veal – Michael Eats

A Great Veal Sandwich at Cosimo’s Cheese and Deli

Published on April 4, 2024 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 1051 Dundas Street West, Mississauga
Website: https://www.instagram.com/mammaangelinacooks/

Cosimo’s Cheese and Deli is a delightfully old school Italian deli in Mississauga; it’s been around for over thirty years, and it looks like not much has changed since they opened (hey, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it).

It’s a full deli with the usual assortment of cold cuts, cheese, and Italian pantry items, but it also serves hot sandwiches like veal and meatball.

I went with the veal, which — assuming you ask for everything — comes topped with a mix of peppers, onions, and eggplant, along with a fiery pepper paste.

It came up to $13 even (and it’s a cash-only establishment, so come prepared) and is a seriously hefty sandwich, so it’s a great deal. I was planning on eating half and then saving the rest for later, which obviously did not happen. I mean, come on. I’m sure there are people out there who have the self-control to stop eating a delicious veal sandwich halfway through, but I am not one of those people.

It’s a great sandwich. The veal is super tender, and the sauce it comes with is richly flavourful, with a nice garlicky punch that doesn’t overwhelm. My only real complaint is that this is a hot table place, which means that the veal has been sitting in the sauce. On one hand, that results in a piece of veal that’s really soaked up that tasty tomato sauce; on the other hand, you lose the crispy texture of the fried veal, which is missed.

The sandwich winds up being kind of one-note soft; the veal is incredibly tender, the bread is fluffy with no exterior crustiness, and the toppings are all silky, resulting in basically one texture throughout. But it’s so delicious that is is a very minor complaint.

A Lauded Veal Sandwich at Kantene

Published on October 25, 2019October 29, 2019 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 1059 Dundas Street West, Mississauga
Website: https://kantene.com/

The Veal Supreme at Kantene was recently named the best veal sandwich in Ontario by a group including John Cattuchi (of You Gotta Eat Here and Big Food Bucket List fame). If that’s not a reason to check the place out, I don’t know what is.

The sandwich consists of “Grilled Eggplant, melted Bocconcini in a fresh tomato based basil sauce with melted Provolone and crispy Parmesan on a soft bun.”

It’s a solid veal sandwich. The breading is nicely seasoned and has the perfect amount of crunch, and the veal is nice and tender (if a bit dry).

The sauce doesn’t quite have the oomph you’ll find in the best veal sandwiches, but it’s certainly tasty enough. And of course, tender eggplant and veal are best friends.

The bocconcini wasn’t quite melted all the way through, but for the most part it was gooey and satisfying. As for the crispy Parmesan, it’s a great idea in theory, but it had a profoundly burnt, bitter flavour that was actually quite unpleasant.

You can get the sandwich mild or spicy; the spicy version features pickled peppers that do a nice job of cutting through the richness of the sandwich. They’re quite mild, however, and I missed the intensely spicy bite of the un-pickled peppers you normally find in a sandwich like this.

The bread is great, with a lightly crispy exterior and a fluffy interior that holds up admirably to the very saucy sandwich.

Its a tasty sandwich — but I don’t think it’s the best in Mississauga, let alone all of Ontario.

Tasty Fried Veal at San Francesco

Published on June 18, 2019 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 5101 Dixie Road, Mississauga
Website: http://sanfrancescos.com/

There’s nothing quite like a veal sandwich. It’s just a whole bunch of fried veal and rich tomato sauce in a hearty bun. It’s probably not something you want to be eating on a regular basis (unless you’re keen on getting a massive heart attack), but every now and then it has to happen. It’s pure, unadulterated comfort food.

My go-to is California Sandwiches, but a location of San Francesco recently opened near me, so I figured I’d give them a shot.

You can choose from all kinds of toppings for an additional fee, but I went with the basic sandwich and ordered it spicy, which meant it came with a generous amount of blazing-hot jalapenos.

The thing that stands out the most about the sandwich is how incredibly tender the veal is; it might just be the most tender veal I’ve ever had in a sandwich like this. Your teeth glide right through it like butter. It’s amazing.

The exterior is moderately crispy, but not quite enough to hold up to the sauce — it sogs up almost instantly. It’s not quite as good as California Sandwiches in that regard.

Speaking of California Sandwiches, I think their sauce is marginally better; the sauce here is quite tasty, but it feels like the flavour could (and should) be amped up by a notch or two.

I think California has the overall superior sandwich, but it’s very, very close.

The sizes are a bit funny. They have two sizes: baby and regular. I ordered the regular, and my dining companion ordered the baby. As it turns out, I (and anyone with a normal-sized appetite) would be perfectly happy with the baby. Regular is enormous. Baby should really be called regular, and regular should be called jumbo.

Boar

Published on November 7, 2013 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 3 Glebe Road East, Toronto
Website: http://www.boarsandwiches.ca/

Boar is a spinoff of Black Camel, which serves some pretty solid sandwiches. Because of my affection for that place, I’ve been meaning to check Boar out for a while, though I don’t typically find myself near Yonge and Eglinton, so it took a few months to get there.

They serve Italian sandwiches like veal, sausage, and meatball, with your choice of various sauces and condiments.

I’m a sucker for a good veal sandwich, so I ordered that with tomato sauce and caramelized onions.

It’s a bit different from the traditional veal sandwich that they serve at a place like California Sandwiches: rather than being dipped in the tomato sauce, the breaded, fried veal cutlet has the sauce spooned on top.

These types of sandwiches typically feature a smooth, blended sauce with a fairly mild flavour. The sauce here, on the other hand, is rich and chunky, with the intense flavour of a sauce that’s been reduced to its purest essence. It’s pretty fantastic, and pairs perfectly with the tender, perfectly fried cutlet.

The only misstep are the caramelized onions (and that’s my fault, since I was the one who chose them); though they were perfectly cooked and sweetly flavourful, they were a little bit too assertive and just got in the way of the outstanding interplay between the rich sauce and the crispy cutlet.

It’s mostly a take-out place, though they do have a small dining room off to the side. With the exposed concrete walls, the rustic wood tables, and the boar’s head mounted on the wall, it has a vaguely creepy vibe that made me think Leatherface was going to bust in at any moment, chainsaw roaring. But the sandwich was so good that this could have happened, and I still would have called the visit a win.