Veggie Burger (California Style)
The California veggie burger builds inward from the produce, not outward from a seared center: avocado does the fat and the glue, sprouts the crunch, a toasted bun holds the wet load.
USA
Vegetable Hoagie
The Philadelphia hoagie with the cured meats removed and nothing put back: heavier provolone, the full dress, and the oil doing work it usually only assists with.
Veal Parm Hero
The veal parm hero is the parmigiana sandwich at its most delicate: a milk-fed cutlet pounded near translucent, breaded, sauced, and handed over before it toughens. Chicken's older, pricier sibling.
Utica Greens on Bread
Sauteed escarole with prosciutto, cherry peppers, breadcrumbs, and pecorino, spooned hot onto a sub roll. A Utica-area sandwich born from the plate version codified at Chesterfield in 1988.
Utah Pastrami Burger
A cheeseburger crowned with a pile of griddle-hot pastrami and fry sauce: the Utah pastrami burger flopped in California and became a Salt Lake institution, the Crown Burgers build.
Turkey Sandwich
Sliced turkey breast with lettuce, tomato, and mayo on bread.
Turkey Rachel
Roast turkey breast in for corned beef on a Rachel: drained slaw, Swiss, Russian dressing, butter-griddled rye; the deli's lean substitution on a fixed build.
Turkey Hoagie
A turkey hoagie is what a Philadelphian orders when the rest of the case feels too heavy: lean roast turkey on a hoagie roll, leaning on the oil, oregano, and provolone to season a mild meat.
Turkey Hero
Sliced turkey breast on hero with lettuce, tomato, and mayo.
Tuna Salad Sandwich
A tuna salad sandwich is built in a bowl: canned tuna flaked and bound with mayonnaise, carried with crisp diced celery, then pressed between two slices of soft bread that recede entirely.
Tuna Melt
Tuna salad with melted cheese on toasted bread; diner classic.
Tuna Hoagie
A tuna hoagie is Philadelphia's cold long-roll reading of tuna salad: bound tuna in the cold-cut slot of a split Italian roll, dressed with shredded lettuce, tomato, onion, and oil.
Tuna Grinder
Mayo-bound tuna salad on a New England torpedo roll, capped with melted American or provolone and run under the salamander. The word grinder is the local cue for the hot version.
Tri-Tip Sandwich
Triangular tri-tip grilled over native red oak to medium-rare, sliced thin against a shifting grain, and stacked on a crusted French roll with fresh salsa. Beef treated like a roast, not pulled.
Trenton Pork Roll Sandwich
A scored disc of pork roll on a kaiser, plain. The Trenton lunch reading of the meat John Taylor has cured in the city since 1856, sold at every luncheonette.
Torta (Tex-Mex)
A bolillo split and griddled, sealed with refried beans, packed with grilled fajita meat, avocado, and cool toppings. The Mexican torta as it reads on the Texas border.
Torta de Milanesa
Breaded, fried beef or chicken cutlet torta.
Tongue Sandwich
Beef tongue, brined like corned beef and simmered soft, sliced thin on seeded rye with mustard: the smoothest, mildest meat the old Ashkenazi deli counter serves.
Tomato Sandwich
A thick homegrown beefsteak, salt, pepper, and a heavy smear of Duke's on cheap soft white bread, eaten over the sink for the few summer weeks a Southern garden tomato is at full sugar.
Tillamook Cheddar Burger
A burger built around aged Oregon cheddar that softens but never pours, trading the melt of a processed slice for a sharp, firm bite: the Tillamook cheese is the whole argument.
Three-Way Roast Beef
A North Shore Massachusetts roast beef sandwich, rare and paper-thin, on a grilled onion roll. The counter counts three accents: American cheese, mayonnaise, James River barbecue sauce.
Theta Burger
Smash patty, American cheese, and a whole halved dill pickle laid across it, on a small toasted bun. The Town Tavern's Norman, Oklahoma signature, in a building open since 1936.
The Moistmaker
The three-slice Thanksgiving leftover sandwich with a gravy-soaked center slice. Named by Ross Geller on Friends in The One With Ross's Sandwich, December 1998.
Thanksgiving Sandwich
Turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and gravy on bread; post-Thanksgiving classic.