Roast Beef Sandwich
The plain roast beef sandwich: rare beef sliced thin against the grain, on bread, with horseradish. No jus, no soak, no gimmick. The baseline every regional version departs from.
USA
Roast Beef Hero
Cold rare roast beef sliced paper-thin off the deli blade, ribboned into folds on a long seeded New York hero roll with horseradish mayo, lettuce, tomato.
Ripper Hot Dog
A ripper is a New Jersey hot dog fried until its natural casing splits open on purpose, ordered by degree: in-and-outer, ripper, weller, or cremator, from Rutt's Hut in Clifton since 1928.
Riggies Sub
Chicken riggies (spicy chicken with rigatoni) served in a sub roll.
Reuben
Press a spatula down on a Reuben and the sandwich becomes itself: corned beef, Swiss, kraut, and Russian dressing on rye, a loose stack that heat fuses into one thing.
Reindeer Sausage Sandwich
The reindeer dog is an Anchorage street-cart staple: a smoky caribou link cut with pork and beef because reindeer is too lean to bind alone, griddled and laid in a bun with cola-glazed onions.
Red Hot
Rochester's red hot is pork and beef, cured and smoked; its white-hot counterpart is the same trimmings left uncured. The two are sold as a pair, and the cure is the entire difference between them.
Ramp Sandwich
The ramp sandwich is governed by a foraged plant and a six-week window: wild Appalachian leeks cooked soft and sweet, piled on plain bread with a fried egg, eaten while they are out of the ground.
Raising Cane's Chicken Finger Sandwich
Three chicken fingers on buttered Texas toast with Cane's sauce, a one-hand spin-off of the single-item Baton Rouge chicken chain Todd Graves opened in 1996 after his LSU plan failed the class.
Rachel
Sliced turkey (or pastrami) with drained coleslaw, Swiss, and Russian dressing on butter-griddled rye, the slaw and the meat both swapped from the Reuben.
Quiznos Classic Italian
Quiznos built a chain on one machine: the countertop conveyor oven that toasted every sub by default. The Classic Italian, four cured meats and molten mozzarella.
Quesabirria
Birria meat with melted cheese in a pressed tortilla, served with consommé dip; birria taco's cheesier cousin, equally viral.
Pulled Pork Sandwich
Slow-smoked, shredded pork shoulder with BBQ sauce on a bun, often with coleslaw.
Puffy Taco
The San Antonio puffy taco: a disk of fresh masa deep-fried raw so it balloons into a light, hollow-walled shell, folded hot and filled with picadillo. The crackle is its signature.
Puerto Rican Tripleta
Three meats, layered along a loaf of pan de agua with papitas inside the close, the Puerto Rican sandwich whose name carries its specification along the Santurce panaderÃa network.
Publix Cuban Sub
The Publix Pub Subs counter's Cuban: Boar's Head sweet ham, in-store mojo-roast pork, Swiss, pickles, and mustard on a soft French sub loaf, pressed on a flat counter press.
Publix Chicken Tender Sub
Fried in-store and held warm, the Pub Sub is built around a softened tender, dressed sauce-on-bread, and best pressed on a flat-top. Its origin is a documented dispute.
Provolone Wit
Cheesesteak with provolone cheese and onions.
Providence Grinder
A Providence grinder is the cold Italian: shingled cured meats and provolone on a crusted roll, with a marinated banana-pepper relish run its full length. Rhode Island's word for the sub.
Protein Style Burger
No bun at all. In-N-Out's protein style order closes the patty and cheese inside two leaves of iceberg, a customer-driven swap the press met decades after it started.
Potbelly A Wreck
Potbelly's Wreck stacks roast beef, salami, turkey, and ham with Swiss, then runs it through a conveyor toaster until it welds into one warm fused sub, the flagship of a chain born in an antique shop.
Portuguese Sausage Sandwich
A Hawaii breakfast sandwich built on garlicky Portuguese sausage, cured pork sliced into coins, seared on a griddle, and folded with egg into a soft sweet roll. Azorean roots, plantation logic.
Portland Voodoo Doughnut Sandwich
The Portland doughnut sandwich inverts the carrier: a fried, glazed doughnut as the loudest part of the build, egg and bacon or a beef patty inside. Voodoo Doughnut made the maximal form a hometown.