Are Salume Kiosk’s Cheese Sandwiches Worth Ordering?

Part of what we do at Midtown Lunch is try the stuff you don’t want to and let you know if it’s worth your time. Enter the non-meat sandwiches at the Salume kiosk in Times Square. While checking whether Snack Box had opened (it had not), I passed by Salume this afternoon. I couldn’t help but wonder why in the world anyone would order off the vegetarian menu at a store that clearly prides itself on its authentic sliced and cured Italian meats.

So, I ordered two.

It seems they’ve changed their sandwich-making approach from when we last posted about Salume — the sandwiches no longer sit in the display case, but instead are constructed to order.

My confidence was not high when, after I placed my order, the gentleman making sandwiches didn’t even know what the Cervina ($6.00) was. “Cervina?” he asked. “What is that? I’ve never made one of those.” Oy vey.

Well, eventually, he figured out the ingredients (fontina cheese, tomato, mayonnaise, pepper), and the sandwich was actually very tasty, for a clearly unpopular order. The bread was extremely fresh, and the fontina was nice and salty, complimenting the sweet ripe red tomatoes. Although there really wasn’t much in the way of sandwich filling, the simplicity of the ingredients did shine through here.

Also $6.00, the Capri (buffalo mozzarella, tomato, basil, extra virgin olive oil) seems like a pretty standard panini, but what Salume has going for them is extremely high quality ingredients. Sure, it’s just a tomato-mozz-basil sandwich. But, it’s a really good one.

So what’s the verdict? If you’re a regular Midtown Lunch’er, let’s face it: you’re probably going to want to stick to the meats menu. But don’t count Salume out if there’s ever a world-wide Mortadella shortage — the cheese sammies are pretty darn tasty.

Salume Kiosk, Broadway and 45th Street in Times Square

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