Who doesn't love a great sandwich? Every bite can bring an assortment of flavours and textures -…read moreall enveloped in what is hopefully a well-suited and tasty carbohydrate. Halifax has an assortment of sandwich places already, and they span the spectrum from hunger-satiating-mediocrity, to over-hyped, to truly great.
Larry's Sandwiches and Sides comes from the minds behind the kitchen at renowned downtown Dartmouth bar Dear Friend, and while I wasn't around for the early pop-ups at their sister location, my wife and I moved into the neighbourhood not long before Larry's opened its own brick and mortar shop. Knowing their pedigree, I made them a priority target and swung by one Friday afternoon for lunch, after conveniently pre-ordering through their website.
Bologna's Italian ancestor mortadella seems to be having a culinary comeback, and the mortadella sandwich at Larry's takes top billing on their menu, so I opted for that. My other half went for the B.B. Ham on a gluten-free bun.
My order was ready a little early and ready to roll when I arrived, and I was really impressed when the staff asked if I wanted to tack on a salad or side for free, as the GF sandwich bun only comes in one size, and is significantly smaller than a full-sized sub. Wanting to boost my greens intake for the day, I went with the garden salad.
Meeting up with my wife by Sullivan's Pond, we sat down to have our lunch under the sun and equally hot glare of hungry ducks.
My mortadella sandwich checked a lot of the right boxes with its high quality ingredients, which all seem to be made either in-house or to come from local specialists. The smooth, salty and savoury mortadella peeks out from behind a lot of other big flavours like the house-made ranch, mustard and pickled veg. Shredduce added some further crunch, and despite not showing up on the ingredients on the online menu (and it really should for dietary reasons) there was a slice of what seemed to be mozzarella. The sub bun had a nice and flaky exterior, and the wonderfully airy crumb held up well against its messy cargo.
It wasn't the type of sub that's jam-packed like a Dagwood-style sandwich, going for quality rather than quantity. With the added heft of the fresh and flavourful garden salad though, it was great meal!
My wife was very happy with her B.B. (brown butter) Ham sandwich, with the sweet and savoury ham from Vessel Meats pairing perfectly with the brown butter mayo, garlic dill pickles and cheddar. The GF bun, regardless of its size, was extremely well-made, and she found it to be almost indistinguishable from a regular bun!
My return visit had me trying one of their specials, the De-Parm-A, the Larry's version of a chicken parm sandwich.
My love of crisp, fried, savoury foods often leads me to things like this, but unfortunately the promise of chicken parm sandwiches often does not deliver in reality, and that was generally the case with Larry's.
The ingredients were all good quality and the chicken cutlet thick and moist, but the breading on the chicken never really survives the whole process. Out of necessity, especially for a sandwich place looking to move orders quickly, the chicken cutlets are breaded and fried beforehand, then sauced and shoved in some bread, none of which does any favours for its crispness.
Perhaps the idiom needs to be updated from "You can't have your cake and eat it too", which is fundamentally flawed in my opinion, to "You can't have a chicken parm sandwich and it be crispy too", which is my experience.
Nonetheless, Larry's is undeniably a great sandwich spot, with thoughtful creations made with top notch ingredients, and they're another feather in the hat of downtown Dartmouth.
