Meet me on Sando Street

you deserve a good egg salad sandwich

Hi, everyone!

I’d like to start off by saying thank you to those of you who came out to the Sandwiches of History live show at The Den Theatre last week. Wow. What an experience! And hello to those of you who signed up to read this thing after not knowing who the hell I was. (I realize I’m…not exactly a household name.)

For those of you who couldn’t make it,

Barry W. Enderwick

, the gentleman behind the Sandwiches of History social media feeds, invited me up on stage to make a sandwich with him during his show. The recipe was an old one from 1909, simply called a School Sandwich (made of butter and brown sugar on white bread). We ate, joked, and chatted along the way. Barry’s as kind as he comes off on social media, and I’m looking forward to the next time we get a chance to do something together.

Oh, and before I forget, I could use a brief hand with something: Somehow, The Party Cut has been nominated for Chicago Reader’s Best of 2024 Awards under the Best Email Newsletter category.

Specific, I know. It’s also the only newsletter in the running that doesn’t have “Chicago” in its name, plus it’s the only one that’s about food. I’m up against some much bigger publications like Block Club Chicago and the Chicago Reader itself, so I understand I’m quite an underdog, but if you’d like to toss me a vote, you can do so here.

It’s fitting that I started today’s newsletter talking about sandwiches, because that’s exactly what we’re going out to eat today. But we’re trying a very specific type, one that you don’t see terribly often in Chicago.

That’s why we’re hitting up Sando Street in Wicker Park.

Sando Street is a tiny counter service shop that specializes in Japanese-style sandwiches, all on spongy shokupan, or Japanese milk bread.

It’s located on Ashland just south of North Avenue, and the building (which looks like a house) is easy to drive past if you’re not paying close attention. Ashland sort of sucks since it’s so damn busy, but we managed to snag some free parking without issue. If you’re taking public transit, it’s only about a 10 minute walk north of the Division Blue Line stop.

Before we continue, let’s all take a moment to admire my talented photography. First off, my jacket sleeve is clearly visible in the lower left-hand corner of the pic, and second of all, I only noticed just now that one of the diners was striking a pose while I took it. I’m going to take home a James Beard Award for photography next year, everyone.

Out of all of the appetizers (listed as “snacks”) on the menu, the takoyaki ($9 for five pieces) and the popcorn chicken stuck out to us the most, so we ordered both.

The takoyaki (octopus pancakes) at Sando Street are deep fried rather than cooked in traditional spherical pancake pans, and because of that, they have a delicately set and uniformly thin exterior layer. Both Davida and I immediately noticed that there’s something flat about their flavor, as if they’re missing a key savory ingredient, but neither of us could quite put our finger on what it was. Because of that, I think our search for great takoyaki in Chicago will have to continue on.

The popcorn chicken ($8) is your much better bet.

These are chunks of breaded thigh meat, and they come with a side of gochujang sauce and kimchi aioli for dipping. While this is a fairly straightforward example of popcorn chicken, it’s got a few extra things going for it, starting with the chicken itself, which is thankfully the flavorful dark stuff.

Then, these nuggets make for a good vehicle for the dipping sauces, which we found ourselves big fans of. The gochujang sauce tastes a lot like a tonkatsu sauce with a little fermented pepper zip to it, and the kimchi aioli adds a light tang and a thick richness to each nugget too.

When Sando Street first opened this past February, my social media feed was lit up with photos and videos of their tamago, or egg salad sandwich ($12).

That’s because it’s a visually striking sandwich, made with a Kewpie mayo egg salad along with a whole soft boiled egg that’s sliced and delicately placed in the middle. The cut sides are gently sprinkled with furikake (Japanese rice seasoning), which gives them a pop of color along with an umami touch.

If you’re going to get only one thing on your trip here, I’d make it this sandwich, because it’s both delicate and satisfying at the same time. The egg salad is lightly savory thanks to the MSG in the Kewpie mayo, and the soft-boiled egg acts sort of like a satisfying meaty bit in the middle. My only mild concern with the sandwich is the thickness of the shokupan, since it’s fairly substantial, but the bread is still soft and yielding, so this is mostly a non-issue.

Davida particularly liked the tonkatsu sandwich ($13), which features a thinly-sliced pork tenderloin that’s breaded in panko and deep fried.

The sandwich is also dressed with shredded cabbage, chili aioli, and plenty of tonkatsu sauce. It’s so gloriously sauced that it’s hard not to wolf it down, and the tenderloin is thin enough that you can bite through it easily. The tonkatsu is definitely worth checking out if for some reason you hate or can’t eat egg salad — but otherwise the Japanese egg salad still edges this one out, because it feels so lovingly crafted to me.

While Sando Street mostly serves Japanese-inspired food, it does toss a fair amount of Korean flavors in the mix too, such as in the case of this bulgogi sandwich ($15).

I really wanted to like this sandwich more than I did, but this one just didn’t land for me. That’s because the bulgogi itself misses the mark. For a sweet soy beef dish that’s usually dripping with marinade and cooking juices, none of that seemed to be present here. There’s also mozzarella, caramelized onions, kimchi aioli, and shredded cabbage here too, but without that strong bulgogi foundation, the sandwich doesn’t quite deliver. I have heard some great things about the musubi sandwich though, so we’ll be back someday to give that one a shot.

The sandwiches all come with a side of Japanese sweet potato chips, which are delicious.

They’re lightly salty, starchy, shatter in your mouth like glass, and leave behind a pleasant subtle sweetness. Davida was completely smitten by them. What’s cool is you can buy standalone orders of them for $4, too, in case you can’t quite get enough.

Rice bowls are also a prominent part of Sando Street’s menu, and so we ordered the crispy eggplant one ($13).

The main star is a slice of eggplant that’s been breaded in panko and deep fried, and it comes with a pile of sticky white rice, pickled slaw (their term for what appears to be mainly pickled red cabbage), pickled carrots, and shredded cabbage. While the majority of the rice bowl is pretty simple, I absolutely loved the crispy eggplant because it reminds me completely of tonkatsu, sans meat.

It’s crisp and crunchy, just like the fried pork tenderloin, but it does come with a caveat — you have to eat it right away. If you wait for more than five minutes, the eggplant bleeds out enough moisture to sog up the breading. Plus the eggplant cutlet is doused in a generous amount of that sweet tonkatsu-ish gochujang sauce, which only speeds up the timer.

This is a great vegetarian option (you can make it vegan by request), and you can actually get it in a sandwich as well, with the same salad accompaniments as the rice bowl.

We couldn’t leave without one of those photogenic fruit sandwiches, so we ordered the ube cream and strawberry sandwich ($10).

This one’s super simple — it’s just a house-whipped ube cream and some big ol’ strawberry halves. And it’s definitely pretty, that’s for sure. Because ube’s such a delicate flavor, the cream doesn’t taste like a whole lot other than dairy or sweet, but it’s definitely pleasant overall. I’m guessing that these sandwiches are much better during the summer than they are at the beginning of December, because these particular strawberries were underripe, but I had the feeling this would be the case going in.

The fruit sandwiches are a fun thing to split with a companion after the rest of your meal, and other variations include a matcha cream and a black sesame and cacao cream, both paired with strawberries as well. They’d make a pretty light standalone snack too, if that’s your thing.

If you’re a big fan of Japanese egg salad sandwiches like I am, go give Sando Street a visit. I know I’ll pop in for some more tamago sandos when I’m back in the neighborhood, that’s for sure. If we can’t get those beloved Japanese-style egg salad sandwiches from 7-Eleven (I vow to try one someday), this’ll definitely serve as the next best thing.

Sando Street
1547 N Ashland Ave
Chicago, IL 60622
(773) 698-6475

Hours:
Tuesday - Saturday: 11 a.m. - 7 p.m.
Closed Sunday and Monday

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Okay, time to get started on the week — hope you’ve enjoyed the unseasonably warm weather. It’s been nice walking around outside wearing a hoodie. Love you guys, and talk to you soon.