Gil's Thrilling (And Filling) Blog

Albuquerque's very best sandwich shop.

Having lived in England for three years in the mid-1980s and wholly committed to immersing ourselves in local culture, we spent many a lunch hour in English pubs, often consuming ploughman’s lunches, a late 1970s invention of the United Kingdom’s catering industry.

Marketed as the “traditional” fare eaten by ploughman in days of yore, the ploughman’s lunch generally consisted of a lump of cheese (usually Stilton or Cheddar), pickle (Branston’s, of course) and salad accompanied by crusty bread and butter.

As with most English cuisine, this simple meal has never received the type of respect seemingly reserved for the haughty haute cuisine of the French, but it’s one of the many things we missed about our former home.

Spicy Muffuletta at Relish (Photo by Sergio Salvador)

We were thrilled to discover in October, 2004 that an Albuquerque restaurant newcomer with the simple name “Relish Sandwich Shop” offered this lunch, albeit with the spelling plowman.

We were also impressed to discover that restaurant–although bearing no resemblance to an English pub–earned “best sandwich” accolades in the Alibi’s readers choice poll for 2004. It also tied for “best new restaurant” in the city.

Relish’s version of the plowman had us waxing nostalgic for the many family oriented English pubs we frequented in our last three years abroad.

The Cubano (Photo by Sergio Salvador)

Any cheese connoisseur would be challenged to select only two cheeses from among the aged and new cheeses of the crumbly and solid variety offered at Relish. The cheeses selected for us during our inaugural visit were an aged Cheddar (five years old) and a new Cheddar, but we also had an herb-infused goat cheese that could only be classified as one fantastic fromage.

Included with the plowman’s lunch were sun dried tomatoes, the aforementioned and incomparable Branston’s pickle, and nut-encrusted dates. Not a substantial meal, it was nonetheless a memorable one we hoped to repeat often because of its pairing of contrasting yet complementary tastes, a specialty in British culinary fare.

The plowman’s lunch is now the “ploughman’s basket” on the formidable Relish menu which (thankfully) still lists five cold and five hot sandwiches as well as four composed salads. The sandwiches are still among Albuquerque’s best and the salads among the very best and most inventive in the entire state.

Turkey sandwich at Relish (Photo by Sergio Salvador)

Relish makes its own mozzarella daily and has a strict no-refrigeration, eat that night policy. The homemade mozzarella sandwich showcases this rich cheese with roasted red pepper, arugula, aged balsamic and extra virgin olive oil on a crusty alpinette roll.

The Cubano, loosely based on the Cuban sandwich, features chipotle rubbed roast pork, honey ham, Swiss cheese, sliced pickle and cilantro mayo served on a baguette. Served hot on pressed bread toasted to perfection, it is among the best of its genre we’ve had in the Duke City.

The Cubano so impressed Rico Martinez, the brilliant braintrust behind the now defunct Rant Pack blog that he wrote the hilarious “Ode to Relish” in which he lavished gustatory praise and prose on the “scumptiously perfecto” sandwich while deriding the poor service he received during at least one visit to Relish.

Rico subsequently wrote an article in which he rated Relish’s Cubano the best among Cuban sandwiches he tried in four different restaurants. In fact, he accorded it “best sandwich in Albuquerque” accolades. He’s got a good case. The Cubano is indeed muy magnifico, but so are other sandwiches on Relish’s repertoire.

Pasta Salad and Chop Chop Salad

Best sandwich in the city honors might also be accorded to Relish’s spicy muffaletta which is the closest you’ll find to a New Orleans style muffaletta while still allowing for a New Mexican departure.

The spicy muffaletta is not quite as big as its near pizza sized counterpart at our favorite French Quarter po’ boy restaurant, Cafe Maspero. Still it’s a handful, a two-fisted sandwich brimming with ingredients and flavor.

Sandwiched between muffaletta bread are provolone, Genoa salami, maple ham, sweet and spicy coppacola, pepperoni, and artichoke tapinade with a garlic-chile sauce. The spicy coppacola and garlic-chile sauce will get your attention quickly while the other high-quality ingredients sneak in more with more subtlety.

Shrimp stuffed spring rolls with peanut sauce

Still another contender for “best” honors is the double-decker Reuben which includes both pastrami and corned beef along with Swiss cheese, sauerkraut and Thousand Island dressing with a hint of horseradish on seeded rye bread.  The hint of horseradish is just enough to cut the dill sweetness of the Thousand Island dressing and punch it up just a bit.

Sandwiches are served with your choice of deli salads–a potato salad made with Idaho potatoes, a green apple slaw and a fabulous pasta salad (mozzarella, Farfalle (a fancy name for bowtie) pasta, grape tomato, roasted garlic, cracked black pepper and Balsamic vinaigrette). The pasta salad is good enough on its own to be a menu item.

Sensational salads also dot the menu. Our early favorite is the endive salad which melds Belgian endive and field greens with candied pine nuts, Maytag blue cheese, grape tomatoes, green apples and buttermilk dressing. Endive, a relative of the chicory family, is imbued with refreshing qualities that make eating this salad feel like spring time year round. In combination with the other creative ingredients on this salad, it practically sings with flavor.

The Mediterranean

Another composed salad that will bowl you over with the harmonious coalescence of ingredients is the Chop Chop salad which is artfully crafted of grilled chicken, haricot verts (French green beans), roasted red and yellow beets, cucumber, feta cheese, roasted red peppers, olives, artichokes, mint and grape tomatoes tossed in preserved lemon vinaigrette. You’ll want to taste all the ingredients one at a time and you’ll want to taste them in combination with each other. This is a fantastic salad, one of the very best in the city.

Vegetarian options are definitely not limited to the salads.  The Mediterranean sandwich is crafted with hummus, haricot verts, Greek feta, tomato, dill pickle, roasted red pepper, arugula and balsamic vinaigrette served on an alpinette roll.  It is so flavorful even the most committed carnivore won’t miss meat.  The hummus, in particular, is absolutely true to its Middle Eastern roots and would contend for best in the city honors.

A recent menu edition are spring rolls which can be stuffed with either shrimp or tofu.  Accompanied by a Thai style peanut sauce, the translucent wrappers envelop three shrimp per spring roll so there’s shrimp in every bite.

Chocolate Sandwich from Relish

Unlike so many of the boring beverage and chips offerings in town, Relish dares to be different, offering such Duke City rarities as Dr. Brown’s root beer and Miss Vickie’s unique chips in such flavors as Texas mesquite and sea salt and vinegar.

Relish offers only one dessert, but characteristic of the restaurant’s inventiveness, it’s a Chocolate Sandwich.  As with Relish’s panini offerings, the canvas for this sandwich is a fresh, delicious bread baked by Albuquerque’s Le Paris French Bakery.  The fillings include sliced bananas while the chocolate is Callebaut, a premium Belgian chocolate made by a chocolate maker who still selects, roasts and grinds its own cocoa beans.  Although the sandwich makes for an excellent dessert, the texture of the hard-crusted bread may be a little tough on the roof of your mouth, especially if you’ve also had a panini sandwich crafted on the same bread.

Over the Fourth of July weekend in 2009, Relish underwent a significant expansion, essentially taking over the space vacated by the business next door.  With additional tables, the restaurant is now open for lunch seven days a week and on Fridays and Saturdays for dinner.  The unveiling of a more expansive space for edible art is fittingly coupled with a display of fine art by multi-talented Albuquerque artist Claudia Goodell, a self-taught painter whose work is displayed in galleries throughout America and online galleries throughout the world–and now at Relish. Fine food and fine art. What a great combination!

Thanks to Sergio Salvador for his fantastic photos.  Please visit Sergio’s Web site for more.

Relish
8019 Menual, N.E.
Albuquerque, NM
299-0001

LATEST VISIT: 11 Dec 2009
# OF VISITS: 6
RATING: 22
COST: $$
BEST BET: Cubano, Muffaletta, Reuben, Endive Salad, Chop Chop Salad, Mozzarella, The Meditteranean, Chocolate Sandwich

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