I wouldn’t presume to do a top 10 list for all restaurants in Seattle, there are just too many. So I bring you sandwiches. A good sandwich is like a masterpiece. The bread should be fresh but yielding, the ingredients should blend in that perfect way to give you salty, sweet, sour, umami, fresh in every bite. A good sandwich has been tasted and perfected, not just thrown together.

These are my favorites. I don’t believe in nominating someone just for the numbers, so there’s only a top 8. But then I haven’t tried Bakeman’s.

1. Salumi

Armandino Batali (Mario Batali’s father) has made this place an institution. They’re only open during the day during the week and there’s always a line out the door, but the meat speaks for itself. I am addicted to the finochiona, a fennel scented salami. Not to mention the freshly made buffala mozzerella. It almost makes up for the lack of Italian delis in this town. Almost.

2. Paseo

I really fell hard for Paseo back when I discovered it a few years ago, and would go out of my way to pick up a Midnight Cuban for my afternoon hike. Sitting on the top of Mt. Si with pork juices dripping down your chin mingling with cilantro and hot peppers—there’s nothing like it. They’ve cleaned up their act a little since then, upgrading the small shack on Fremont Ave to a bigger shack, but as far as I can tell the food hasn’t suffered. The sign is still non-existent, but the line down the block should give you a clue.

3. Homegrown

A relative newcomer, but already a star in the sandwich arena. They have 10-15 cold and hot sandwiches, all with fresh and locally sourced ingredients. The flank steak sandwich is a standout with its mix of blue cheese and arugula, but everyone has a favorite. They also have soups and salads and some seating options, with that blond wood clean living kind of décor.

4. Skillet

You really only need two words—bacon jam. Skillet operates out of an airstream trailer and is there one day and gone the next due to the vicissitudes of the city’s polices around truck food, but it’s worth searching out. Their website has a calendar for where you can find them any day of the week. They make a mean blt, cook up some juicy burgers and make fries worth standing in the rain for. All out of something your parents might have camped in back in the 70s. Rumor has it they’ll be at the West Seattle farmer’s market on sundays come summer.

5. Pho Cyclo (SODO)

There is something about the banh mi at Pho Cyclo (the SODO location is better, not sure why). Theirs are not the cheapest banh mi in the city, but they are near perfect as far as I can tell. Grilled pork, pickled daikon and carrots, cilantro, and jalapeno make one of the most balanced and delicious sandwiches in the city. Only offered during lunchtime and made even tastier by the addition of café sua da (Vietnamese iced coffee).

6. Baguette Box

I would put baguette box higher on the list if they weren’t so spotty about their service. Run by Eric Banh (of Monsoon), this place gives a nod to banh mi by putting pickled vegetables and cilantro on many of their sandwiches, but then runs away, adding Salumi meats, grilled lamb, and coconut curry tofu. Some days I think this place is the most amazing place ever, the next day their counter guy gets all uppity about running out of cilantro. “These aren’t actually banh mi, the cilantro is just a gesture.” But even so…their red wine braised pork sandwich is otherworldly, the soft silky meat brought alive by jalapenos and pickled vegetables.

7. Grand Central Baking Company

Solidly great sandwiches with house roasted meats (pork loin, chicken) and local cheeses all served on Grand Central bread. I somehow don’t remember exactly what I had when I went as it was 6 months ago, but I seem to recall roasted turkey with cranberry chutney. All I know is it was good. Lots of vegetarian options too and some great soups. With locations on Eastlake and Pioneer square.

8. Essential Baking Company

An old standby in the sandwich arena, but still fabulous. Similar to Grand Central, they make some outstanding sandwiches, often changing to fit what’s fresh and local at the moment. They also have yummy baked goods, which doesn’t hurt. Fremont and Madison Park.

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I was expecting Homegrown to be more fitting of the name, more like the flowing haired, hemp-wearing hippies that fill the Fremont parade. Instead it’s scrubbed clean like the chalkboard they wrote the menu on. It has light wood, freshly potted herbs, and young spunky guys behind the counter who jump up to take your order. At the tables blond women sit in clusters, talking about the shoes they just bought.

It’s the new Fremont.

The food, thankfully, is true to the idea of “homegrown”—local, sustainable and really pretty damn good.

There’s been a bit of a scandal surrounding Homegrown since it opened last week. Apparently the Swinery (Gabriel Claycamp’s venture) was providing the meat for the sandwiches. After Gabriel’s other venture (the culinary communion) went belly up it created a bit of a stir. Not to mention that the Swinery never quite jumped through all the hoops with the health board.

Woops.

Word is, they’ve stopped using Swinery meat. The menu still looked fabulous with almost a dozen sandwiches, a few salads, a few soups, and nearly a third vegetarian. I had to ponder for a while, debating between a roasted beet salad, a blackened cod sandwich, and flank steak. In the end I went for the flank steak–I had to taste some of that controversial meat.

It was in a word–fabulous. Sandwiches are a challenge for me. So many restaurants just put a bunch of things together that sound good and never taste the end result.

Someone tasted this sandwich.

The flank steak was perfectly balanced by blue cheese and caramelized onions, with a bit of mesclun for freshness. It would compete with the midnight cuban at Paseo and that is serious praise.

My only critique was that the steak should have been medium rare, not well done…but it was tender despite that.

The soup was wild mushroom, a beautiful flavor with so much depth. Rich without being too creamy, mushroomy without being too woodsy. I did wish the chunks of mushroom were a bit bigger.

That menu is long. I think a few more trips are in order. Meat controversy or no.

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Homegrown Sandwiches
3416 Fremont Ave N
Seattle, WA 98103
www.eathomegrown.com
(206) 453-5232

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Art of the Table has the right idea. Find a night of the week and offer small plates for cheaper. It’s sort of the testing grounds for their set menus, like a dress rehearsal.

I am all about the dress rehearsal.

So this past Monday Kyung and Lynn and I held our garden club meeting at Art of the Table. We like to mix gardening with wine, it seems to help.

They had only 7 things on the menu on Monday, all less than 10$. We had 6 of them. And of course, a few glasses of wine. I liked the pinot nero (alto adige), slender like a pinot noir with a long finish. Much more sophisticated than you usually get for 8$.

We started with olives– a nice mix. The bread alongside wasn’t a show stopper, but it was fresh.

Parsnip pear soup came in an espresso cup with a topping of pumpkin seeds and a side of crisped bread with bacon and leeks. The soup was beautifully smooth and rich with roasted parsnips, and set off well by the crunchy pumpkin seeds.

The entress were less impressive. Arctic char smelled incredibly fishy, likley because it was topped with a crisped skin. It tasted fine and the skin was perfectly crunchy, but it was hard to get over that smell. For my taste the interior was a tad overdone as well.

Hangar steak was perfectly cooked with a touch of caramelized crust and was again beautifully presented this time with a swirl of green, but the sauces alongside didn’t add much. I liked the watercress accent.

Roasted vegetables were a perfect medium dice, but didn’t have much flavor.

I bit into the next dish expecting a quiche, but instead found spaghetti squash. It was an odd sensation, but very fresh and clean. A bit of goat cheese added creaminess.

We ended the night with coffee and an apple shortcake, which was sadly a bit overly spiced in the star anise direction (perhaps 5-spice?). The shortcake was stale as well. At least the coffee was wonderful.

All in all our food was a bit disappointing, but the skill is obviously there. They made that perfect soup, and can get a crust on the fish and the meat like few in Seattle. Lynn gave it a B. I said a B-.

Perhaps one shouldn’t judge a play by the dress rehearsal. I need to go back on the weekend and pony up that $60.

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Art of the Table
http://www.artofthetable.net/
1054 North 39th Street
Seattle, WA 98103
(206) 282-0942

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Last weekend I was wandering through the Ballard market with Sheela, when I discovered Veraci Pizza. Set off to the side near the coffee place, they have the pizza oven fiery hot and a line to show it.

Ballard market is one of my favorite places in the falls. Probably because of its wealth of deciduous trees. Crunching through the leaves feels like fall to me.

But the produce is also just so beautiful in the fall, those ruby beets and rainbow radishes.

I ordered a vegetarian and had to wait an extra 15 minutes as they had just put it in. Fresh from the oven pizza, a touch of char on the bottom, kalamata olives, feta, roasted peppers. It hit the spot.

Right now they’re just in the markets (Ballard, Fremont, Phinney, Mercer Island), though they do have a side catering business if you’re looking for someone to park a pizza oven on your front lawn.

And rumor is they’re starting a real brick and mortar place on NW Market by Le Gourmand. If only they had a branch in West Seattle…

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Veraci Pizza
http://www.veracipizza.com
(206) 525-1813
veracipizza@yahoo.com

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Paseo

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