sandwich – Page 4 – Michael Eats

Bangers and Mash Sandwich at Hot Pork

Published on June 4, 2025June 4, 2025 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 932 Dundas Street West, Toronto
Website: https://www.instagram.com/hotpork.to/

I tried the beef brisket breakfast sandwich from Hot Pork last year, and spoiler alert: it was one of the best breakfast sandwiches I’ve ever had.

So when I heard Hot Pork was serving a bangers and mash sandwich (“Irish Banger Patty, Mashed Potato Patty, Caramelized Onions, Brisket Gravy, Brioche Bun”), I thought, well, that sounds weird, but if Hot Pork is doing it, it must be great.

And indeed it was. Indeed it was.

I will say that it could have used something like 50 percent less mashed potato; the bun already kinda fills that role in a sandwich, and the prodigious amount of mashed potatoes here is carb overload (it also dilutes the other flavours, which are all fantastic).

Otherwise? Amazing sandwich. The pork patty is nicely-spiced and thoroughly delicious, and the combo between the savoury, ultra-flavourful gravy and the deeply caramelized onions is a big winner. And the brioche bun adds some nice sweetness and holds up to the very, very messy sandwich without overwhelming.

With slightly less mashed potato, this could have been an all-timer — but even as is, it was seriously tasty.

Tasty Sandwiches at Paris Steak

Published on May 25, 2025May 25, 2025 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 120 Atlantic Avenue, Toronto
Website: https://www.parissteak.ca/

Paris Steak has an admirably focused menu — you can get their steak (ribeye, striploin, or chuck) in a sandwich, by itself with fries, or on a salad, and that’s about it.

They have a small seating area downstairs, but seem to be mostly a take-out joint.

The sandwich, as per their menu: “Your choice of steak, seasoned and grilled medium rare, served on a buttered ciabatta bun with arugula salad and house-made chimichurri.”

I tried a couple: ribeye and striploin, and both were quite tasty; I slightly preferred the fattier ribeye, but both were perfectly cooked and quite tender, with the toasty ciabatta bun being a great vehicle for the substantial steak.

It’s a very satisfying sandwich, though the heavy-handed application of garlicky, herby chimichurri — while extremely tasty — kinda defeats the point of using dry-aged steak, at least somewhat. While dry-aging does add tenderness, which is certainly a factor here, its main draw is that it adds complexity to the beef’s flavour. That’s almost entirely lost here, with the flavour of the beef being mostly overwhelmed by the chimichurri.

I should reiterate that the thing that’s overwhelming the flavour of the steak is thoroughly delicious, so it feels absurd to complain too much. But I wish that the chimichurri was dialed back a bit so that it could complement the steak without becoming the star of the show. Regardless, it’s a very good sandwich.

The duck fat fries (“fresh-cut fries tossed in duck fat and finished with parmesan crumble”), on the other hand? 100% perfect, no notes. Great flavour, with an amazing crispy/creamy balance. Legitimately some of the best fries I’ve ever had.

Grilled Cheese Cheeseburger at Wendy’s

Published on May 20, 2025May 20, 2025 by Michael Nusair1 Comment

Location: 5250 Dundas Street West, Toronto
Website: https://www.wendys.com/en-ca

Wendy’s has apparently been in Canada for 50 years, and to celebrate, they’re serving a cheeseburger with two grilled cheese sandwiches for buns. As you do.

No, grilled cheese sandwiches as buns isn’t exactly the most original or fresh idea at this point, but it’s still the type of novelty fast food nonsense that gets me through the day. Most new fast food burgers just add a different sauce or whatever, and it’s like, come on, guys. I know you can do better than this.

Wendy’s: I commend you. I don’t think the burger was particularly good, but hey, you tried.

Here’s how Wendy’s describes the Grilled Cheese Cheeseburger: “A quarter-pound of fresh, 100% Canadian beef topped with cheese, caramelized onions, and mayo all between a grilled-cheese bun on top and another on the bottom. Three sandwiches. One burger.”

The biggest issue here? I don’t think anyone gave the person who made my burger the memo that a grilled cheese sandwich is supposed to be grilled. I mean, maybe I’m out of the loop, but I’m pretty sure that’s how grilled cheese is supposed to work? Otherwise it’s just a cheese sandwich?

Both sandwiches had been lightly toasted on one side, but not enough to particularly melt the cheese. The bottom one was partially melted, but the cheese in the top bun was fully cold.

This means that you’re getting double the bread for no reason. It’s a lot of bread! And because it was mostly untoasted and fully unbuttered (and slightly stale), it’s all very, very dry. Between the mega-dose of bread and the not-especially-juicy burger patty, it was legitimately hard to eat. It was like the Wendy’s version of the saltine challenge. If my bites were too big, my mouth dried out. I was reaching for my drink between every mouthful.

And I like caramelized onions, but the combo of the sweet onions and the punishing amount of mildly sweet bread meant that the burger really needed some pickles or veggies or something to break up the one-note flavour.

I really wanted to like this, but no. I’m sorry, but no. This burger seems like it should be fun, but my life is now appreciably worse for having tried it. Thanks, Wendy’s.

Quality Pastrami at Linny’s Luncheonette

Published on May 18, 2025May 18, 2025 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 174 Ossington Avenue, Toronto
Website: https://linnysluncheonette.com/

Whenever there’s a new deli specializing in pastrami or Montreal smoked meat, I sit up and take notice. We have a handful of quality restaurants like this in the GTA, but not nearly enough. There should be one on every block, and there’s what? Like maybe five or six?

The menu here is extremely simple. They serve pastrami, a couple of other sandwiches, and a few sides. It’s also take-out only, so if you don’t get one of the two small picnic tables out front, too bad. Take your food and walk.

The pastrami is quite tasty. The spicing on the meat is weirdly restrained, though, which dials down the flavour and holds the sandwich back from greatness. But otherwise, everything here is exactly where it should be, with thick, hand-cut slices of ultra-tender beef on perfectly-fresh rye bread with just the right amount of mustard (I find a lot of places tend to over-mustard their sandwiches, overwhelming the beef, but here it’s just right).

I will say that although the borderline bland spicing is a bummer, the meat has a distinctly smoky flavour that goes a long way towards mitigating this. And it’s still a great sandwich — it’s just that everything else about it is so stellar that its lack of seasoning stands out more than it would otherwise.

I also got a side order of the coleslaw, which is a great zippy counterpoint to the very heavy sandwich (albeit a little too heavy on the onions for my personal preferences).

Pickle Glaze Chicken Sandwich from Popeyes

Published on May 1, 2025 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 7080 Saint Barbara Boulevard, Mississauga
Website: https://www.popeyeschicken.ca/

I’m not sure how many fast food burgers and/or sandwiches I’ve eaten in my lifetime, but it’s a lot. Hundreds? Thousands?? Okay, probably not thousands, but the number is in the upper hundreds, certainly.

All that is to say that it means something when I make this statement: the Pickle Glaze Chicken Sandwich from Popeyes might be the worst fast food sandwich I’ve ever had.

Here’s how Popeyes describes it: “Our classic chicken breast fillet in a tangy, sweet dill pickle glaze with Louisiana herbs and seasonings, hand-battered and fried to golden brown perfection topped with barrel cured pickle slices.”

It was clear something was amiss as soon as I opened the bag; the smell of dill was immediate and overpowering.

I’m going to be generous and assume that something went wrong with the pickle glaze in my sandwich, because I cannot imagine that anyone would think what I was served should be fed to human beings. It must have been a mistake. I need to believe it was a mistake. But hey, I was served what I was served. Obviously I’m going to write about it. I need my sacrifice to mean something.

The flavour was acrid and off-putting. It tasted like someone in a lab took the flavour of dill, did a mediocre job of replicating it, and then multiplied it by a million.

It tasted like they took the amount of concentrated dill flavouring meant for a hundred sandwiches and dumped it into one.

It tasted like something that isn’t meant for consumption, like trying to swig a bottle of perfume. Every time I took a bite, I was like “I don’t want to be eating this! I should stop!” But I was on my lunch break from work and didn’t have any other food, and what was I going to do, throw it out and buy a second lunch?? What do I look like, Jeff Bezos???

The sad part is that the rest of the sandwich was actually pretty good. The bun was nice and fresh, and the chicken featured a satisfying balance between the crunchy exterior and the relatively juicy meat within. I had another fried chicken sandwich from Popeyes pretty recently, and this one was much better.

That flavour, though. It’ll haunt my dreams.