Opening up on Blowers Street in the spring of 2024, Buddy's Deli is a takeout spot slinging subs to…read morethe downtown lunch crowd. It's a bit of a long haul from my office, but an appointment in the area brought me by and I had to scratch my sub itch.
The menu is pretty compact , with eight-ish subs on the go at any given time, including a rotating monthly special. Prices seem to be comparable to the premium subs at their local competitors.
The Italian bonafides of the Buddy Roma caught my eye: with lettuce, tomato, provolone, mortadella, ham, salami and roasted bell peppers, all held together with a pesto mayo, it seemed like an easy win!
Taking the hefty sandwich back to the office, I unwrapped it and dug in.
There was a generous portion of meats, with their tender, salty and savoury goodness melding together. The provolone added its signature mild funk, while the roasted bell pepper and pesto mayo really brought up the flavour with bright vegetal notes.
Some acid would have been nice to cut through all the richness, but this was definitely a tasty sub nonetheless!
A truly great sandwich is often more about the bread than it is the ingredients, and while Buddy's standard sub bun wasn't groundbreaking, it was light and soft, and held up well against its robust fillings.
A return visit had me trying their clubhouse sub. If you're a club sandwich purist, it's a bit of a curve ball since in addition to lettuce, tomato, bacon and turkey, it has Black Forest ham, Swiss cheese and dill pickles. Let's be honest, getting your nose out of joint about something like a club sandwich is a bit much, and these additions are all very typical sandwich ingredients in their own right.
Once again, it was a very solid sandwich! It was generously filled, and the *real* crumbled bacon stood out flavour-wise, with the tomato and pickles cutting through the savoury ingredients and slathering of mayo.
The hefty sandwich made for two good lunches. I could have put it down in one, but I would have been significantly less productive that afternoon.
Buddy's is putting some quality sandwiches out and fills what was a surprising blind spot for downtown Halifax, while filling up your stomach.