#100 – CAJUN STYLE ROAST BEEF SUB at CITY SUB

Woo hoo! The list is complete. And while there were no whistles, bells, or even much excitement from my final list item, it feels good to have completed the mission and tasted the food. All the food.

I was hoping to end this journey a week or so ago at Brooklyn Fare. But the ever elusive City Sub made that very difficult. It seems that their phone orders got so overwhelming for them that they decided to never answer their phones. Which made it difficult planning a meal here because their hours are sporadic and they’re notoriously known for closing as soon as they run out of bread. The one Sunday afternoon we journeyed out to Park Slope, we found the doors all locked up and the lights off.

It was a weekday evening when we finally completed the adventure and we made it to City Sub with 30 minutes before their 6:00 closing time. I admit, I was skeptical that we were going to find them open at all, but here we were sitting inside the homey, old-school deli with a modern suburban twist. It didn’t feel much different than a Subway (not the MTA kind) but the colors were less sterile and it didn’t have that hypnotizing chemical bread smell.

Time Out told us to order the Cajun Style Roast Beef Sandwich with a condiment recommendation of pepper jack cheese, sweet peppers, lettuce, and spicy brown mustard. They could have just told us to order the #18 as all these sandwiches are listed numerically on the menu much like at a Chinese restaurant.

I did notice the counter guy popped the Boar’s Head roast beef in the microwave to heat it up before toasting it with all the other ingredients on the George Foreman-like grill. I’m not a huge fan of microwaves in general, but I acknowledge their existence and understand that it’s quick and easy so I pretended not to notice the nuking.

The gigantic sub came to us all wrapped up, toasty and oozing with mustard, meat, and cheese. I liked how crusty and warm the sesame dotted bread was and I’m glad the ingredients were all hot. I’ll take a warm, toasty hero over a cold version of cold cuts any day. And while this was slightly reminiscent of a cheese steak, it lacked much flavor. I didn’t get any cajun seasonings whatsoever and the meat was so killed with all the processing and microwaving that I may as well have been eating a Lunchable.

I’m being harsh because the meat wasn’t bad, it was just flat, gray, and flavorless. The sweet peppers and mustard brightened the sandwich up while the cheese added just a mild kick. The best part of the entire sandwich was the bread. It was crunchy, tender, and held the sandwich together.

And while City Sub is still a welcome neighborhood alternative to the chain sub shops, I wish they paid a bit more attention to the flavor and process of making the ingredients (Boar’s Head is fine but can you imagine homemade roast beef?) and maybe answered their phones once in a while.

I just wish this particular sandwich wowed me a bit more. Especially considering it was my final stop on the Time Out list. Besides a more flavorful sub, some balloons and streamers would have been nice.

Would City Sub’s Cajun Style Roast Beef Sub make my Top 100 of the year? The crusty bread alone will bring me back here, but that’s all that really made this 6 out of 10 sandwich stand out from all the other delis on every single corner.