Midtown Lunch

Thanks to Donny T.’s review, we already know that the Amish Market in Midtown East (45th btw. 2nd+3rd) has killer sandwiches. But did you know that some of the best, most unique sandwiches they offer take inspiration from the classic charcuterie of Europe, that of Italy, France, and Spain to be exact?

Donny covered one of those in his review: the Roma, which sports sliced porchetta, fire-roasted peppers, sun-dried tomatoes, lettuce, and tomato. Despite the fact that the “porchetta” isn’t the juicy pork you might expect, it’s a good sandwich that relies on some of the simple food that comes from Italian culture. You could count the Di Parma as a classic Italian sandwich as well, but it’s mix of prosciutto, fresh mozzarella, basil, and balsamic vinaigrette it’s fairly ubiquitous as sandwich shops around the city.

A sandwich that’s nowhere near ubiquitous is the Parisienne ($8.99 for a hero), which has French ham, Brie, cornichons, Dijon mustard, lettuce, and tomato. With the ham, cheese, and cornichons, it’s like a French picnic on a roll. Like Amish’s other sandwiches, it’s piled high with ham and the Brie is sliced thick. Unfortunately, the Parisienne is a bit unevenly made. The cornichons add a nice bite, but because they’re added whole, they tend to overwhelm when you run into one. Likewise, the Brie is piled on one side, so in most cases you get either cheese or pickle in one bite, but rarely both. It’s worth grabbing a knife and deconstructing the sandwich to slice up the cornichons and spread them and brie out across the sandwich.

The Brie does a pretty good job of taming the salt explosion of ham, pickles, and mustard, but you might want to invest in a bag of salt and pepper potato chips to help even out the playing field a bit more.

The real jewel of Amish’s European-inspired sandwiches however, is the Spaniard. At $9.99 for a sandwich on a roll, it’s bumping up against the ML limit, but is well worth it. It’s got heaping piles of sliced chorizo, Serrano ham, Manchego cheese, mesclun greens, tomato, and balsamic vinaigrette. This is a real meat and cheese sandwich, with sweet cured ham, spicy chorizo, and slightly funky cheese mixing together perfectly. It’s even better when you get a bright hit of balsamic along with it.

The star of the Spaniard is the Serrano ham, which is sweet and salty and sliced thick. That and the Manchego alone would make a great sandwich. The chorizo was a bit of a mystery to me, since I’ve only ever had the sausage chopped up in a taco or mixed in with scrambled eggs. Here, sliced, it looks and tastes very similar to pepperoni. It’s not bad, it’s just not what you expect when you think of chorizo.

If your into classic European charcuterie and love a good sandwich, Amish Market’s Parisienne, and especially the Spaniard, are well worth a try.

Amish Market East, 240 E 45th st btw 2nd & 3rd (212) 370-1761