Washingto DC: Taylor Gourmet Two Days Straight

For the two days I was in DC, I went to this sandwich shop near the convention center called Taylor Gourmet Deli.  The owners are from Philly and they saw a lack of hoagie options in DC so decided to start their own Italian hoagie shop!  It's also one of the top rated places in DC, and there's a bunch of framed articles and awards lining one wall of the shop.


Taylor Gourmet
485 K St NW
Between N 4th St & N 5th St
Washington, DC 20001
taylorgourmet.com

The place itself was pretty cool!  There's a roll-up garage door so on a good day, they can open it up to have an open-air feel to it!  Very industrial decor.  If this place was in LA, hipsters would probably swarm it :P

Another cool thing about Taylor Gourmet is that their soda fountain is supplied by a company that does pure can sugar sodas, Puck's!  That means there's no HFC in the sodas.  Tried to find some info on them but could not find their online footprint.  It's my first time ever seeing one!  You can definitely taste the difference.  All the sodas are noticeably sweeter. and the flavoring is what you would expect from a bottle of old fashion sodas.  Cola has a medicinal taste, while the ginger ale has a strong ginger flavor.  The cola and vanilla cream were the top two for me.

A combo is a little over $10 for a hoagie, drink, and a bag of chips.

Day one, I decided to try a cold sandwich, and went for the Lombard Street.  Sandwiches are named after streets.  Seems to be a popular thing to do nowadays.

Sopressata, genoa salami, roasted red peppers, pesto, and fresh mozzarella on a sesame wheat.  Classic Italian ingredients.  The pesto works well to have the sandwich be not as dry.  Not much in terms of protein, but Taylor is stressing more about the quality rather than the quantity.

You can definitely tell the mozzarella is fresh because it just crumbles.

For Day 2, I liked the pesto so much, I decided to get a hot sandwich with pesto on it, and got the Vine Street Expressway.

Italian breaded chicken, prosciutto, pesto, and sharp provolone on sesame wheat.  Not a thick cut of breaded chicken, but wow, the breaded chicken has a lot of flavors.  Italian seasoning + fried chicken is awesome.

Pesto and the prosciutto is great but the real star is the sharp provolone.  I love that piquant flavor.  It's weird though, I usually see sharp provolone on sandwiches in the East Coast, not so much in Cali.

Both lunches, I went with the jalapeno chips.  My favorite all time is Ms. Vick's but the Herrs was not bad at all.  It is kettle cooked so it's a lot crunchier than your normal chips.

Very cool sandwich spot.  Really did wish I had a few more days to try out their other hoagies, especially the meatball.  Somewhat jealous of the people that work around that area :P