The Garage Deli

The Garage Deli, on Kenmore Avenue next to Torches, is open weekdays for lunch.  Owned and cheffed by the Richert family, you just sort of know that your meal is going to be a treat.

I thought I would never get the opportunity to eat here.  It's a little too far from work to trek over for lunch, but I am a lucky girl.  Ellen (yes, Curly's, Martin Cooks and Agave Ellen), is a teacher and on her week off for spring break she offered to pick up lunch from The Garage for both of us and meet me somewhere closer to my work to chow down.

The Garage menu is available on their facebook page plus they have changing daily specials.  One of the specials available the day we ordered was a french dip, which I love, and I would have ordered it if not for one standard menu sandwich which I just could not pass up.  More on that later.

First of all, these sandwiches had a little bit of travelling to do.  I fully expected a bit of soggy bread but was delighted when that was not the case.  The styrofoam container was lined with adorable red and white checked paper.  There were pretzels and a pickle on the side and both sandwiches were wrapped in foil, necessary I think, to hold them together.  Look at all that meat!!

Smoked Turkey BLT Sandwich

Ellen ordered the Smoked Turkey BLT Sandwich which, clearly, has a tower of smoked turkey on it.  It also had lettuce, smoked tomato (which was delicious on its own), applewood smoked bacon mayonnaise and red onion jam.  We both had a fun time unhinging our jaws trying to get an entire bite of our sandwiches into our mouths.

With the smoked turkey, smoked tomato and smoked bacon, there were a lot of smokey ingredients.  The smoke was more than noticeable but not at all overpowering and together it tasted excellent.

We also ordered sides of Cyndi's Pasta Salad and their Mediterranean Salad.

The pasta salad ingredients were listed as wacky mac, garbanzo, corn, Hickory Farm beef stick, cheese and italian dressing.  Our salad didn't have any garbanzo beans or corn but the pasta was nicely al dente and there was just enough dressing to give the salad some flavor without drenching the other ingredients.

We had a similar scenario with the Mediterranean salad.  Orzo pasta, celery, carrots and some onion were tossed in olive oil and lemon, but the artichokes, olives and feta (as listed on the menu) were missing from our dish.

Tur-Duc-Ken Sandwich

I have been fat-kid-in-a-candy-store excited to try this sandwich, so even with the appealing presence of the french dip as a special, I couldn't pass up the opportunity of eating a tur-duc-ken sandwich.  The throwback to Thanksgiving flavors is incredibly appealing to me.  I have to admit, though, layers of meat (smoked turkey, duck leg and braised chicken) with corn bread stuffing on a thick sandwich roll had me thinking that this sandwich had the rather serious potential to be very dry.

It was not dry.  The meats were not dry.  The stuffing was not dry.  The cranberry gastrique was like a tart burst of sweet and sour flavor with each bite and I think there was a little cranberry mayonnaise spread at the bottom of the sandwich also.

This sandwich lived up to everything my mind had hoped it could be.  The stuffing was moist and had a lot of sage and seasoning, which was necessary to cut through the additional bread in the sandwich roll.  I could probably have eaten a duck sandwich on its own, but the smoked turkey and braised chicken kicked things up a notch and added more complexity to the flavor of the sandwich.

Am I raving enough?  If I go to The Garage again I don't know if I will venture away from this sandwich.  I'm certain it could completely captivate me a second time.  Hm, when do teachers get their next break....?