Porchetta

Porchetta at Echo & Rig

echoandrig.com

B+

The new suburban Las Vegas steakhouse Echo & Rig is a pretty impressive joint; it's fancy but comfy, open for brunch, lunch and dinner, and the menu's stacked with fresh, creative vegetable side dishes and solid steaks priced affordably. Most importantly, there are a handful of stellar sandwiches on that menu. When working your way through a restaurant's sandwich list, start with pork, right? We can assume any restaurant with a built-in butcher shop is going to do some pretty delicious roast pork, yes? Absolutely. It's juicy and savory, tenderloin trimmed with a bit of yummy fatty goodness. There's some slightly pickled shaved red onion, a little red chili and lime juice, and thin slices of sweet potato. It's an interesting, balanced combination of flavors and textures, all piled neatly on a crusty ciabatta roll. Like we said, pretty impressive.

Filet and Egg Slider

Filet and Egg Slider at Honey Salt

honeysalt.com

A

Lord. Whichever chef at Honey Salt came up with the idea to put creamed spinach on what is essentially a breakfast sandwich deserves to be knighted. This slightly sweet, puffy little brioche bun gets a liberal slathering of that rich, utterly indulgent veggie-stuff as its foundation, then it's stacked with medium rare grilled filet mignon, a puff cloud of egg that is described as scrambled but far too texturally perfect to be called that, plus a little white cheddar. This is the next evolution of the killer breakfast sliders chef Kim Canteenwalla used to serve at Society Cafe on the Strip. This is an amazing improvement, decadent and over the top in the best way possible.

Jambon and Pork Roll

Jambon and Pork Roll at Lee's Sandwiches

leessandwiches.com

B-

There's over 1,000 milligrams of sodium in this. What does that mean? You shouldn't eat two of these every day. But in my own personal nutritional strategy, two delicious banh mi sandwiches every day seems like the right prescription. Jambon is pretty much just ham that lasts forever; you don't even need to refrigerate it. That's a little scary. Maybe you shouldn't eat two of these a day. But the salty cured goodness of this ham plus fatty slices of slightly less savory pork roll is one of the meatier banh mi combos you can find at Lee's. The obligatory cilantro, onions, pickled carrots and jalapeños are on board, of course. The determining factor in how good your Lee's banh mi will be depends almost entirely on how fresh the baguette is. We lucked out this time. It's probably a bit better than a 50-50 shot.

Freddy's Original Double

Freddy's Original Double at Freddy's

freddysusa.com

B

So many burgers are so much like In-N-Out. That's not a bad thing. Freddy's Frozen Custard & Steakburgers, a chain with roots in Kansas stretching back to the '50s, may have been doing their "steakburgers" the same way for decades, but they sure do taste like In-N-Out. Fresh (never frozen) lean beef in hand-formed patties sizzled to nice, almost crisp charred-ness, loaded with lots of melty American cheese-type stuff. There's mustard, onions and really nice, thick medallions of dill pickle on this bad boy, all sandwiched in a butter-toasted bun. It's a classic American cheeseburger times two, and it works. Freddy's shoestring fries are good, too. Freddy's frozen custards are good, too. As far as nostalgia burgers go, you could do so much worse.

Gobbly Gook

Gobbly Gook at Avogadro's

avogadros.com

B-

The holidays cometh, and usually that means it's time for the annual allsandwich trip to frosty Colorado to spend time with family and … eat great sandwiches. This year will be different as we have a more tropical destination in mind, so here's a flashback from our last visit to Fort Collins and its outstanding Avogadro's. The Gobbly Gook is a celebration of roasted turkey, loaded with thin slices of tasty bird, slabs of cheddar and mozzarella cheese, sweet red peppers, raw onion, lettuce, tomato, pickles, mayo and creamy dressing on a fluffy hoagie roll. Like most of Avo's sandwiches, it's simple but delicious. There's a chance that we'll be craving one of these while sitting on the beach come December. Maybe.