WOULD YOU PAY $120 FOR A SANDWICH?
THE WAGYU KATSU SANDO AT B&B BUTCHERS IS A RICH INDULGENCE.
B&B Butchers & Restaurant owner Benjamin Berg was so taken with photos he saw of an outrageously priced steak sandwich made with one of the world priciest proteins that he vowed to bring it to Houston.
That was about six months ago. Today, that sandwich, called a Wagyu Katsu Sando, is finally available. And it will set you back $120 for three exquisitely composed finger sandwiches.
It’s not officially on the menu yet — Berg said he’s waiting to give the sandwich a proper splash. But insiders, already pumped by social-media posts about the Instagram-worthy sando (the Japanese abbreviation for sandwich), know they can order it off the menu. Pair it with a bottle of champagne — sommelier Lexey Johnson says champagne is the perfect foil for the luxurious sandwich — and you could easily be talking about a $200 meal.
Even so, Berg says his sandwich is a bargain. The 6 ounces of wagyu rib-eye used in the sandwich cost him about $75. And at $120, it is more “affordable” than a similar sandwich offered for $180 by Don Wagyu, the first restaurant in New York devoted solely to wagyu beef.
The efforts of Don Wagyu as well as the members-only Tokyo restaurant Wagyumafia (which offers a $180 wagyu cutlet sando) helped fuel the foodie buzz. That prompted Berg and executive chef Tommy Elbashary to create their own version with painstaking attention to detail. It might very well be the most expensive sandwich in town.
What makes it so costly? Let’s start with the beef. B&B uses A5 Japanese wagyu, the highest grade of beef known for its intense marbling and buttery flesh. B&B already stocks the highest grades of beef, including wagyu — a 28-day, dry-aged A5 Japanese wagyu rib-eye steak, weighing in at 12 ounces, fetches
$250 on the menu; an A5 wagyu tenderloin from Japan’s Kagoshima Prefecture is $120 for a 4ounce chunk with $30 more for each additional ounce. The steak is coated in panko breadcrumbs and deep fried.
The fried cutlet is then sandwiched between a special toasted bread made with whole milk and delicately dressed with a
house-made tonkatsu sauce, a sweet and salty Japanese condiment usually served with deepfried pork cutlets. Elbashary wasn’t satisfied with the commercial tonkatsu sauces he tasted, so he developed his own.
Berg and his chef spent two weeks of testing before deciding their sando was ready to serve. It is brought to the table on a wheeled cart with a side dish of fried zucchini ribbons. Since B&B has no burger on its dinner menu, the wagyu katsu sando fills that void in its own luxe way; Berg also suggests that it can be shared as an appetizer.
“It’s not something you’re going to eat every day,” Berg said.
He acknowledges, however, that he’s already had a customer order it at least half a dozen times.
“I love to put it out there because there’s a certain a cachet to it,” Berg said.