Better Than Subway’s $5 Footlong?

My sister and I needed to find a quick place to grab a bite before she headed to Penn Station to catch a train, so I suggested trying the new sandwich shop Defonte’s of Brooklyn. It just opened up on 21st and 3rd, so it couldn’t be closer to me. Technically it doesn’t open until Monday (and it’s closed tomorrow), but today they are serving all of their sandwiches for only $5! And all beverages were $1. Suddenly the Subway a few shops down didn’t look so appealing.

The place was packed, understandably so, but it wasn’t laid out in the smartest way - you enter at the front of the store, but that’s the end of the line where you pay, so you have to weave between people and the counter in a very narrow aisle to get to the end of the line. Oh well, personal space in Manhattan is a rare privilege anyway.

My sister and I decided to get two sandwiches and split them, so we ordered the Hot Roast Beef - roast beef, fresh mozzarella, fried eggplant and natural jus - and the Joey Bishop - Virginia ham, provolone, roasted peppers, balsamic vinegar and olive oil. Unfortunately fresh mozzarella (which they apparently make daily on premises) was one of the ingredients they didn’t have in stock today, so they substituted it with a deli-style mozzarella slice. For some unknown reason the two sandwiches were pretty different in size, with the Hot Roast Beef being noticeably larger, but that’s fine since one sandwich was too big for us to finish anyway.

Maybe it was the rush to get everyone served, maybe it was the missing ingredients or maybe it was an untrained or inexperienced staff, but I wasn’t blown away. Let me be upfront here, deli sandwiches are not one of those things that I often crave, so while I like them, they’re definitely not in my top 10 or 15 favorite foods/meals. I guess after reading about the hype of Defonte’s coming to Manhattan, I was expecting more. High expectations can be a real killer.

The Hot Roast Beef was kind of bland. The texture was nice and almost a little mushy (in a good way), but it really needed something - maybe the fresh mozzarella, maybe more jus (I didn’t notice any) - but it needed some kind of sauce or peppers to cut through the meat, bread and eggplant to add real flavor. I tried a piece of the fried eggplant alone and again, it didn’t stand out. It was just greasy fried-ness…I couldn’t even taste the eggplant in there, it was just fried batter. This is especially surprising since the reviews on Yelp all rave about their “signature item” - the fried eggplant. Am I missing something here?

The Joey Bishop was better, and I think it was due in large part to the roasted red peppers and balsamic vinegar. I’m not a huge fan of ham, but it worked really well on this sandwich. One complaint for both sandwiches was the relatively tasteless and unmelted cheese. At least the bread was good on both - neither hero was too crunchy or hard on the outside.

For $5 I can’t complain too much, and it was nice to get really fresh meat versus just packaged cold cuts on a sandwich. There are quite a few other sandwiches that caught my eye, so I’d be willing to go back again once it has time to get running up to speed, and when all ingredients are in stock. But if I have an experience again like I did today, then I just couldn’t justify spending $8-10 on a sandwich when I can get a decent one at Subway for $5.