Photo courtesy of The Sandwich Spot
The Sandwich Spot in Valhalla has concocted a truly showstopping sandwich with filet mignon that sells out in the blink of an eye.
Friends, our eyes have seen the glory of The Sandwich Spot. We were already thoroughly impressed with the high-end selection of imported ingredients and fresh-baked local bread, but a new creation from the Italian-inflected lunch and dinner spot (don’t call it a deli!) has us seeing stars.
The Spot’s Philly cheesesteaks were fan favorites from Day 1, but The Sandwich Spot’s proprietor, Joe La Manno, was hesitant to add a fully-fledged steak sandwich to his specials menu. “Customers kept asking, and every time I’d tell them if I was going to do it, it wouldn’t be a $6 sandwich,” he says. With La Manno’s eye for imported Italian ingredients, “We’re talking Brooklyn prices,” he laughs.
Sure enough, though, after enough requests, the culinary team came up with a steak sandwich it felt was worthy of inclusion on the weekly specials menu. Said sandwich sold out within hours.
So they doubled the ingredient orders. And it sold out. So they doubled the order again.
“Before the holidays, we were selling over 100 a day,” says La Manno, and the sandwich has yet to finish its originally one-week run.
So what makes this sandwich worthy of such a Pavlovian salivary response?
The Spot starts with tender hunks of filet mignon, grilled over an open flame until they are perfectly medium-rare, then sliced to give not just a beautiful cross section, but fall-apart-in-your-mouth consistency. (There’s nothing worse than a tough steak sandwich.)
Imported provolone is melted over fresh ciabatta, which is then loaded up with the steak, sautéed cremini mushrooms, and sweet and sour roasted cippolini onions before the whole thing gets drizzled with roasted garlic aioli and balsamic vinegar imported straight from Modena, Italy.
@thesandwichspotny On this 2022, Steak with us. #filetmignon #steaksandwich #lifeistooshorttoeatbadsandwiches #thesandwichspotny ♬ original sound – thesandwichspotny
The sandwich is, to put it lightly, pretty phenomenal. The steak is — and we can’t use this word enough — just so tender, with little salty bursts of delicious charring from the grill marks. The juicy onions, balsamic, and aioli keep the whole affair from being too dry (if you need a side of sauce or au jus you made your sandwich wrong) and provide a perfect balance of savory, sweet, sour, and umami. To try it is to know it, and to know it is to love it.
At $14 for a six-inch “half” sandwich or $18 for a nine-inch “full,” yeah, those prices are pretty Brooklyn, but not terribly so. Considering the ingredients and their provenance — and the quality of execution — those prices are actually quite reasonable. (This isn’t a “Five Dollar Foot Long,” after all.)
