A Stroll through The Italian Market

Greetings, Readers!

This week, I am back in significantly warmer Los Angeles over the bitter cold that was Philadelphia last week.

During my week there, in between the snow storms, I visited the Italian Market with my family and stopped at Paesano’s, a small sandwich shop tucked away on a quiet block of the market.

Despite its small size, this place is fairly well known. Recommended to me as well by the Philly Tourism Board, and visited by Bobby Flay and Anthony Bourdain, it was pretty obvious that this needed to be on my radar quite a bit earlier than it was.

Everything on the menu sounded amazing, and has a few choices for vegetarians, but the one that stood out to me the most was the Gustaio: House-made lamb sausage, sun-dried cherry mostarda, Gorgonzola spread, roasted fennel, and arugula.

This sandwich was excellent, but at first my taste buds were hit with conflicting flavors. The lamb sausage is delicious and very savory while the cherry mostarda hit with a definite sweetness that at first seemed so contradictory to the rest of the sandwich that it was…well, interesting. Each successive bite though allowed me to see how these two flavors blended so well together, giving a savory sandwich such bright spots and delicious contrast that it shone above many others before it.

The lamb sausage is delicious, did I mention that? Because it is. Seriously. It’s amazing.

The arugula adds a great peppery flavor to the sandwich which was tied together in a delicious flatbread. Overall, the initial sweet/savory contrast may be intense for some, but I highly suggest you continue through and try this sandwich. It’s honestly one of the best I’ve had in the nearly four years I’ve been writing this blog.

Thanks for the suggestions for Philly, more to come over the next few weeks.

Happy Holidays to all, I hope you get to enjoy many leftover sandwiches in the coming weeks.

Until next week…

Gustaio
**** 1/2 Stars
Paesano’s Philly Style
1017 S. 9th Street
Philadelphia, PA 19147
http://www.paesanosphillystyle.com/