Pizza dough helps sub rise to another level
A weekly series dedicated to anything that fits on a piece of bread. We deconstruct a different sandwich each week – from Mexican tortas to Lebanese pita kebabs to lobster guédilles – and tell you where to find it and what goes into making it. SARAH MUSGRAVE GAZETTE CASUAL-DINING CRITIC
Steak and pepperoni sub, $11.95 at Manzo in LaSalle
Manzo — named the best subs in town by The Gazette in 2001 — makes a very particular type of submarine, one well loved by Montrealers. Food-group defying, it’s like eating a sandwich, a pizza and a salad simultaneously. It’s the dough, and to some degree the dressing, that make them so distinct.
Steve Triantopoulos, who has owned this Italian spot in LaSalle for 25 years, says he invented the sub back in the mid-’70s at a different restaurant.
“Sometimes by accident you create something,” he muses. “I would be short on bread, and it crossed my mind to use the pizza dough. After that, forget it! The customers didn’t want the regular bread anymore!”
You can refer to this particular order as lucky number 13 on the menu, or you can go shorthand and call it a steak pep. The bread: The dough (A) is freshly shaped and sized for each order. “It’s never 10 inches, and it’s never 14 inches,” Triantopoulos says, noting that he tends to go over on length, so even a smaller sub is a foot long. It’s baked directly on a stone in one of Manzo’s three pizza ovens, which date to the 1960s. It’s then cut and hollowed out, so only the crust remains — resilient enough to soak up the dressing and stand up to delivery times. The spread: Thin slices of steak (B) are cooked on the grill, and mingled with Roma-brand pepperoni (C), mozzarella cheese and cooked onions. The hot stuff is followed by tomato, iceberg lettuce and a generous splash of salad dressing. It’s a simple vinaigrette (D) with a touch of oregano, but Triantopoulos claims it’s the balance of oil and vinegar that “makes your mouth want more.” The play of flavours hits all the receptors on the tongue, kind of like what ketchup was engineered to do. The secret: The Manzo Special, which throws in more deli meats, is the most popular order. But the steak and pepperoni is Triantopoulos’s personal favourite.