Portland Sandwiches: Little T American Baker

Grinder

Ed Levine, perhaps the foremost authority on pizza in the United States, likes to point out that pizza is really just bread, so you can’t have good pizza without good bread. The same certainly should be the case for sandwiches, which are just meat and cheese stuffed into bread. Thus, in looking for a good sandwich in Portland, the artisan bakeries deserve special focus.

In tasting sandwiches at all of Portland’s best bakeries, none better shines a light on the importance of good bread and the way that bread can give character to a sandwich than Little T. The fillings are fine, but the breads are the star of each sandwich.

Discuss Little T’s Bakery at PortlandFood.org

The best example of this is the curried chicken salad. While the meat can be a little dry and the curry could be punched up with flavor, they’re still tasty, but truly serve only to accent the delicious seven-grain carrot bread. It has a subtle earthiness and sweetness that works terrifically with the curry. The bread has a bit of chewiness, too, while remaining soft, making it easy to eat even though it’s somewhat tall.

My favorite sandwich is the grinder — salami, ham, and cheese with spicy relish on a crusty hero roll topped with sesame seeds. It has such a pleasant density that holds up to the sauciness of the relish that I assumed it was a semolina roll. It’s the best hoagie bread I’ve had in town so far. It might be too crusty for some, but I never found it cutting into the roof of my mouth.

Grilled Ham & Cheese

The grilled ham and cheese comes grilled on impossibly soft and moist slices of bread, which were a bit too much so for me, making it my least favorite sandwich since the high proportion of bread didn’t pay off as well here.

There are sandwiches where the fillings do make the sandwich, such as the turkey, cream cheese, and chutney. It’s the classic day-after-Thanksgiving treat gone gourmet.

As with all the bakeries, it’s hard not to over-carb with some pastries. I highly recommend Little T’s cookies. My current favorite cookie in town is probably their molasses cookie, with a crunchy exterior yielding to a chewy interior, a flavorful play between tropical spices and darkly sweet molasses.

A recent menu:

BREAKFAST

Cowgirl Toast – $5.50
egg, bacon, organic cheddar

Our Own Granola
w/ milk – $3
w/ Nancy’s Yogurt – $3.75
add bananas – $1

Continental
short skinny w/ butter & jam – $2.50
w/ Mt. Tam triple cream – $4.50

Ham & Cheddar on Pretzel – $4.50

LUNCH (11am – 3pm)

Grinder on Hoagie – $6.50
Italian cold cuts & cheeses, pepper salad

Curry Chicken Salad on 7 Grain Carrot – $6.50
w/ apple chutney & greens

Egg Salad on Sally Lunn – $6

Roasted Veggie on Slab – $6
zucchini, onion, peppers, romesco

Grilled Ham & Gruyere – $6
hint of dijon aioli

Turkey – $6
apple chutney & gina marie cream cheese

Soup – $3/$4.50
cream o’ tomato

Farmer’s Greens Salad – $4.50

Caesar Salad – $5.50

Side Salad w/ Sandwich or Soup – $2

Little T American Baker
2600 SE Division
Portland, OR 97202
503.238.3458
http://www.littletbaker.com

Hours: Daily 7-5, Sun 8-2

** For those who don’t know, I am one of the owners of Kenny & Zuke’s Delicatessen. Many may see Little T’s as my competitor and be suspicious of my review of it and any other sandwich shops in Portland. So be it. You’re welcome to take what I say with a grain of salt. It should also be noted that Tim Healea, the “T” in “Little T’s”, helped open Kenny & Zuke’s and developed many of its bread recipes. Being named one of Food & Wine’s Tastemakers, being on the board of the Breadbaker’s Guild of America, and having won a silver medal at the Coupe du Monde, the world’s top baking competition, you would think that Tim Healea would be one helluva cocky son-of-a-bitch, yet he’s one of the most easy-going, nicest and most talented guys I’ve worked with in the food industry. So maybe you’ll think I’m just being nice. Whatever.