Let’s get right into it.

The sandwich: Roast Pork Special from Shorty’s on 9th Ave. between 41st and 42nd in Manhattan.

The construction: Thin-sliced roast pork and broccoli rabe with sharp provolone on French bread, served with au jus.

Important background information: This is the second pork cheesesteak I’ve had. The first made the Hall of Fame. It’s a great concept: Pork is delicious, but the only thing that might hold it back on sandwiches is its toughness. Slicing it thin combats the chewiness associated with poorly prepared thick-cut pork chops.

Shorty’s provides the option of sharp or mild provolone. I chose sharp, because subtlety is for chumps and suckers. This… well, more on this to follow.

What it looks like:

How it tastes: Oh my sodium.

I started by pouring about half of the au jus over the sandwich, which might have been my mistake. Between the pork, the au jus, the provolone and whatever the broccoli rabe was cooked in, biting into this thing felt like plowing face first into a giant wall of salt. Still tasty, I should say, but so, so salty.

When I thought about it, I could pick up other flavors: Garlic, oregano, and some of the sharpness of the Parmesan. But tasting the broccoli rabe required either a great deal of focus or separating the vegetable from the rest of the sandwich. That’s a shame, as broccoli rabe is both an underrated and underutilized sandwich topping. Here, its natural flavors were almost entirely obscured by much more aggressive tastes.

Like our man Karl Welzein — referenced here in the last Sandwich of the Week as well — I appreciate bold flavors. But a sandwich needs to be more than a ferocious onslaught of powerful tastes, lest the palate be overwhelmed. A delicate balance must be achieved.

People watch action movies for the massive explosions and white-knuckle chase scenes, but if a movie were just a 120-minute long, mega-budget action sequence, it’d probably get boring no matter how many things blew up. I fear this sandwich drifted into Michael Bay territory.

Meh, that’s a bit too harsh. The pork was tender and juicy, the bread was fresh, and the sandwich-eating experience as a whole was an enjoyable one. It’s a fine sandwich. It’s just disappointing, since all the elements here should add up to a great sandwich.

What it’s worth: It cost $10. It was a decent-sized sandwich, but I wouldn’t call it a bargain at that rate.

How it rates: 72 out of 100.