Midtown Lunch

I’ve been a huge fan of Michael Voltaggio’s Ink.Sack ever since it opened a year and a half ago. See, MVolt could have opened a typical sandwich annex next to his popular restaurant Ink, charging upwards of $12-15 for sandwiches that people who eat lunch on Melrose would be more than happy to shell out the cash for. But he went the other way, offering a mostly take out menu of smallish sandwiches for $5-8 with great ingredients and interesting flavors that cheap fatsos like me would like. A pork filled, chicharron topped banh mi. House made corned beef and pastrami. A Cuban sandwich. Sadly, the chicken skin and liver mousse sandwich is gone, but there is still the cold fried chicken sandwich and the Spanish godfather.

And this week they added 6 new sandwiches to their menu, four of which contain an ingredient that pretty much improves anything it touches: fried eggs. And the best part is, they’re available All. Day. Long.

Curious about size?  The sandwiches are indeed bigger than they were when the shop first opened. Before you definitely needed two to be full, now one and a half should do the trick (one if you don’t have a huge appetite or get one of the sides.)

The ham, egg and cheese is probably the simplest of the new sandwiches.  It comes topped with camembert, arugula and mayo. I could eat this every morning.

Want something a bit spicier?  The chorizo w/ fried egg, tomato, and mayo would probably be a bit spicy on its own. Once the jalapenos are added it takes it to a different level.

The tortilla espanola, which has manchego, carmelized onions, potato chips, and mayo is probably my favorite, because… well… it has potato chips.  And eggs.  And carmelized onions.  And did I mention potato chips?

Don’t want to give up the chips but need something a bit meatier? You’ll want to go for the corned beef sandwich w/ egg, swiss cheese, mustard, mayo, and (once again) potato chips. Their house made corned beef is already a favorite, and hefty enough to make you forget the chips are even there.  But not the fried egg, which you can see spilling out of the sandwich in the photo above. It kind of makes you wonder if anybody will ever order the reuben again.

They’ve also added two more non-egg sandwiches to the menu.  There’s a grilled cheese sandwich made with camembert and swiss that I skipped after the cashier gave me the “meh” face followed by “It’s just another vegetarian option.”

But I wasn’t going to be discouraged from the final new offering, a gravlax sandwich w/ an “everything bagel spread” (uh, do I even need to keep going?), capers, pickled red onions, tomato,  and cucumber.  At $8 it’s the most expensive sandwich on the menu, and not particularly stuffed to the brim (after all, smoked salmon is expensive.)  But it’s also one of their tastiest.  Why they don’t throw an egg on that one too, I’ll never know.

Ink.Sack, 8360 melrose avenue. 323-651-5866