Big Lou's Butcher Shop: Sandwiches, Sandwiches, and Sandwiches

Big Lou’s Butcher Shop is best known for their selection of meats as well as their sandwich counter. Some say that their sandwiches are equally as good as Meat & Bread.

I am never in this part of town, so it took me a while to make a trip here. M wanted a sandwich as usual, so I thought this would be a perfect place.

The back of this small store is the sandwich counter. They have a decent sized selection of sandwiches, but you really have to come here before certain items run out. I really really wanted the Porchetta, but that was sold out…also the turducken was sold out too.

They have very ornate decoration in the store. I just adored their shelves because of all the old style items that are there. Mostly it was the Boylan bottles of pop, but it gave it a cool look.

M is a huge cherry cola fan but I have never liked the flavour of any cherry type of cola…..till now.

Boylan’s Black Cherry soda is so good! It has a nice refreshing taste of the cherry flavour and it’s the best I have ever had. even said it was the best he’s ever had as well.

We took the sandwiches home to eat since there were only 2 stools to sit on. Since they were closing in 30 mins, we really didn’t mind taking it out. I hear thats what most people do anyways. I love how they wrap up these sandwiches so nicely in butcher paper and wrap the string around it.

Banh Mi ($8) has pickled vegetables, shredded pork shoulder, pate, cilantro and spicy mayo. This was pretty good. The bread is super crunch on the outside and quite nice and fluffy on the inside.

It is packed with a good amount of the shredded pork shoulder! The sauce worked really well with the ingredients too! They really created a good variation of this vietnamese classic. Just look at all that tender meat, who could resist?

Big Lou’s Chicago Style ($7.50) has in-house made sausages, pickles, onions, mustard, tomato mayo, peppers and celery salt. This sandwich uses the same type of bread as the banh mi sandwich.

I wasn’t a fan of this sandwich. The sausage had a really good taste, but I didn’t like the combination of the pickled, peppers and onions. I didn’t feel like it accentuated the flavour of the sausage since it really is the star of this sandwich.

The Shooter has seared medium steak slices, mushrooms, caramalized onions and perhaps horseradish. This sandwich is definitely different than the other ones. All the ingredients are embedded into the middle of the sandwich like a cross-section. All the laters are quite visible and you can see the medium color of all the steak slices.

The bread is different and it’s more dense and full of grains than the other bread.

When you bite into the sandwich, you will notice that is cold. I think they prepare it ahead of time and slice a piece off when someone orders it. It did have a good combination of flavours, but since it was cold, it was hard to taste some of the flavours. If this was a hot sandwich, I am sure the caramelized onions would have stood out a bit more.

Overall, Big Lou’s Butcher Shop has some interesting sandwiches. I found that some sandwiches can be a hit or a miss. Since I didn’t try the porchetta, I still don’t know which is better. For the time being, I will still stick with Meat & Bread. I will return for another visit and see which sandwich shop reigns supreme.

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