Once the temperatures start to drop, it becomes too cold to not wear a jacket and your little fingers need a cup of hot chocolate to keep them warm. Exam season also brings the requirement of a snack to keep you going in between the long shifts in the library. The change in weather means that Christmas is coming, and that the Christmas sandwich is only around the corner.
A Christmas dinner is one of the best meals of the year, and the fact that you can get all aspects of your Christmas dinner from a sandwich changes not only the sandwich game, but the Christmas game completely. So, when I saw that Pret launched their Christmas menu in the UK on November 6th, I was ecstatic. I marched myself down to Dawson Street after class but alas I was met with the same menu as before. Not a single Christmas sandwich in sight. I was disappointed, to say the least, however, I knew of one place that would never let me down.
My undeniable love for Brewbaker on Nassau Street started last year when I was first introduced to their Christmas sandwich. It is a place that is full of character. As my friend Lara says: it has not aged since ‘The Celtic Tiger’, so you know that it is a reliable lunch spot. Brewbaker makes their Christmas Sandwich year-round, priding itself that “it can be Christmas every day”. Their sandwich includes freshly carved turkey, honey ham, stuffing, cranberry mayonnaise and crispy iceberg lettuce and it is lightly toasted. For €7.50, it filled the mid-November Christmas sandwich hole in my heart. However, I felt slightly underwhelmed. The year before it had the right ratio of fillings but now I feel if it had been toasted for a few more minutes with a bit more stuffing it would have been just right.
Not too far away, a beloved spot on Pearse Street, Honey Truffle, released their Christmas Sandwich on November 8th. On their Instagram, they prefaced, “For some maybe too early! … For many … most definitely not”. This is a business knowing the desires of their customer base. As one of those loyal customers, I agree that it is never too early for the Christmas sandwich. Labelled as the ‘Festive Christmas Sandwich’, it has a mustard glazed ham and turkey accompanied by an orange and port cranberry sauce and finished with a sage and thyme caramelised onion stuffing. It does not say lettuce on the menu, but there are some sort of mixed leaves in between your bread. It feels more on the high-end side when compared to the humble Brewbaker sandwich – its ingredients are more flavourful and described on the menu with more decorative language. You get the option of it being toasted or not toasted, which is a nice touch. It makes it versatile, the double experience of a toastie or the classic comfort of a sandwich.
However, as much as I love Honey Truffle, I have an issue with this sandwich for the student population. The main one is that it is €12, 70 cent above the minimum wage. Unfortunately, as a student in this economy, I guess I will be eating my Honey Truffle sandwich while reusing my tea bag for the fifth time and illegally downloading all my assigned readings. The Honey Truffle sandwich is the type of sandwich that you get as a treat after submitting all 17 essays by the end of the semester. It is the pat on the back you deserve, but not the daily study break snack. If anyone at Honey Truffle is reading this, know I still love you and you still make the best sausage rolls in Dublin.
My quest to find the best Christmas lunch spot in Dublin fell short as I realised that other coffee shops and restaurants felt as though mid-November was potentially too early for a Christmas sandwich. I walked into numerous shops and scrolled through many cafes’ Instagram pages just to fall short of my Christmas sandwich dreams. Reflecting on this reminded me of a quote from Pam Shipman in the Christmas Special of Gavin and Stacey. Discussing when you should send your Christmas cards, she says, “I send mine on the first of November. It gives people seven weeks to enjoy them!” This perfectly exemplifies how I feel about Christmas sandwiches – let people enjoy them for as long as possible. Objectively, it is perfectly acceptable to launch the Christmas sandwich at the beginning of November. To all Dublin establishments, this is my Public Service Announcement: Stop gatekeeping the Christmas Sandwiches!
