I’m going on record right now: Broder’s has the best Italian in Minneapolis but Chux gives them a run for their money.
The distinctive flavor of the krakowska, a kielbasa, sets it apart. Granted this sandwich is all pig, so saying this is a “ham forward” sausage is going to sound silly, but it’s a surprising and fitting substitute for traditional ham, and those little Polish flourishes hang back and add subtlety.
I’m also pretty sure that they used their tangy garlic mayo on this which I don’t mind a fucking bit. I have never made out with a vampire and I don’t intend to make out with a vampire, so go ahead and stink my breath up.
Well, maybe if I can wear a turtle neck. Maybe we can talk about this.
ANYhoo, the vinaigrette that they used also added a subdued sweet hue that supported the onion and and cut the acidity of the tomato.
Lettuce? Look, I got my blood work back today and I have mildly high cholesterol so I can’t make fun of lettuce anymore. I need it in my life. I think. How good is lettuce for you, really?
[Googles]
Oh.
OK, well fuck lettuce. It’s ruffage. I guess that’s useful.
Sadly, and this is a huge sadly because I have to pull the Broder’s card out here.
For years, I talked shit about provolone. It was the flavorless cheese they charged you and extra fifty fucking cents for at Jimmy John’s. It doesn’t taste like anything and you’re going to charge me half a buck? Fuck you, Jack, I’m lactose intolerant now. And people kept saying the dumbest shit to me all the time:
“But have you had real provolone?”
No, no I have not.
And then I went to Broder’s and had their Italian sub and holy shit, I was schooled. Have you had real provolone? It is so complex, creamy notes coexisting in balance with lactic acidity? (I’ve been reading about lactic acidity lately and, honestly, I’m not sure that’s the term I want to use here but this is a fucking sandwich blog with a vampire joke in it. Don’t expect Tolstoy. Just be glad I didn’t make the vampire joke again when I mentioned my blood work.)
You can make my blood work, baby.
ANYhoo, I don’t for a moment doubt that Kramarczuk’s, quality that they are, uses real provolone but I’ll be damned if I couldn’t taste it. It was there, I saw it, hell, you can see it in the picture. There was provolone on this sandwich.
Just couldn’t taste it.
Maybe if I did a side-by-side - which would be an expensive side-by-side at nine dollars per sandwich - with one Grinder as advertised and one Grinder hold the cheese, I would be able to tell the difference. Maybe the provolone wasn’t meant to play Bustopher Jones in this Catskills Dinner Theater micro-production of Cats, maybe it’s meant to understudy Carbuckety in the Bowsher High School production. Maybe it’s just there to tie the flavors together. I don’t want to talk shit about this provolone but if you’re going to put a good cheese on your sandwich, maybe let it play Bustopher Jones. All I’m saying.
Still, this Italian sub - my hard sought, meticulously researched Italian subs, is better than even most of the other independent delis I’ve been to. Where some places fall hard on pickled peppers instead of giardiniera (*psst* you can get it at Cub) - and I’m not saying there isn’t a time and place for that kind of thing - places like Broder’s (who use them but don’t rely on them) and Kramarczuk’s (I’m pretty sure I spied some pepper action on there) understand the need to balance. An Italian sub, properly made, is hitting all the flavor activators on your tongue: salty meats (my fucking cholesterol), semi-sweet tomato and red wine vinegar, bite from raw red onions, bold umami from cheese and extra virgin olive oil, a good sour yeasty bread, and a little bit of sour spice from pickled peppers or the bigger kick of giardiniera, it’s a balancing act. Broder’s and Kramarczuk’s understand this and this is why they have the two best Italian subs in town as far my wallet, heart, and mouth are concerned.
And then there are those places that lean heavy on the peppers, hoping you don’t notice that you got Black Forest ham with Sysco pepperoni and provolone. And, in Minneapolis, lettuce, tomato, mayo, because everybody here does that. I don’t know why. But then these mouthbreathers up here call casserole “hotdish” and, if you go further north, they eat fish soaked in the same shit Tyler Durden used to put a chemical burn on the narrator’s hand, who knows what they’re thinking?
But I want to use this photo again.
WHOO!!! Goddamn, this is a review just full of hot takes. Taking stances, being a fucking man about this shit.
Listen, it’s like this: You’ve got two places at opposite ends of town and one is only slightly marginally superficially not-even-not-as-good-let’s-say-instead-at-a-nuanced-disadvantage. Don’t take anything in this review as a cue to dissuade you from getting the Italian sub using Polish sausage at a Ukrainian deli. If anything, I will give you the money (no, I won’t) to go get this sandwich.
You want a grade? A+
You want Michelin stars? I don’t work for Michelin but ★ ★ ★
You exhaust me. Just go get the sandwich.
Oh, and tell me if I’m wrong about the cheese. I really want to be wrong about the cheese.
Further, the witness sayeth nought.
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