Biting into a sandwich after emerging from a body of water – be it a day at Emma Long Metropolitan Park, or a couple hours on a Lake Travis barge – is an unearthly experience.
There’s just something about spending time in the sun and the water and the heat and being rewarded with a turkey sandwich. It’s a peak summer experience, only rivaled by the feeling of showering and getting ready for dinner after a long day at the beach.
Home Slice Pizza has bottled up this summer feeling and put it into their subs.
I ate my first ever Home Slice sandwich about a month ago – it never occurred to me to order a sandwich from Austin’s, arguably, most popular pizza place. A friend of mine brought a turkey sub to my house and I have returned for three more sandwiches since.
Subs, available at both Austin Home Slice Pizza locations, are all made on an Italian sesame roll and come with lettuce, red onion, tomato, mayo, provolone cheese, and an oil and vinegar dressing. Italian, turkey, tuna salad, and veggie subs are all on the menu and are $12 for a six-inch, and $22 for a foot-long. Pair your sandwich with Hal’s dill pickle chips and a Mexican Coca-Cola and prepare to enter lunch bliss.
The bread is soft, fluffy, and not so big that you feel like you have to unhinge your jaw to get a bite. Shredded lettuce and stringy onions provide the crunchiness, and the onion is not overwhelming. Perfect stacks of turkey and cheese, or ham and salami if you go Italian, sit at the bottom of the sandwich, providing structure. The oil and vinegar dressing is the right amount of sour.
Depending on how hungry you are, the six-inch sub is great for eating one half and saving the other half for the next day. If your leftovers get a smidge soggy in the fridge, the sandwich still works! Even if I’m full, I'll still pick off the bread that’s left. It’s a wonder why this place sells pizza at all!
As a person who always seems to be searching for some indescribable, “I’ll know it when I taste it,” bite, this sandwich fits the bill. It tastes like summer, is filling, and isn’t too hard on my wallet, either.
🗣️ What's your favorite Austin sandwich?
