Hornet's Nest Deli - Branford, CT

Personally, I had a pretty damn good time in high school. I bullied the nerds on the chess club by stuffing them into lockers and occasionally running in and flipping over a chess table or two. Really, it was some pretty good times and if given the chance to go back and relive high school with the knowledge I have now, I would do it in a heartbeat. Thinking about the days of shoving nerds in lockers and duct taping kids to poles brings back some really good memories.

The Hornet’s Nest Deli in town really does a nice job of capturing the Branford High School atmosphere with a plethora of Branford high sports memorabilia from lacrosse sticks to jerseys and even including the football helmet of the legendary football star Jim Balzano. The owner Dino really does a good job capturing the BHS atmosphere with the decorations and in the few moments of conversation with him, he definitely has some great future plans for this little deli by displaying artwork from aspiring artist can be bought form the artist if customers of the deli develop enough interest in them.

Like almost every other deli on earth, this one offers regular sandwiches to extreme specialty sandwiches. If you can think of a sandwich, wrap, or a combination of both, they’ll probably make it. On my visit there, I got the “widowmaker” sandwich which consists of: roast beef, bacon, cheese, lettuce, tomato, red onion, cheese, and their own horseradish mustard. This sandwich was very well divided and offered the complete spectrum of all the ingredients in every bite. Their special horseradish mustard offered a very nice sweet counterpoint to the red onion but offered a very nice kick also. This sandwich was a perfect blend of the ingredients in every bite and was quite a large sandwich for the very modest price.

The Hornet’s Nest offers at least seven more specialty sandwiches that are all equally as creative as the “widowmaker” and equally as delicious. For me this place will be a consistent go to for a great sandwich and a hearty dose of nerd beating nostalgia of the good old days. This place is affordable and simple. If you’re not expecting haute cuisine, and want a place to grab a reasonably priced and delicious sandwich while getting a great look at what Branford High School is like if not just to gaze upon the wonder of Jim Balzano’s football helmet, The Hornet’s Nest is the place to go.

Groucho's

A little slice of home recently landed in the college town of Newark, Delaware, in the form of Groucho's Deli, a sandwich shop hailing from my very own hometown of Columbia, South Carolina. But how did a deli that was started in South Carolina in 1941 end up in Delaware? According to a Delaware News Journal article, David Richardson, the owner of the Delaware Groucho's (now a franchise with all but just a few location in South Carolina), grew up in Columbia, but his wife, who is from Delaware, wanted to move back to The First State, and so they brought Groucho's with them.

The history behind Groucho's goes that Harold Miller (nicknamed Groucho because of his resemblance to Groucho Marx with his mustache, cigars, and joking demeanor) dreamed up the recipe for coleslaw, potato salad, and salad dressings while he was still a child in a Philadelphia orphanage. Groucho took those dreams with him to Columbia, and in 1941 opened what was one of only a few Jewish-style delis in the area.
I know Groucho's very well. Their subs were one of maybe only two non-home cooked meals my family would eat at our kitchen table. It was always such a treat when my Mom decided to go down to, at the time, the one and only location of Groucho's on Harden St., Columbia's own college area, to pick up an order of subs to bring back home. As I perused the rack of exotic chocolate bars and tins of hard candies in the gourmet grocery section that was a deli fixture only up until the the 1980's, my Mom was at the counter getting winks and a discount from Groucho who mistakenly believed my Mom to be Jewish.

What we took home was Groucho's signature sandwich, the STP Dipper, a soft, long roll filled with melted cheese and mounds of warm turkey and roast beef topped with crumbled bacon. God, these were good! But that was when I ate meat.
As a vegetarian, Groucho's doesn't have much of interest for me — various salads (actually not bad, but they aren't part of my childhood memory), and a couple of sandwiches filled with cheese and veggies either on a roll, sliced bread, or in a pita. About every couple of years I'll order a veggie sub just to jog the memory of the excitement of taking a trip down to the deli with my Mom and eating this sacred food of my youth.

And, so, I visited the Newark Groucho's to pay homage to my youth and ordered the veggie Italian sub. Slices of four kinds of cheese — Provolone, Swiss, Muenster, and sharp American — are melted on a soft roll, then topped with chopped lettuce, cucumbers and tomatoes. It's basically a salad on top of a roll with melted cheese, and it's a little hard to eat without using a fork to eat some of the salad first.What is strikingly different at Groucho's from all the hoagie and sub shops in the Delaware Valley is the softness of the bread. The bread is cloud-like and can be easily squished down into virtually nothing, a far cry from the sturdier, crusty breads of a hoagie or sub from around these parts. I know y'all are staunch about the firmness of your hoagie and sub rolls, and even which bakery supplies the bread, so the bread at Groucho's is really going to throw y'all for a loop.

You also won't find any broccoli rabe or chunks of sharp Provolone at Groucho's. These are not traditional Italian hoagies. Nor are Groucho's specialty sandwiches typical Jewish deli fare. What you will find is Formula 45 sauce, which is pretty much Groucho's claim to fame.Formula 45 sauce is a secret blend of Thousand Island and Russian dressings along with dill and spices. It's up to you, dear eater, to either employ the dressing as a dip for the sandwich or as a spread to slather inside the sandwich. Groucho's and their Formula 45 sauce is the reason I am such a huge proponent of special sauce — or any sauce — on sandwiches.

Formula 45 sauce even caused rifts in the deli sandwich eating community of Columbia when a former employee of Groucho's opened Andy's Deli a few blocks away from Groucho's with a strikingly similar menu and special sauce. Groucho's and Andy's is Columbia's own Pat's and Geno's, but the rivalry is more subdued, and no guidos line up on the sidewalk for a sandwich.Groucho's thinks their Formula 45 sauce is so good they put it on almost all of their specialty sandwiches. For 60 cents you can get a small side of Formula 45 to slather on their other sandwiches, and if you find yourself as smitten with Formula 45 as much as I am, you can even pick up a pint for $5 to take home.
Are you, birthrighters of the hoagie, going to love Groucho's sandwiches? I don't know. I invite you to wipe all notions of what you think is a proper sub or hoagie out of your head, go into Groucho's, and, if you eat meat, order the STP with Formula 45 thinking of it as nothing more than a sandwich.

Besides the STP Dipper and veggie Italian sub mentioned here, Groucho's also serves a wide variety of salads, clubs and deli sandwiches, including low-fat options.

P.S. Delaware's own Capriotti's (also now a franchise) still makes my favorite vegetarian sub — they have veggie turkey, for cryin' out loud, and, yeah, I prefer the sturdier bread — but when I order mine I have Capriotti's make it with Russian dressing. Just a little secret I learned from Groucho's.

Groucho's
170 E. Main St., Newark, DE 19711
302-533-6307

Citi MarketPlace

I heard Citi MarketPlace, the super clean and organized Center City grocer and deli, had a bajillion vegetarian lunch sandwiches — 13, actually, not counting breakfast sandwiches, specials, and the random ones hidden under other headings. And, of course, there are the usual real-deal meat sandwiches. Bread comes from Metropolitan Bakery, but if you want, they have some major brand sliced bread, too.
Just beyond the casual seating area that greets you when you enter is the deli case where you place your order. And beyond the deli case is a well stocked (for a small) grocery carrying produce, refrigerated and frozen goods, basics and higher end products.
The veggie grilled beef hoagie is filled with warm soy strips, lettuce, tomato, fried onions, fried mushrooms, and roasted peppers, and your choice of sauce. We'll know not to go with the sweet and tangy sauce next time — too sweet.
Vegetarian chicken salad sandwich lacked the little bits of zip I prefer in chicken salad (usually provided by grapes or pickles), but the generous portion and whole grain Metropolitan bread made up for it.
Don't know why, but Philly doesn't like faux meat breakfast products — I rarely see them at restaurants — but Citi MarketPlace will hit you up if that's what you want. This veggie sausage (tasted like a Morningstar product), egg and cheese sandwich on a Metropolitan multi-grain roll hit the spot, and is just the sort of geez-this-is-such-an-easy-substitution thing I'd love to see around town more often.

While we weren't blown away by either of the two lunch sandwiches we tried, with many more sandwiches to chomp through, there might be another favorite in the bunch besides the breakfast sausage sandwich.

Citi MarketPlace
1318 Walnut St., Philadelphia, PA 19107
215-545-4085
Mon-Fri:7am-11pm
Sat: 8am-11pm
Sun: 9am-8pm

Famous Fourth Street Deli

Philly's Famous Fourth Street Deli, a New York-style Jewish deli just off of South Street, is famous for their large portions, not necessarily the quality of their food. Americans love large portions, so the monstrous sandwiches and other sides fit for the famished at Famous Fourth tend to make the masses happy and greedy-eyed.

This is not my first trip to Famous Fourth; I seem to find myself there about once a year. These yearly visits happen mostly out of laziness and lack of inspiration of where to go. Philly digs were once a block from Famous Fourth, and are currently about seven blocks south of the deli, so it's not uncommon that I find myself wandering the neighborhood.

This last visit occurred after being awake for 24 hours, which caused me to be cranky (lunch inspiration was not flowing) and perpetually hungry (a huge sandwich would solve that problem).

Sandwiches can be ordered regular or zaftig. Regular is large. Zaftig is a joke. If you can tackle a sandwich that is six or more inches tall, go ahead and order the zaftig.

Sandwiches aren't the only thing large at the deli. The salad is large enough to be set on a Thanksgiving buffet table, and a single serving of kugel will sink a ship. Large is Famous Fourth's schtick.
I ordered the regular egg salad sandwich with a side of cucumber and onion salad. I pushed half of the faintly dill spiced, but otherwise bland egg salad along with all but one tomato slice and one leaf of lettuce out of the sandwich so that I could wrap my lips around that mother. I then adorned the sandwich with the slightly sweet and tangy cucumber salad for flavor. The rye bread the sandwich came on was very good - soft and not too heavy on rye.My partner ordered the cheese omelet, which came with potato pancake, and a bagel with cream cheese. The omelet was huge; fine, but the bland cheese inside was nothing special. The potato pancakes are much crispier than latkes I'm used too. The potato pancakes sort of remind me of smooshed, overcooked Tater Tots. He's a bagel snob, and liked the bagels just fine. He also ordered the lox.

Half of his brunch went home with him. I passed on the doggie bag of bland egg salad sandwich innards left on my plate.

I admit, I like large portions when I'm famished. And when I'm not, I don't mind taking home leftovers. But a half pound of leftover cold cuts, or in my case egg salad, does not make the most anticipated leftovers the next morning. I'd be better served with a smaller sandwich at a cheaper price (most regular-size sandwiches will run you about $12).
With your check you get two small chocolate chip cookies. Don't ask me how they were, because I was too stuffed to eat them. For those strongly in one camp or the other on cookie texture, they felt like crunchy cookies, not soft.

Famous Fourth Deli did the trick of stuffing my indifferent, hungover, cranky stomach, but it was not entirely pleasurable. I'm sure I'll see the inside of the deli next year under a similar uninspired situation.


Famous Fourth Street Deli
700 S. 4th St., Philadelphia, PA, 19147
215-922-3274