East Village Sandwiches: Get to Porchetta TODAY for the limited edition Lebanese Pressed Chicken Sandwich

Date July 2, 2012

Porchetta chicken sandwich

White meat chicken breast finally has a raison d’etre and it’s name is the Lebanese Pressed Chicken Sandwich ($10) at Porchetta. Just when you thought things couldn’t get any better at the porcine palace, Chef Sara Jenkins had to go and follow through on all the Lebanese food talk and create what is quite possibly the tastiest chicken sandwich I’ve had in a long time.  The same airy Grandaisy Ciabatta Piccola that sandwiches the namesake porchetta is slathered with a Lebanese garlic and lemon sauce called “toum” and packed with house made pickles and sliced white meat chicken marinated in lemon, saffron and onions, all before crisping up in the sandwich press.  The best bites are those where the toum surprises your taste buds, a pool of it exploding from an airy nook in the ciabatta.  At first glance, the finished product doesn’t inspire much awe. You may even feel like you should ask for extra toum. But looks are deceiving; there is so much flavor among the toum, marinated chicken and crisp pickles, you won’t want more sauce, you’ll want another sandwich.  Only once before have I experienced chicken, garlic and lemon converging so beautifully, and it was out at Alsalam Restaurant & Meat Market in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, where the chicken schwarma is well worth the trip.  Chef Jenkins drew inspiration for the sandwich from childhood trips to Lebanon; all you have to do is go to the East Village.  Make it happen soon, the chicken sandwich is only here for the summer.

Porchetta 110 East 7th Street b/t 1st Ave & Ave A 212.777.2151 Sun-Thurs, 11:30am-10pm, Fri-Sat, 11:30am-11pm