has a UFO saucer-like shape to achieve the perfect bread to meat ratio with the round sliced genoa salami, mortadella, ham, and provolone layers that are lovingly stacked on the olive oil-stroked bottom half of the circular bread. The top half then receives several dollops of the proprietary Central Grocery "olive salad."

Chicagoans of Italian descent enjoy their giardiniera, which is olive oil- and vinegar-pickled celery, cauliflower, carrots, peppers, and oregano. The Louisiana Sicilians did them one better by adding the salinity of green and black olives. Everything gets coarsely chopped and soaked in olive oil, making for the ultimate Italian antipasto condiment to place atop the ultimate Italian sandwich.

There are several purveyors of muffulettas in New Orleans, though most do not stand up to Central Grocery. Several will toast or heat the sandwich, which purists such as myself analogize to putting ketchup on your hot dog or mayo on your pastrami. – Gutter Gourmet

Should you ever find yourself in Nashville, Tenn., and have a desire for Italian cuisine, you should go directly to Savarino's Cucina on Belcourt Avenue in Hillsboro Village. Corrado Savarino, who trained as a baker in Manhattan and Brooklyn before coming to Nashville, runs this wonderful little restaurant and bakery with his wife and children. They have a varied selection of pastas and other entrées, namely orecchietti and broccoli rabe, with or without sausage. By special request, his wife makes a Sicilian pizza, which is more like a calzone... spinach, olives, and pine nuts or mozzarella and sausage.

There is also a wide variety of sandwiches, my favorite being the Stevie B. Imagine, if you will, Asiago cheese layered between slices of lightly breaded and sautéed slices of eggplant, topped off with broccoli rabe, bomba calabrese, lettuce, tomatoes, and balsamic vinegar, all piled on to a freshly baked roll. Don't forget to ask for a side of marinara for dipping.

Don't be in a hurry when you order this sandwich... there is a sign by the register that, loosely translated from the Italian, says, "If you're in a hurry, don't waste your time or mine." After you're done, try any of the baked goods and other desserts — they are all made in-house and each is better than the next. – Frank Friedman

This sandwich from Florence's Mercato Centrale is arguably the best boiled beef has ever looked, and more importantly, tasted. Sliced thick, the juicy-fatty-tender beef is piled on top of a chewy roll. Your request that the sandwich be "bagnato" means that the top roll gets to take a quick dip in the savory beef boiling liquid, and the "con tutte le salse" bit will ensure your meat is topped with a spoonful of both the green (herb-garlicky) and red (spicy) sauces.

It's a glorious, utterly satisfying mess of flavors that will no doubt cause an internal tug-of-war, with you alternately wanting to devour it with abandon but also savor every single little bite. For that predicament I have only one piece advice: Get back on line and order another.

If this is the sort of thing that would likely give you heartburn, get over it and order one anyways — I've seen people do it, and not regret it for a second.-   Maryse Chevriere

Located in the French Quarter of downtown Fairhope, Ala., Panini Pete's knows how to make the perfect sandwich.

The Fresh Mozzarella and Tomato panini perfectly combines house-made mozzarella with ripe tomatoes. Add fresh torn basil leaves and balsamic vinaigrette, and wrap it all up in a pressed homemade focaccia roll for the perfect caprese sandwich.

It may not sound all that different, but it truly is. The mozzarella comes out at the perfect, melt-in-your-mouth temperature. The fresh basil leaves cut through the acidity of the tomatoes. And the vinaigrette ties it all together with a taste that's not too tart but not too oily. 

Not into tomatoes? Try the Rosemary Chicken panini made with creamy goat cheese on multigrain bread. Or try the Black and Blue burger made with gorgonzola spread.

Shoelace fries or homemade potato chips accompany each sandwich, burger, or dog. Order yourself a sweet tea, and sit and relax in the warm Southern summer heat. 

Pete's tiny indoor seating area and newly renovated outdoor "greenhouse" seating are usually bustling. Round tables with umbrellas circle the front of the restaurant, and be sure to check out the tiny shops located on either side. 

Open for breakfast and lunch, Panini Pete's is the best way to enjoy a lazy morning or afternoon. – Christine Harris

Remember Humphrey Bogart's great old line? No, not, "We'll always have Paris." We mean the unscripted one, the one about the frankfurter: "A hot dog at the ballpark is better than steak at the Ritz," he once said. And while it's true that Americans consumed almost 23 million hot dogs in baseball stadiums last year, not a single one of those could have been as quirkily delicious as this pulled pork, slaw, and barbecue sauce-drenched number from Atlanta's HD1, owned by Top Chef All-Stars winner Richard Blais.- Kelly Alexander

SandwHich, a gourmet sandwich shop based in downtown Chapel Hill, N.C., is turning out a simple beauty: A crusty baguette is stuffed with arugula, ripe tomato slices, red onion slivers, and a full eight ounces of sardines. This is drizzled with homemade vinaigrette made with olive oil and fresh lemon juice. The result is simultaneously chewy-toothsome, salty, and refreshing, like you might imagine lunch would be at your favorite café in, say... Sardinia. –Kelly Alexander

The magic of Bunk Sandwiches is in their simple, fresh approach to sandwich-making. And yet the Pulled Pork sandwich is a testament to the complexities that can exist between two slices of poppyseed sourdough bun. The sandwich, which contains just pulled pork, apple cabbage slaw, pickles, and mustard, perfectly straddles the make-or-break dualities that far too many a well-intentioned pulled pork sandwich falls prey to. The pork, soft without feeling soggy or gummy, contrasts perfectly with the crunch of the slaw and the pickles. And while the meat has a tangy kick of its own, its subtlety leaves room for the Dijon to pack a mustardy punch of its own and bring unity of flavor to the whole thing.

Served on a metal tray with a handful of kettle chips and a couple of sliced dills, even the sandwich's presentation reflects the simple elegance of the place. Maybe that's just the best part about Bunk: Like so many of its Portland counterparts, it is a testimony to the fact that low-key joints and high-brow food are not mutually exclusive. In fact, at Bunk they coexist in supreme harmony. –Zanny Allport

Hosteria il Castelletto is a modest but first-rate restaurant with an artisanal bent and a menu specializing in the cuisine of the Emilian portion of Italy's Emilia-Romagna region, and in particular in the dishes of Modena. What makes it unusual is that it isn't in Emilia-Romagna at all, but in a suburb of Milan, Peschiera Borromeo, best known as the home of Milan's smaller airport, Linate.

Il Castelletto's specialties include excellent beef (including filet glazed in balsamic vinegar, Modena's most famous export), a handful of homemade pastas, and two unusual traditional items often hard to find even in Emilia itself: gnocchi fritti, which are fried hollow pillows of dough traditionally eaten with the varied and superb salumi for which Emilia-Romagna is famous, and crescentine.

Crescentine are small, flat rounds of baked dough somewhere between biscuits and dried-out pancakes in texture. Sometimes also called tigelle, they are an ancient form of bread, related to the testaroli of Liguria, that were originally made by pouring batter into shallow, red-hot stone or terra cotta bowls, then stacking the bowls on top of one another so that the crescentine baked from their radiated heat. Today, they're generally made in aluminum molds, in gas- or electricity-fueled small ovens.

Il Castelletto prepares them the traditional way, then serves them alongside prosciutto and various salumi, or with hard cheeses from Emilia-Romagna (the most famous being parmigiano reggiano, of course), or offers them with a combination of three garnishes: a soft, spreadable, slightly sweet cow's milk cheese with the delightful name of squaquarone; a paste of whipped lardo with garlic and herbs, and, for dessert, Nutella. To eat the crescentine, you separate each one into two halves, easily done with a dinner knife, then spread the condiment of your choice (only one at a time, please) on both cut surfaces and reform them as a sandwich.

The squaquarone is tasty but a little bland. The Nutella is, well, Nutella. The lardo, however, is extraordinary, somewhere between rillettes and butter; we spread ours thickly and luxuriated in its richness, offset by the crisp exterior and faintly, pleasantly doughy flavor of the crescentine. – Colman Andrews

One of the few New York City restaurants that makes porchetta is SD26 on the north side of Madison Square Park. SD26, run by venerable Italian restaurateur Tony May and his daughter Marisa, is an upscale place with food that is sometimes pretty sophisticated, and it is not the kind of place you'd expect to find this rustic specialty. Nonetheless, porchetta is produced here daily, to be served in the casual front-of-the-restaurant café (though you can probably talk them into bringing it to you in the dining room if you ask nicely). Here, the boneless pork roast is seasoned with fennel seeds, garlic, rosemary, kosher salt, and black peppercorns and roasted over high heat in a convection oven, then rested and sliced.

The meat is very good, even if it lacks that outdoor open-fire character. More to the point, though, is what it's served on. No generic panino here; SD26's porchetta is heaped inside a rosetta. The typical Roman roll, in breadbaskets all over the Eternal City, is the rosetta, shaped like a flower (or rosette), crisp on the outside, and mostly air within. It's not a form of bread found very often in the U.S., and most examples here are just dry and boring. When the Mays decided to serve rosette at SD26, they wanted to do it right. They invited a well-known baker from Rome named Vittorio Corinaldesi, whose three Compagnia del Pane bakeries around the city began as a family business in 1927. Corinaldesi spent three weeks at the restaurant, training its own bakers to properly use the special equipment required to make rosette. -Colman Andrews

Manhattan's Lower East Side is a hotbed of unique and refreshing dining establishments, Spitzer's Corner just one of those neighborhood gems. The communal seating and rustic wooden decor lend particularly well to the hopping bar scene, which is fuled by Spitzer's outstanding and widely varied beer selection. However, just because the basic clientele comes for the suds doesn't mean the restaurant is skimping where the food menu is concerned.

The fried white catfish sandwich is Spitzer's standby, available during brunch, lunch, and dinner service.   Generous portions of flaky catfish are lightly battered and fried until golden and crunchy, then piled onto freshly toasted ciabatta bread slathered with house-made tartar sauce and topped with fresh cucumbers, parsnip, and arugula.

The crunchy bread and the soft, flavorful fish are expertly balanced, and the crisp vegetables add a delightful texture to every bite. The portion is hefty, but the varied and refreshing flavors make it easy to devour without a blink. – Molly Aronica

A burger called Behemoth just begs to be taken on. So you may have already taken notice of this burger while watching the Grill 'Em Allguys battle their way to the top of the Flatiron Building where they were eventually crowned the winner of The Food Network's The Great Food Trucks Race. But unless you live in Los Angeles, or caught a burger during one of the challenges the guys faced as they raced across the country, it's likely you haven't been able to sample the burger yourself yet.

You're familiar with the concept– a burger whose buns are two grilled cheese sandwiches. That's right, four pieces of bread. Friendly's has been doing Grilled Cheese BurgerMelts for a while now, or you may have also seen Adam Kuban's Hamburger Fatty Melt, which cites the "Chubby Melt" at the Mossy Creek Cafe in Fisherville, Virginia, as one precursor. 

In this case, Chef Ryan Harkins and Matthew Chernus of Grill 'Em All sidestep a potential problem that could arise from using so much bread, a dry burger. Besides the gooey smoked Cheddar between the slices, there's more shredded cheese atop the burger and apple wood smoked bacon. But what really makes all the meat and bread work are the very wet beer-soaked onions. –Arthur Bovino

A ham and cheese sandwich? Oh, yum. Flaccid pale pink mystery meat and plastic Swiss on soggy bread slathered with cheap mustard. Be still, my palate.

But then, on the other hand, there's the "smoked ham and cheese" sold out of Beach Street Sandwiches' big yellow truck on the streets of Madison, Guilford, and New Haven in central shorefront Connecticut. I put quotation marks around the name because this iteration of the thing is both less and a whole lot more than what you'd expect. It's less because it isn't made with actual ham, but with uncured pork butt.

That pork butt, happily, is slow-smoked over chile-infused woodchips from old Tabasco barrels, then roasted with pickled green apples and pulled into savory shreds. Next it's piled on a six-inch hero roll that's been slathered with garlic butter and quickly grilled, then topped with slabs of provolone and presented for your delectation. And delectate it you will, unless you actually like mystery meat. It's a little salty, a little spicy, a little garlicky, and very meaty — the kind of sandwich that deserves to be eaten with two hands.

Beach Street is run by Gregory McCarty, formerly a Manhattan-based chef (his résumé includes stints at Nobu and Jean Georges), and freelance food writer Sara Pepitone. McCarty got tired of the serious-food grind, he says, and realized that what he really liked to eat was a good sandwich. Beach Street offers three or more varieties every day, with the smoked ham-and-cheese almost always available.

Other possibilities include an Asian vegetarian edition (shredded carrot and cabbage kimchi with herb salad), a lobster salad roll, and a present-seasonally-appropriate roast turkey with cranberry sauce and homemade stuffing on cranberry multigrain bread. There's also always a pot of soup going; zucchini with apple and mint, corn and crab bisque, seafood gazpacho, or the like. McCarty and Pepitonebuy from local producers and purveyors whenever possible, and chat about food-related happenings on the Beach Street Sandwiches website.

The smoked ham and cheese sandwich costs $8, including a small bag of Fritos on the side. "My grandmother used to make me ham and cheese sandwiches when I was growing up," says McCarty, "and she always gave me a Fritos with it. This is my tribute to her."

For Beach Street Sandwiches locations, check their website or follow them on Twitter. – Colman Andrews

Any discussion about the best—or at least, most famous—lobster roll in Maine would be incomplete without mention of Red's Eats in Wiscasset. And there's a line of customers to prove it. A long one. As a Times article documented, the wait begins in your car on the one-lane lead-up to Red's and the bridge.

It hasn't endeared tourists to locals. Indeed, someone shouted out their window "Red's Eats sucks" during the hour-long wait on a recent visit. But there's a short-cut to take in your car that will bypass a chunk of traffic. Follow Gardiner Road (as you have to) until you reach Churchill Street. Take Churchill and hang a left on Lee. Left on Middle. Boom. You're there.

After you've done your time in line, stake out a seat on the deck for a view of the bridge— but really, you'll be too busy with the roll for it to matter. Heaping, fresh wet lobster. So much it falls off and all over. It tastes like it was just cooked and picked, plus it's agreat deal. No dressing. Ask for both butter (kept warm in a tea kettle on the stove) and mayo. Sometimes there's a reason why number one is number one. – Arthur Bovino

Let's just say that, like us, you're a little tired of the discriminatory politics that come along with your favorite fried chicken sandwich. How can you find a less controversial way to scratch the powerful, powerful itch for chicken-and-bread-and-pickles? Two words: Road trip.

Here's the tricky part: You're going to have to quest. You're going to have to make your way through rural Alabama on Highway 331 to a spot about 50 miles south of Birmingham, almost to the so-called "Flor-Ala" border. There you will find The Chicken Shack, a cheerfully agreeable dive with an enormous billboard, a very popular takeout window, and the best fried chicken sandwich this side of the gay marriage debate.

Here in the town of Luverne, nicknamed the "Friendliest City in the South" (and by "city," they mean a Pepsi plant and less than 3,000 people), where the "World's Largest Peanut Boil" is held annually on Labor Day, folks are very, very serious about fried chicken. A number of joints around town claim to serve the best. None of them can claim to have a sandwich as good as The Chicken Shack's, though.

We're not talking rocket science: This is a freshly fried breast, moist and tender and seasoned properly with salt and pepper, on a cottony white bun with dressed with lettuce, tomato, and pickle. It's almost exactly like some fast-food versions we know, except that it's homemade, it's slightly larger, and it's much more fun to consume since it's at a real live thriving truck stop instead of a depressing food court in a mall in Anytown, USA. Get going already. –Kelly Alexander

There may be no more "New York" a breakfast sandwich than a bagel and lox, and Upper West Side specialty shop Zabar's has been the place to go for the iconic sandwich for more than 70 years. Forget the city that never sleeps, this store is made for the city that's just woken up. A Zabar's bagel and lox is a New York rite of passage — as long as you assemble the ingredients yourself.

Thanks to the sandwich's popularity, they've resorted to only offering a premade version at their adjacent café, so your best bet is to head to the appetizing section in the grocery proper. For what it's worth, we're also not talking about actual belly lox, which is cured in an intense salt brine and never even touches smoke. Over time, the original product was replaced by milder Nova lox. With its slightly smoky tinge, it perfectly complements its counterparts.

One of those counterparts ought to be Zabar's scallion cream cheese, displayed in a case that you're forced to pass on the way to the preserved marine life. The creamy, onion-packed spread eats Philadelphia's brunch with its allium tang. Finally, snag a toasty sesame bagel; the big, yeasty round sports plenty of nutty flavor thanks to those seeds. It's a pinnacle of New York baking, nearly impossible to improve.

Yes, this sandwich requires a bit more effort than most, but it also allows you to have a connection with your meal on a deeper level. Part of the fun of traditional Jewish appetizing is the interactivity; a little of this, a little of that. And if you can't wait to build the final product at home, you can always take your bounty next door to the café and show all those poor saps who bought the plastic-wrapped version what they're missing. Even better, you'll still have leftovers for dinner. – Marilyn He

Since the early 1990s, Chicago's Borinquen restaurant has been home to the jibarito (pronounced hee-bah-reeto), a sandwich that takes some of Puerto Rico's best ingredients and reimagines them into a handheld wonder. It's an Americanized version of the emparedado de plátano sandwich commonly found in Puerto Rican cuisine, traditionally consisting of steak and smashed, fried green plantains called tostones.

Were it not for those tostones, this would be just another run-of-the-mill steak sandwich (albeit a very good one), and therein lies its genius. The well-seasoned plantains remain shatter-crisp thanks to a double-dip in the fryer even when supporting rosy, heavily-spiced sirloin steak, a slice of tomato, lettuce and garlicky mayonnaise. For the beef-averse, Borinquen graciously offers a vegetarian version, as well as jibaritos with roast pork, ham, fried chicken or grilled chicken breast.

Juan Figueroa, founder of Borinquen, named the sandwich after the rural folk in the mountains of Jayuya where he grew up, known as jibos (roughly translated to "yokels"). As his nephew Jaime puts it, imagine "the picture of the old guy in the straw hat with the guitar", an archetype that's quintessentially Jayuya.

Even Borinquen is aware of the subtle differences between a jibarito and a traditional "Earl of Sandwich" sandwich – per their website: "Please know the difference between a sandwich and a jibarito. A jibarito is better!" – Marilyn He

With organizations like the Southern Foodways Alliance entering their 14th year, white-hot restaurants like Sean Brock's Husk, and the widespread consumption of fried chicken, barbecued meats, and mashed potatoes, it's clear that this country loves Southern food. If you happen to fall into the category of people who regularly crave cornbread, biscuits with gravy, or any sort of cobbler, it's probably time to plan a trip to Home Grown in Atlanta for their Grant's Stack sandwich.

Home Grown exudes a classic diner feel with cherry-red vinyl seats and chrome bar stools. It's a thriving daytime hangout for locals and hungry travelers alike, and the Grant's Stack has become a signature, not-so-hidden gem. In fact, it was a customer who first created the sandwich, ordering the combination as a special request from the kitchen. The guy sitting next to him saw it come out, ordered the same, and the rest is history.

Grant's Stack is Southern comfort food's Sunday best jammed between two pieces of thick-cut, golden Texas toast, stuffed with panko-breaded fried green tomatoes, homemade pimiento cheese, and that patron saint of piggy parts — bacon. Perhaps saintliest of all, this giant sandwich can be yours for only 10 bucks. –Marilyn He

The Montreal Hebrew Delicatessen, or Schwartz's as it's popularly known, is a landmark restaurant in Montreal, known far and wide for its proprietary smoked meat, a formula which has now come to be known as "Montreal-style." The restaurant was founded in 1928 by Reuben Schwartz, and stepping into Schwartz's today is like stepping 80 years in the past. From the time-worn location (which has never changed and never been franchised) to classic recipes (still using Reuben Schwartz's blend of herbs and spices, cured for 10 days), diners are sure to get an authentic experience.

So go ahead, step into Schwartz's trademark white-tiled room with long narrow tables. Order their signature smoked meat sandwich — beautifully spiced, well-marbled brisket, piled high on crusty rye bread and served with tangy yellow mustard. Choose between lean, medium, medium-fat, or fat meat — but let's be honest, it's brisket so go for the medium-fat. Pay your $6.30 (in Canadian dollars, of course), and have a seat in front of your new best friend.

No offense to the human you walked in with, but this sandwich is out of their league. –Marilyn He

This week's feature comes from Crave Real Burgers, in Castle Rock, Colorado, with a second location in Colorado Springs. They're dedicated to serving juicy burgers, crispy fries, and old-fashioned shakes made with quality ingredients, and with a menu chock-full of mouthwatering items, you'll never leave hungry.

Despite a delectable lineup of burgers, sandwiches, and sides, Crave's Luther steals the spotlight with its superstar combination of sizzling bacon, onion, and a fried egg, all smothered in melty Cheddar. The best part? It's sandwiched between two glazed donuts as the bun, and it's yours for just $10.50.

If you're looking for an even bigger challenge, Crave runs The Big Bad Wolf eating contest. A Wolf Challenger has 45 minutes to eat three loaded 3 Little Pigs Burgers — pulled pork, ham, bacon, and cheese, piled high with onion straws. If he or she manages to huff and puff the whole meal down, it's on the house and their face is forever immortalized on the Wall of Winners. Otherwise, the burgers are $25 and you go on the Wall of Losers.

I don't know about you, but this little writer's heading straight for Colorado at the first opportunity. –Marilyn He

There's something to be said for simplicity.

Recently, burgers have become monstrosities, packing more than half a pound of meat and thousands of calories into artisanally produced buns, selling for more than 10 bucks, and leaving the diner overstuffed and overweight.

It sometimes seems as if we've lost our way when it comes to burgers, which were once an exercise in simplicity and balance.

Which is why it was such a relief to stumble upon A&A Coffee Shop, a hole-in-the wall lunch counter nestled into a tiny storefront midblock on 20th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues in New York City. It's been there since 1980, and hasn't changed at all in the intervening years, which brought drastic change to the very fiber of the city's being.

Taking a seat on a stool, we decided to order a bacon cheeseburger, the litmus test of a great burger. A fresh patty was placed onto the flattop, flipped after getting a nice sear, and topped with a slice of American cheese and a few strips of bacon. A soft, squishy sesame seed-topped bun soon joined it on the flattop, and was removed right as it started to brown. When assembled with some lettuce and fresh-sliced tomato and placed in front of us on a Styrofoam plate, it reminded us of what a burger used to be. A moderately-sized, perfectly balanced sandwich. –Dan Myers