The thing about making pulled pork, it turns out, is that then you have an absolute ton of pulled pork you get to eat. That’s a good thing, no doubt, but it requires a pretty serious commitment to pork-eating. You don’t want any of that pork going bad — especially not after you labored over it for 13 hours or whatever — so you’re going to have to come up with a bunch of ways to prepare it: pork tacos, pork and eggs, creamed pulled pork on toast, pork chili.

None are better than the O.G. pulled pork sandwich, though. I had this for five consecutive non-breakfast meals.

The sandwich: Pulled pork sandwich from the TedQuarters kitchen.

The construction: Smoked pulled pork on potato bun with sliced pickle, barbecue sauce and cole slaw.

For the buns I used Martin’s hamburger buns, a good, consistently soft potato bun. The sliced pickle and cole slaw were store bought. The sauce is something I sort-of made. It’s what barbecue guru Steve Raichlen calls a “doctor sauce,” made by combining other barbecue sauces then adding honey, vinegar, apple juice and spices. The recipe is here. I recognize it’s not a traditional Carolina-style barbecue sauce that would typically top this sandwich, but I had some left over from an earlier barbecue project and thought it was pretty delicious.

Important background information: I fear that sandwiches are never quite as good when you make them yourself as when someone else makes them for you, even if you are — like me — unbelievable at making sandwiches. Still delicious, mind you, but I think there’s something deep inside our minds that knows the sandwich is a significantly less convenient meal if we’ve had to construct it from its elements, which in turn makes us appreciate the sandwich ever-so-slightly less.

What it looks like:

How it tastes: Good. The pork is outstanding; really caught a lot of the smoke flavor without being overwhelming, and the cut of pork itself turned out to be moist (read: fatty) throughout. The crusty outside parts add nice spice from the rub and some variance to the texture. Real delicious stuff we’re talking here. I mean, it’s pulled pork.

But despite that, and despite tasty and fresh ingredients throughout, I never managed to make a Hall of Fame sandwich in the five pulled-pork sandwiches I endeavored. Maybe if I were preparing them for guests I would have gone a little further to make sure the pork was warm, the barbecue sauce was room temperature and the pickle was crunchy, but at home, negotiating all the ingredients from my refrigerator, I don’t know. I guess I knew the sandwich was going to be awesome if I just piled on the right proportions of each ingredient — and don’t get me wrong, it was awesome — but I never took the type of care I should have to maximize its sandwich potential.

I think the pickle was at least part of the problem. I used sandwich-stacker pickles that had been sitting in my fridge for months, so they were never really crunchy. Plus I think I would have been better off with a couple slices of bread and butter pickles or something, which offer more skin, more surface area, and so, more crunch. The cole slaw — which was good, but unexceptional, just cole slaw — adds some crunch, but the pork is so soft that it’d be nice to have it bookended by crunchy things, and the pickle didn’t pull its weight. Plus it sogged up the bun with pickle juice. Delicious, delicious pickle juice.

The bun was really good though. So was the barbecue sauce. Honestly, if you’re bored, try that recipe. It’s easy to make and spicier than most barbecue sauces (depending on what rub you use, I suppose), plus adding all that vinegar really gives it some tang.

What it’s worth: The pork wasn’t all that cheap and there was a lot of labor involved here, but the pork butt yielded so much meat that the total cost of this sandwich, to me, was probably less than $3. Pretty amazing when you think about it. All you need to do is spend 13 hours smoking a pork butt and commit yourself to only eating pork for a week.

How it rates: 80 out of 100. A tantalizing sandwich with the potential to be an all-time great, but sidetracked by poor work ethic and unable to maximize its talents. There are a ton of baseball players like that, but not many I can find from North Carolina. So I’ll call this the Otis Nixon of Sandwiches, even though Otis Nixon is probably not an 80, but mostly because I’ve always wanted to create “the Otis Nixon of Sandwiches.”

This week’s sandwich came heavily recommended from various readers, Twitterers, and my friend Brad, who works near the shop in question. I appreciate sandwich recommendations so please keep them coming. I know there is no shortage of delicious sandwiches in this fine city, so if you’ve got one you love, I’m down to, you know, eat it. Especially if it’s within a reasonable subway haul from Rockefeller Plaza or a reasonable drive from Central Westchester, and especially if it’s something of an offbeat sandwich, since there are only so many things I can say about burgers.

(I don’t mean that. I can’t say enough about burgers. I’m sorry I even suggested otherwise, ground beef. I love you.)

The sandwich: Hot roast beef from Defonte’s of Brooklyn, 21st and 3rd Ave., Manhattan (also apparently in Red Hook, but good luck tearing yourself away from the taco trucks).

The construction: House-made Italian bread with roast beef, fresh  mozzarella, fried eggplant and au jus.

Important background info: I probably should’ve ordered the hot roast beef to stay — especially considering the wonderful smell at Defonte’s — but it was a nice day and I passed Gramercy Park on my way, so I figured I’d take it out and go sit on a park bench with my sandwich. Somewhere deep in my head I’m sure I knew that Gramercy Park is closed to the public and accessible only via key to residents of specific area buildings, but it slipped my mind on Friday, focused as I was on this much-hyped sandwich.

I walked a full lap of the park looking for an open entrance, panicking, knowing that my sandwich — with that au jus on it — was growing soggy. When I figured out I wasn’t allowed in, my head filled up with anti-capitalist angst as I hauled ass toward Union Square. Dammit, this city has so little green space, what exists should be for everyone! Those sons of bitches have a lot of nerve, locking people out. Damn-near shameful.

I eventually found a suitable bench on the northeast side of Union Square park. But soon after I opened my sandwich, a lady sat right across from me and started feeding squirrels, and I could see the little bastards eying my roast beef. That’s mine! Away from my sandwich, rodents! Move on, Willard-woman, please let me eat in peace. Next some panhandlers came by with cardboard signs and guilt trips. Man, isn’t there some way to make this park more exclusive?

What it looks like:

How it tastes: A bit soggy, as I feared, but still really, really tasty.

My particular mound of roast beef came from near the end of the roast, but it was still rare, moist and tender. This was a huge thing for customers at the deli — there were a lot of people who just didn’t want roast beef until it was cut from the center and rarest part of the meat. I always thought the rareness factor was at least a tiny bit overrated, but obviously I recognize that the butt-end of a roast beef is usually dry and unappetizing. Not the case at Defonte’s (though this wasn’t quite the very end), at all. Helps that they’ve got it soaking in jus, of course.

Speaking of: Something in this sandwich was quite garlicky, and I’m guessing it was that jus. Which is good. Garlicky is good. Every time I lifted my hand near my mouth for the rest of the day I smelt buttery garlic and remembered the sandwich, a nice little reminder of a delicious sandwich past.

And when I got good bites of the fried eggplant — when it was crispy — it perfectly complemented the roast beef and added some crunchiness to the sandwich. It was soggy a bit too often, unfortunately, which was a shame because it’s clearly what makes this sandwich especially notable. That’s not Defonte’s fault, of course; blame me for taking the thing to go and the people of the Gramercy area for locking their park (and that woman inside for not coming over and opening the gate for me when she saw me standing there, pathetic, obviously eager to eat a sandwich).

My one quibble would be the amount of fresh mozzarella. I should probably mention that this is a complaint I have with every food item in the world that’s not a massive hunk of fresh mozzarella, but on the hot roast beef the delicious cheese got overwhelmed a bit by the huge amount of meat. No disrespect to meat, obviously, but if I were constructing this sandwich myself, I’d probably substitute another layer of mozzarella for the last few slices of roast beef to balance out the proportions a little bit.

What it’s worth: Sandwich cost about $10, plus two rides on the subway and about 10 minutes of walking for me. But look at that damn thing; there’s enough there for two meals. Good luck trying to stop eating it after the first half, though.

How it rates: Please excuse me for avoiding a proper rating for the second straight week. As I enjoyed it, this sandwich still merits a rating in the mid-to-high 80s: delicious. But due to the potential here and all the vehement recommendations, I suspect that under the proper conditions this might very well have been a Hall of Fame sandwich. I guess think of it like the Tony Conigliaro of sandwiches: An Italian stud on a Hall of Fame trajectory but sidetracked by misfortune. Only obviously the story of the hot roast beef is far less tragic, since it will end with me eating another.

Due to, among other things, prep work for a cooking project I’ll very likely document here, this week’s Sandwich of the Week will come tomorrow. So, you know, adjust your calendars or whatever. Good sandwich, too.

Last week, I mentioned how Russ from work keeps criticizing me for seemingly rating every sandwich in the 80s or above. I gave Russ a piece of my mind on Thursday, because, as a spreadsheet jockey, he should understand selection bias.

Now that I’m only discussing one sandwich a week, I’m not reviewing every sandwich I eat in a week. So it’s a pretty safe bet I’m writing about the most notable sandwich I ate in the week, which usually means the best sandwich. Are you coming here to read about the crappy knockoff sandwiches I get from the soulless Midtown food bar places around my office? I certainly hope not, because I’m not writing about them.

So here’s another excellent sandwich, the best I ate this week. Bite me, Russ.

The sandwich: Bacon and Cheddar Burger, Bill’s Bar and Burger, two locations in Manhattan, one that happens to be  directly across the street from my office.

The construction: What it sounds like: A burger with bacon and cheddar cheese on a sesame-seed bun.

I added ketchup from the table, as seen in the photo below, but once I dipped my fry in the little accompanying cup of ketchup, I realized my mistake. The fries at Bill’s Bar and Burger apparently come with the very hot sauce/ketchup hybrid I speculated about last week, which presumably would have been great on the burger. They were excellent and so was the condiment, but this isn’t French Fry of the Week so let’s move on.

Important background information: I have been eagerly awaiting the opening of Bill’s Bar and Burger for months. As I’ve discussed, Midtown is something of a wasteland for good, economical eating, though if you use the Internet and your legs you can get by pretty well. Still, Bill’s is right across the street and promised to be a welcome alternative to Heartland Brewery for the occasional midday pow-wow.

Also, while under construction, Bill’s had wrappers on the windows with a bunch of reviews printed on them. One of them read something along the lines of, “Bill’s renewed my faith in burgers.”

Sorry, bad review. I’m sorry, but if you ever lose faith in burgers I just do not trust you to review food. I mean, have you even been to a Five Guys, bro? How could you lose faith in burgers?

What it looks like:

(Note that the burger does not come cut in half; that’s something I did on my own. I find that having corners from which to begin eating makes the whole process both neater and more enjoyable.)

How it tastes: Great. Like I said, I had high hopes for this burger, and it at least met my expectations.

I think one thing people miss a lot when making burgers at home is that you want meat with a high fat content. Big-time rookie mistake. Back in college, I used to buy ground beef that was like 93-percent lean, thinking that was the way to get high-quality, meaty tasting burgers. Silly college-aged me didn’t realize that higher fat content makes the burgers juicy and delicious, which is probably why silly college-aged me wound up spending way more time driving 15 miles into Virginia to one of the original Five Guys than barbecuing on our back porch.

Judging by all the meatjuice pouring out of every bite of Bill’s burger, I’d guess this thing had to be at least in the 20-percent fat range, right in the optimal zone there. Delicious, flavorful meat. Quality stuff.

Also, it had cheese and bacon on it. The bacon, in particular, was notable because Bill’s did it the right way: crispy as all get-out. I don’t need to tell you what good bacon adds to a good burger. I mean I assume I don’t. If you don’t know about that by now, I don’t know what you’re doing reading this blog and not eating a bacon cheeseburger.

Alex Belth and I discussed on Friday the way the standards for burgers have risen in the last five-to-ten years. I’ll maintain that it’s less about a fleeting trend and more about competition stemming from the Internet exposing hungry people to a better array of options, but it’s a good point either way. The standard (and still tasty, don’t get me wrong) diner cheeseburger now seems only replacement-level. In college we used to drive a 20 minutes to get to Five Guys, back when there were only a couple of them, and now they’re practically ubiquitous (except in Westchester, frustratingly enough). This is a good thing.

What it’s worth: Bill’s is a sit-down place, which means you’re going to have to tip your waiter and maybe buy a drink, plus the burgers don’t come with fries so if you’re looking to get starchy with it it’ll be an extra four bucks. But the bacon and cheddar burger only costs $7.50, which is a pretty good deal for Midtown. It’s not a particularly huge burger, but that’s probably a good thing if you’re eating in the middle of your workday because then you’re not asleep at your desk by 3 p.m.

How it rates: I want to reserve the right to hold off on rating Bill’s bacon and cheddar burger for a couple of reasons. For one, burgers are something I take very seriously, perhaps moreso than any other sandwich. And after one sampling, I sense Bill’s might be an upper-echelon burger, but I don’t want to overrate it based on only one experience. Second, I defy Russ from work — who will sometimes go weeks eating the same sandwich every day — to eat this or any other burger from Bill’s and tell me it doesn’t deserve at least an 85. It’s right across the street, Russ.