No edible item is more New Yorky than the breakfast sandwich, made with egg, American cheese, and bacon, sausage, or boiled ham on a kaiser roll — available at nearly every deli and bodega. But this cherished sandwich has been modified by time and contemporary preferences, and now variations can be found, or created. Appearing every Wednesday for the rest of summer and into the fall, this column will ferret out those wayward modifications.
Breakfast Melt
If the version of the New York breakfast sandwich served at Sullivan Street Bakery is the smallest and the cleanest — so greaseless you could eat it without a napkin, and no need to lick your fingers afterwards — then there also must be a greasiest version of the sainted sandwich. My vote goes to one made at Murray’s Cheese in Greenwich Village, the cheese store and not the restaurant. The place was founded by Murray Greenberg in 1940, but since 2017 has been a subsidiary of the Kroger grocery store chain. Nevertheless, the original shop forges on.
In one corner, a sandwich concession offers six hot pressed breakfast sandwiches (okay, one’s actually a burrito). The sandwich called breakfast melt ($6.99) features a runny egg, thick slices of double-smoked bacon, and fontina cheese, all put on a very thin English muffin that’s like two tiny Frisbees. Once embraced by the sandwich press, the components melt and ooze, making just about the greasiest sandwich you’ve ever enjoyed. Be careful so that it doesn’t slide off of its tissue paper and onto the floor. Replacing the usual American or cheddar, the fontina cheese goes very well in a classic New York breakfast sandwich, thank you. 254 Bleecker St., between Cornelia and Leroy streets, Greenwich Village
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