Fun fact: Before last Saturday, I had eaten at five of the eight places surveyed on the Travel Channel’s “Sandwich Paradise” show. Nardelli’s, a small Connecticut chain, was the only reasonably local one I hadn’t hit.

So a week ago yesterday, I set out to rectify that. The nearest store is about 45 minutes from TedQuarters in Westchester, but with my wife entrenched in studying for finals and the weather too cold for a baseball game, I figured I’d make the trip.

The sandwich: Italian combo from Nardelli’s, several locations in Connecticut.

The construction: Pruzitini, capicola, salami and provolone on a hero roll with lettuce, Nardelli’s “classic mix” of veggies, olives, mayo and hot sauce.

Things labeled “capicola” in this country vary pretty wildly. Maybe in other countries too, but sadly I’ve only enjoyed things labeled “capicola” in this country. Also, near as I can tell Nardelli’s is the only place on Google selling something called “pruzittini.” I’m going to assume that the cured, chewy meat on the sandwich was the capicola and that Nardelli’s uses legit capicola, not ham cappy. And so then I’ll figure that the ham on the sandwich with the peppery outside — which could probably be mistaken for ham happy — is the pruzitini, since prosciuttini is, near as I understand it, the old-school Italian name for pepper ham, one of my very favorite deli meats.

Important background information: As I may have mentioned, I have very high standards for Italian heroes. At DeBono’s, it was damn-near sacrilege to put mayo on an Italian combo. We would do it, since the customer is always right and everything, but we’d quietly judge the crap out of whoever ordered it. And never, ever would I suggest mayo on any sort of specialty sandwich involving a lot of Italian meats. That’s what oil and balsamic vinegar are for.

Also, being an Italian guy and working in a deli where people frequently come in and order Italian heroes sets you up to make a lot of sort of mock-sleazy jokes like, “I thought I was your Italian hero.” I was the only one who ever made Giuseppe Garibaldi references. No one ever got it.

Oh, and furthermore, heroes are called “grinders” in Connecticut apparently. That’s b.s. They’re heroes. We’ve been through this before.

What it looks like:

How it tastes: Good. Good enough to be among eight places featured on a show about the best sandwiches in the country? Probably not. But then, really only one of the places on the show that I’ve been to — Primanti Bros. in Pittsburgh — seems worthy of that honor.

The highlights of the sandwich are the soft, fresh bread and the “Classic Mix.” The bread tastes great — just a little sweetness to go with all the savory flavors inside the sandwich — plus is the perfect consistency to contain all the meats and cheeses. It didn’t, incidentally — there’s a lot of stuff on there, so you’ve got little hope that it won’t turn into a sloppy mess. But the bread made a noble effort to keep everything together, and I can’t really think of any bread that would do a better job.

The Classic Mix, which is actually trademarked, is a bunch of peppers, cucumbers, onions, and who knows what else marinated in something vaguely pickly. Mixed into a big gooey glob with the mayo and hot sauce, it gave the effect of a crunchier, heartier cole slaw with a little heat. It was good, a worthy condiment.

The actual bulk of the sandwich, though, left something to be desired. People on the Internet raving about Nardelli’s write about how much better their meat is than Subway’s or Quizno’s, and that’s undoubtedly true. But I don’t think it would hold up in quality to what you could get at an A&S or a good Italian deli around the five boroughs. It was tasty, no doubt, but greasy — and yeah, I know salami is supposed to be greasy — and left me, long after I had finished, just a tiny bit queasy. Still, it was certainly more enjoyable than not to eat — a nice melange of peppery meat flavors.

And one more quibble — and this could easily be a small-sample size hiccup — one half of my sandwich had nearly all the meat. You can’t see it from the picture, but the meat on the side facing the camera tapered off quickly, and by the outer edge of the sandwich it was nearly entirely bread and veggie goop. It still tasted good, of course, but the sandwich’s maker did not evenly distribute the elements of the sandwich, a personal pet peeve.

In all, the Italian Combo from Nardelli’s sort of reminded me of the very best of the six-foot Italian combo heroes we’d get for football dinners and such in high school. I’m not even sure I can explain why. It was good, but inevitably messy and uneven.

What it’s worth: I got the half-grinder because I also wanted to try their chicken parm (which proved unspectacular) and figured I could handle a full grinder, so I’d get two halves and call it a day. Turns out two half-grinders were too much food for me; there’s a lot of meat here. And price was right: The half-grinder would be more than an adequate lunch, and cost less than $5.

The rating: 82 out of 100.