Thursday
January

20

2005
12:58 AM

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Nerbone, Florence, Italy, tasted on March 20, 2004 — Buried amid the seemingly endless stalls in the central market in Florence is a place everyone wishes was within a block from where they work. Because if you could eat lunch there every day, you would. It's Florence's answer to Katz' deli, and it's delicious. It's the panino con bollito that's bagnato served at Nerbone in the Mercato Centrale in Firenze.

Panino con bollito is a boiled beef sandwich that's bagnato - dipped in the beef's own juices just before serving. And it's delicious. The market has so many attractive stalls from produce to dried fruit to vinegars and oils and incredible butchers, that it would be easy to miss Nerbone. It's on the first floor and off to one side of the market. But luckily we knew not to rest until we found it. We could see the rest of the market after we got our sandwiches.

The stall is crowded. No surprise. Nobody knew we essentially flew half way around the world to eat this sandwich. And even if they did I'm not sure they would have let us through more easily. We had to buy a ticket paying for our sandwich and then fight our way to the counter to place an order. After the order was placed we sat back and wondered what a boiled beef sandwich dipped in it's own juices would taste like.

The bun was thick and hearty, a little baguette-like with flour on its surface. The beef was sliced coarsely to a medium thickness. It was placed on the big baguette. They didn't cover it until they topped the beef with a couple of dollops of a red and green sauce respectively. And just before the sandwich was completed the entire bottom was dipped in the juice from the boiled beef.

I was definitely worried that the sandwich would end up soggy. It wasn't. Not only wasn't it soggy but the entire thing defied expectations. The sandwich is extremely warm and filling, and just as you're enjoying this Florentine comfort food your tongue happens on some of the sauces and your mouth is filled with sparks. The red sauce is sharp and hot with the green (mashed garlic, basil, and onio) is unbelievably bright. The sandwich ends up being a warm, hearty, comforting, exciting, kickass bite of perfection. Yum, yum, and yum.