At the deli, when people would come in and ask for an Italian hero, I used to always be like, “Aww, I thought I was your Italian hero.” I don’t think anyone ever even thought it was funny including me, it just sort of became vaguely Pavlovian after a while. Plus every so often it would really confuse and/or alienate a customer, and that’s a pretty fun thing to do when you’re 21 and you’ve been standing behind a deli counter for most of the summer.

Then it turned out it’s actually funnier when people order sandwiches that don’t sound like they describe Giuseppe Garibaldi. “Aww, I thought I was your Roast Beef and Cheddar.” “Aww, I thought I was your honey-maple turkey with bacon and muenster cheese on pumpernickel.”

The sandwich: Ham cappy, salami, soppressata and fresh mozzarella on a kaiser roll with oil and vinegar, from Park Italian Gourmet on 45th between 5th and 6th in Manhattan.

The construction: All of the things in the name of the sandwich, which doesn’t really have a proper name — it’s just what I ordered.

Important background information: This part of Midtown, as I’ve certainly griped before, is something of a wasteland for interesting food options. Occasionally a good truck will come through the neighborhood and there are a few notable regular carts, plus a few of the food-courty options in the Rockefeller Center concourse are decent. But for the most part if you want to find a notable and inexpensive takeout lunch, you need to do some searching.

Park Italian Gourmet is an oasis of sorts. It does not at all look like it belongs in Midtown, a couple blocks south of Rockefeller Plaza. It’s an old-school, no-frills type of place with a wide variety of Italian meats and a small hot-food area for parmigiana and such. It is generally what I recommend to people in the area looking to avoid the bland corporate food bar places.

What it looks like:

How it tastes: Comforting, in a way. This certainly isn’t the most remarkable sandwich I’ve had or even the best sandwich I’ve had in Midtown, but it’s very solid. Tastes how a good Italian combo from a deli should taste: Delicious.

Soppressata, if you’re unfamiliar, is like a more coarsely ground salami. It’s maybe a tiny bit spicier and more peppery than its cousin, and equally salty. It’s one of my favorite lunchmeats, which is saying something.

In terms of the meats here, the ham cappy gets a bit overwhelmed by the stronger flavors of the salami and soppressata, so it mostly serves to add meaty bulk to offset the cheese — a valuable sandwich commodity, no doubt.

As with many good Italian sandwiches, the star is the mozzarella cheese. Fresh and creamy with its subtle milky taste, it is the perfect complement to the powerful meats. It’s weird; the meats are obviously more flavorful than the cheese, but somehow the cheese still feels like the focus of the sandwich. This is why people wrap mozzarella with pepperoni or prosciutto and serve it as an appetizer, I suppose.

Also, the deli-man at Park Italian Gourmet did me the favor of putting the mozzarella in the center of the sandwich, sandwiched itself by the meats. It meant every bite had a nice blend of meat, cheese and bread; there were no bread-and-cheese bites followed by meat-and-bread bites.

If I were making the sandwich myself I might have gone a tiny bit heavier on the oil and vinegar. The salami and soppressata are greasy enough to ensure that the sandwich could not be dry, but the tang from the vinegar really adds a nice kick whenever it’s present. I’m not sure what type of vinegar is standard at Park Italian Gourmet — I probably should’ve specified if I’m going to be so picky about it — but I would have preferred balsamic, a bit more pungent than whatever is here.

What it’s worth: $6.50. For a good lunch in Midtown that’s an absolute steal.

How it rates: Hmm. 81 out of 100. A really good sandwich but not a mind-blowing one.

People I respect have been recommending Cherry Valley Deli in Whitestone since I started writing about sandwiches. Hell, before that — when I was just a guy who likes sandwiches, not a guy who likes sandwiches and also reviews them. Mets-fan Pete from my weekly baseball game was the first to tip me off, I believe. Countless others have followed.

The sandwich: The Corona from Cherry Valley Deli, 150th St. in Whitestone, Queens.

The construction: Chicken cutlet with cheddar cheese, bacon, onion rings and barbecue sauce on a garlic roll.

Important background information: There are so many tempting options on the Cherry Valley menu that as soon as you order, you notice something else that sounds even better than what you told the guy you wanted and become overwhelmed with sandwich regret. Most of them — or at least most of the really awesome-sounding ones — are some meat with bacon, some cheese, some sauce and some bonus fried thing, generally either onion rings or french fries. I prefer french fries to onion rings and waffle fries — another option — to most traditional french fries, but I didn’t immediately see any sandwich with a bunch of ingredients I knew I wanted that had waffle fries on it.

So I went with the Corona, in part because I panicked, in part because it was among the sandwiches recommended to me by multiple people.

What it looks like:

How it tastes: Honestly? Underwhelming.

Look: Any sandwich with fried chicken, bacon and cheddar cheese on it has a pretty high floor, but the  Corona — at least this particular Corona — wasn’t far above it. For one thing, when I hear “garlic bread” I assume that means loaded with butter and toasted with strong garlic flavor. I’m pretty sure they forgot to do any of that to my roll, and since it was about 9 p.m. and they presumably had the rolls delivered in the morning, it was reasonably stale by the time I got to eat it.

Second, nothing on this sandwich except maybe the bacon was even warm. Look at the cheese in the picture above. What do you notice about that cheese? It’s not melted. I don’t expect a deli to necessarily melt the cheese on top of the chicken cutlet, but I would hope the chicken would be warm enough to melt at least some of the cheese by the time I got it back to my car and unwrapped it. Wasn’t the case. Perhaps I’m missing the point and this sandwich isn’t intended to be served hot, but the aluminum foil certainly implies otherwise.

The onion ring was there, but I was hoping it’d give me something extra crispy on the sandwich, and no dice. I’m pretty sure it only made the whole thing saltier, and the whole thing was pretty salty to begin with. The barbecue sauce — perhaps KC Masterpiece — was unevenly applied, and sweet enough to be nearly cloying on the end of the sandwich where it was heaviest. The best I can say is that the chicken wasn’t dry, as some deli chicken cutlets can be.

Don’t get me wrong: Still enjoyable. It had bacon and chicken and cheddar cheese, like I said. But given the amount of hype I’d heard about this place, I was almost amazed by how pedestrian the sandwich was.

Is Cherry Valley Deli resting on old laurels, or did I just get the wrong sandwich-maker on the wrong day? Was there a bad taste lingering in my mouth from the Mets’ woeful home opener?

Herein lies the unspoken, inherent flaw with my Sandwich of the Week reviews: Sample size. I judge a sandwich’s merit off only one tasting. It’s like drawing conclusions from one week — or one game — of a baseball season. I hate when people do that with baseball, and yet I do it all the damn time with sandwiches. Certainly you’d hope that sandwich purveyors strive for some sort of consistency, but baseball players do too, and we see how often they actually achieve that.

Still, I’m too far along now to roll back on this system. I will probably give Cherry Valley another shot based on the number of recommendations and its proximity to Citi Field — about a 10 minute drive. It’s open late, too, which could come in handy after some night games.

What it’s worth: Six bucks plus tax. Pretty reasonable.

How it rates: 70 out of 100. Tempted to go lower when I consider the magnificently constructed Fed Ex. I’m not done with this place though, so perhaps there are sunnier ratings to come.

Big day of local eating for me before the ballgame yesterday. I drove up to a citrus grove in Davie and bought a bunch of fruit for the rest of the trip, plus an amazing cup of fresh-squeezed orange juice. Then out to Fort Lauderdale for conch chowder and a sandwich. The conch chowder, I should note, was awesome — reddish, peppery and more reminiscent of a very soupy chili than Manhattan clam chowder. The sandwich? Well, you’re about to find out.

The sandwich: Barbecue beef sandwich from Ernie’s BBQ and Lounge, Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

The construction: A huge pile of sliced smoked beef on thick-sliced bimini bread served with a side of barbecue sauce.

Important background information: When I pulled into the parking lot at Ernie’s I noticed something funny: My rental car, a Chrysler Sebring sedan, was by far the smallest vehicle there. The lot was near-full with SUVs and pickup trucks, mine was the only car-shaped car. No judgment, just saying: It could be that Ernie’s is for people that consume more than I do. And I consume a whole hell of a lot. The smaller size conch chowder was a meal in and of itself — I wound up taking more than half of it home. I didn’t even finish half the sandwich and still felt stuffed for several hours thereafter.

What it looks like:

How it tastes: Meh.

First off, when I get a sandwich this thick, the first thing I do is pull off about half the meat. Don’t get me wrong, I’d always rather a sandwich purveyor err on the side of too much meat. But I’m not sure how any human being could really get his mouth around this thing, plus so much meat throws off the proportions of a good sandwich. It’s why I have no real interest in eating the Carmelo Anthony sandwich from the Carnegie Deli. That’s not an artful construction; it’s just a heavy-handed meatpile. If this makes you think less of me — especially coming so closely on the heels of news that I can’t really grow a mustache — whatever. I just don’t like biting into a giant, dry brick of sliced beef.

In this case, the meatpiling is especially egregious because the meat is undoubtedly the worst element of the sandwich. It’s not terrible — it is meat, after all — and there’s a pinkish ring around the edge that suggests it has been smoked. But there’s no identifiable smoke flavor or rub or seasoning or anything at all to give the beef taste. And it’s pretty bland on its own, just kinda chewy.

The bread, however, is excellent. Really outstanding. It’s not the heartiest loaf so it has to be cut thick to withstand the weight and grease of the beef — it and hardly does — but it is sweet, fresh and delicious.

The barbecue sauce is of the very thin variety, with chunks of onions in it. It’s tangy with vinegar and spicy with black pepper and pretty tasty overall. Only issue is you can’t pour too much of it on the beef at once without destroying the bread, so you have to either dip the sandwich in the sauce or spread on a little at a time — both messy enterprises.

After the conch chowder, the sandwich was pretty disappointing. There’s just not much more to say about it, because how much can you say about a huge pile of beef on (excellent) bread?

What it’s worth: I think the sandwich was about $8.

How it rates: Ernie’s is probably worth a trip if you’re in South Florida. It’s a nice place with an outdoor patio upstairs, and it’s apparently one of the best spots to get conch — important if you want your meals to have strong symbolic value when your civilization of schoolchildren stranded on an island goes awry. But next time I’d probably get the conch chowder and skip the sandwich. 55 out of 100.

While I wait out the laundry cycle.

The sandwich: Spicy pork kim-cheesesteak from the Kimchi Taco Truck, 46th and Lexington on Fridays, elsewhere other days.

The construction: Korean spiced pork tenderloin with Cheez Whiz and kimchi on Italian bread.

I had the choice of Cheez Whiz or provolone, as is often the case with cheesesteaks. I chose the former because I had reservations about the way provolone would go with kimchi. The guy in the truck offers spicy or mild sauce as he bags your order; I asked for one of each. More on that to follow.

Important background information: Kimchi is a Korean side dish of spicy, fermented vegetables — usually cabbage.

I don’t think I’ve ever had a cheesesteak of any variety made with pork before. I’ve obviously had regular ol’ steak cheesesteaks, and I’ve had a bunch of chicken cheesesteaks too. But somehow I never thought of or had the opportunity to eat one made with pork. So there’s that.

I ate this sandwich on Friday, when, as I mentioned, I was quite busy. There was a bit of a line at the truck, and it turned out for whatever reason sandwiches take longer than other orders. I did a lot of standing around waiting for this sandwich, then once I got it, I was already late for a session at the studio to tape some Minor League Reports that’ll roll out next week. I had to hustle up five streets and across four avenues, all the while concerned that the studio guys were getting pissed at me and my sandwich was getting cold. This was a high-anxiety sandwich.

What it looks like:

How it tastes: Hell and yes.

When I got to the studio, I threw the sandwich down on the table they use for Daily News Live, unwrapped it, photographed it and took a bite. I secretly hoped our guys would have some sort of technical problem that might give me more time to convene with the sandwich. They didn’t. I got pulled away from it two bites deep. And I couldn’t complain; I’m the one that showed up late.

I knew from the first bite that this was a great sandwich, but I don’t think I realized quite how great until I had to step away.

Now I have to stand here so you can adjust the lights when that delicious thing is staring at me, just barely out of reach? Can’t we get a crash test dummy for this?

There’s a familiar flavor in Korean barbecued pork that I can never precisely identify. It’s a sweet, almost smoky flavor; I think it’s a combination of something and ginger. I want whatever that something is so I can bring it home and pair it with ginger. It’s a really good flavor. And this sandwich had a lot of it.

It was difficult to distinguish the kimchi flavor from the pork, and the Cheez Whiz mostly served as a creamy bonding agent for the meat and cabbage, creating a uniform texture throughout the inside of the sandwich: A big, delicious pile of vague Korean pork goo.

The mild sauce didn’t add much; it also got drowned out by the amazing pork flavor. But when I added the spicy — a peppery red sauce that tasted like a more liquefied Sriracha — holy hell. A perfect complement to the sweetness of the pork.

The sandwich got all the texture it needed from outstanding bread, crispy and flaky on the outside, toasty and soft on the inside. Even after it sat out on the table for a while, the roll held strong under the grease from the cheese and pork.

I stole bites between takes. Video producer Jeff had to keep reminding me to slow down when I read from the TelePrompter. Easy for him to say; he didn’t have an amazing sandwich waiting.

When I heard that phone-in guest Toby Hyde needed to finish something up and wanted a little more time before we filmed his parts, it was about the best news imaginable. I powered through the end of the still-warm sandwich. If the segments were framed differently, you’d notice a continuity error: a stain would appear on my right pants leg for the parts of the segments with Toby on the phone, then disappear during the wraps. Luckily my pants are not in the shot. Unluckily they are stained with delicious sandwich. Hazards of sandwich writing.

What it’s worth: Cost $7 and maybe a mile walk, plus a little bit of stress.

How it rates: 91 out of 100. Not an inner-circle Hall of Famer, but undoubtedly a deserving one. It has been added to the sidebar.

I can’t imagine life without an E-ZPass. It’s vital to traveling in the metro area, what with all the bridges and tunnels and turnpikes. I laugh when I cruise by long lines of cars backed up at toll lanes. Suckers.

Funny thing, though: The E-ZPass on my car now is, I’m pretty certain, the same E-ZPass I had when I was 17 and got my first car. I have no idea what car it was on before mine; it was in my family like jewelry. But I took it with me to my next car and then to the car after that, the car I drive now. The E-ZPass is at least 13 years old. My E-ZPass is older than some of you, most likely.

And in all the time I’ve been driving, to this very day, I haven’t seen a single E-ZPass bill. When I was in high school, my dad paid my tolls because I hardly ever drove anywhere off Long Island. When I was in college, my dad paid my tolls because they usually meant I was coming home. After I graduated, my dad paid my tolls because I was broke and he’s a nice guy. Now, my dad just pays my tolls because neither of us has yet taken the initiative to transfer the E-ZPass to a new account. And also, presumably, because he’s a nice guy.

I am 30 years old, married, living in a house in the suburbs with a full-time job, and my father has paid every single Northeast corridor road-usage toll I have ever accrued. Should I be embarrassed about this? Probably.

Anyway, this Sandwich of the Week required a trip over the Tappan Zee Bridge, which I might be more reluctant to make if I had to shell out my own $5. So thanks, dad.

The sandwich: Taylor Ham, Egg and Cheese on an everything bagel from Nyack Hot Bagels, Route 59 in Nyack, N.Y.

The construction: Two slices of Taylor ham, grilled, with a fried egg, a slice of American cheese, salt, pepper, ketchup and hot sauce on an everything bagel.

Important background information: Before we moved to Westchester, my wife and I figured we would have no trouble finding good bagels here. It’s still New York, after all. How could it be harder to find a decent bagel in Westchester than it is on Long Island, where we grew up?

And yet it is! It could be that we happen to live in a weird pocket of Westchester that is a bagel wasteland, but the local places all kinda stink. Good bagels need to be boiled then baked, soft and and a little bit chewy on the inside with a nice golden crust on the outside. To find bagels matching that description here, we have to drive at least 20 minutes.

Nyack Hot Bagels makes good bagels. Best in the area, in my expert opinion. So when I set out to try Taylor ham, I figured I’d first check their online menu to see if they had it. They did, so I went.

I realize Taylor ham is sort of a Jersey thing and so yeah, maybe I should have driven an extra 10 miles south to get the full Taylor ham experience, but I’m not going to take my chances with an unknown bagel place when I know a good one has what I’m looking for. Plus I had to take a jughandle of sorts to get onto Route 59.

What it looks like:

How it tastes: Delightful.

When the bagel-man sliced open the bagel to construct the sandwich, steam came out. That’s such a promising sign. A well-made, oven-fresh bagel is amazing on its own, without even butter or cream cheese. I could only imagine what would happen with egg and meat and cheese on there.

And indeed, the bagel was the real star of this sandwich, piping hot with an adequate but not overwhelming array of all the bagel seasonings. The toasted garlic — at least I think that’s what that flavor was — was the most prominent flavor on the bagel, but every bite contains bits of poppy, salt and sesame too. (I should note here that Nyack Bagels, unlike some bagel places, puts the bagel stuff on both sides of the bagel.)

The egg gets lost here, which is predictable since it’s drowned out with meat, bagel, condiments and cheese. My first experience with Taylor ham was a pleasant one. It doesn’t have an overwhelming flavor, but it’s pretty tasty. It’s a bit like a more mild sausage patty, only sliced thinner and with (to quote Buster Bluth) a “smack of ham.”

American cheese and ketchup you know about. I was concerned there was too much ketchup on the sandwich, and it might look that way from the picture, but it didn’t taste like that. I can’t figure out exactly why that is, either. I think the bagel soaked up some, but I still tasted a lot of bagel flavor, not just ketchup. Maybe that has to do with the thickness of the bagel?

They used Frank’s hot sauce, which makes everything taste a little like Buffalo wings. That’s good.

The only thing I wanted more of in this sandwich was meaty, crispy pork flavor. I can’t really blame the Taylor ham for that because, like I said, the Taylor ham was plenty good. But add Taylor ham to the long list of breakfast meats that are not bacon. And truth be told, with bacon this thing might have been a Hall of Famer.

What it’s worth: I believe this sandwich cost an utterly reasonable $3.85. And my dad paid, or will pay — who even knows how that works? — $5 for me to get across the bridge.

How it rates: 87 out of 100. Every part of this sandwich was as good as I could have hoped for it to be, but no part of this sandwich was bacon.

Busy weekend; no time for nonsense.

The sandwich: Romeo from Alidoro, 105 Sullivan St. in Manhattan.

The construction: A loaf of unseeded Italian bread, scooped out, with sliced smoked chicken breast, Bel Paese cheese, arugula, hot pepper spread and oil and balsamic vinegar.

Important background information: I have been recommended Alidoro many times over by sandwich enthusiasts I trust, and I chose the Romeo because it is the Alidoro sandwich included in the Grub Street Top 101 list. Now for an important revelation: When magazines review and photograph sandwiches, they b.s. you a little. That stunningly beautiful picture of the Romeo you see on the Grub Street sandwich list? Yeah, that’s just not really what this sandwich looks like.

I guess that should come as no surprise. No one goes to McDonald’s and expects the burgers there to look like they do in the commercials either. And it’s not like the real-life Romeo came out looking terribly unappetizing or anything.

I just thought this was a good time to mention that here at TedQuarters, the sandwiches are photographed and reviewed as they’re served. I don’t tell anyone I’m planning on blogging about the sandwiches. It’s sort of like the Phantom Gourmet, except if by some chance someone recognized me I’d think it was totally sweet and probably give them a totally biased review.

Also, for what it’s worth: There’s a lot of pomp and circumstance at Alidoro for a tiny sandwich shop. The guy at the counter was nice to me, but there were all sorts of signs everywhere about how you should and shouldn’t order and stuff like that. A little too Philadelphian for my tastes. And I’ve stood behind the counter and I recognize that it can get frustrating, but I do think there’s something to be said for treating the customer like a customer, plus I’m pretty confident in my ability to clearly communicate what I want on my sandwich.

What it actually looks like:

How it tastes: Like three things: Excellent Italian bread, balsamic vinegar, and hot pepper spread.

Make no mistake: All those things are delicious. But there are other delicious ingredients on this sandwich that I was hoping would assert themselves a little more. I could taste the smoked, thin-sliced chicken only when I pulled individual pieces of it off the back of the sandwich. When I did, it was good — reasonably moist for sliced chicken with only a subtle smoky flavor. But on the sandwich, it was lost. All it did was thicken it up and add meatiness.

Same goes for the Bel Paese cheese. It was tough for me to order a sandwich at an Italian place that didn’t come with fresh or smoked mozzarella, but I thought Bel Paese was an innovative choice for a sandwich cheese so I stuck with it. If I scooped a little out of the sandwich with my finger to sample, I enjoyed a creamy, buttery cheese — almost like Italian cream cheese, I guess. And though perhaps with great focus its texture could be imagined on the sandwich, its flavor disappeared into the abyss.

There is arugula on there, too.

As for the parts you could taste: Fantastic. The bread was incredibly fresh, and because it was scooped out it wasn’t overwhelmingly bready or anything. Flaky on the outside and soft and delicious on the inside. Balsamic vinegar is one of my favorite dressings for Italian sandwiches, though it needs to be applied with a very light hand — there’s a ton of flavor in each drop. And the red-pepper spread, though perhaps not as smooth-looking as depicted in New York magazine, had a real nice kick to it.

I would venture to guess, in fact, that you could take any number of meats and cheeses, put them on the bread from Alidoro, add the oil and balsamic vinegar and red pepper spread and get a pretty good sandwich.

That’s why I was a little disappointed. There was so much potential here, but nothing special that made this combination the one. On a truly transcendent sandwich, there is harmony among the ingredients. On this one, a couple of show-off kids in the choir were singing way too loud and it threw off the whole balance.

What it’s worth: Not an inexpensive sandwich. I believe it cost $11, plus two subway rides for me. A lot of food though.

How it rates: 86 out of 100.

Man, I picked a bad time to realize I don’t really have any luggage in my house bigger than a large overnight bag. I’ll make do, but I’m going to have to be Joe Carry-on, and I hate being Joe Carry-on. But whatever, Sandwich of the Week.

The sandwich: Fried chicken sandwich with cheese from Georgia’s Eastside BBQ, 192 Orchard St. in Manhattan.

The construction: A fried chicken breast on a hamburger bun with a slice of melted American cheese. That’s all.

Important background information: This is the second straight Sandwich of the Week from a Lower East Side establishment, and the second straight from Grub Street’s 101 Best Sandwiches list. Last night I fashioned Bono shades for Twitter followers. Has TedQuarters gone all hipster doofus?

Hardly. But crowds and general inconvenience aside, I’ve got no beef with the Lower East Side. It has plenty of reasonably priced tasty eateries and a wide variety of entertainment options. I live in the suburbs so I don’t often get there, but by sheer randomness I wound up in the neighborhood on three straight nights a couple weeks ago, the third of which culminated in this sandwich.

I figure I owe it to you, the TedQuarters reader, to scout out all the Tri-State area’s best sandwiches, and though it does seem now like the Grub Street roster is a bit biased toward trendier spots, it’s without question a good general guide for sandwich suggestions. And when it is corroborated by trusted Twitterers, and when there’s fried chicken in play, well then, you know, duh.

What it looks like:

How it tastes: Very good.

The first thing we all need to agree on is that it’s enormously difficult to keep a fried boneless white-meat chicken breast properly moist. And Georgia’s succeeds. So does Chic-Fil-A. Many, many delis around the city do not. (For what it’s worth, I’ve never really understood why so many people seem to think white meat is the superior chicken meat, and why some are willing to actually pay extra for white-meat fried chicken. Dark meat is more moist and flavorful. If I ran a deli — and if I had any business sense I probably should because my sandwiches would be dope — my standard chicken-cutlet sandwich would be made from dark meat. Blow your mind bro.)

Anyway all that said this thing is juicy on the inside and nice and crispy on the outside. The Grub Street description called it “assertively seasoned” though, and I didn’t taste anything too assertive besides salt. Salt is tasty, mind you, and fried-chicken batter doesn’t need to light up the palate to be delicious, but if there were a bevy of secret herbs and spices in there they weren’t really speaking up. I added some of the hot sauce that was on the table, which was reasonably assertive.

The hamburger bun was a hamburger bun. Nothing to complain about, but nothing to write home about either — even if technically my parents will likely read this. It was fresh enough to be soft and not nearly big enough to hold the massive chicken breast, but then no one was really asking it to. No one was pretending this sandwich was about anything but that giant, excellent, juicy, crispy, salty piece of fried chicken (which also had a piece of melted American cheese on it, which was nice).

I get that the idea of this sandwich is to showcase that chicken breast — sort of taking the Chic-Fil-A concept to the next level. But I found myself wanting just a little something more to round this thing out, either in terms of flavor or moisture or texture, something more than a piece of American cheese. And I understand that I’ve been burned before by gilding lilies, specifically in terms of simple fried-chicken sandwiches. But I’m going with my gut here; this could have used some chipotle mayo or something.

There’s nothing in the bylaws of the Sandwich Hall of Fame that says something this simple can’t make it in, but this chicken breast on its own simply was not quite good enough to crack that threshold. Very good, but not historically good.

What it’s worth: $9 and it came with potato chips.

How it rates: 82 out of 100.

Here’s another sandwich recommended by a reader like you. This particular sandwich has been endorsed many times over, but first by Carl. He actually emailed me about it back in May, before I was even writing about sandwiches on this site with any regularity.

Please, if you know of an exceptional or exceptionally interesting sandwich — especially if it’s easily accessible via subway from Midtown or by car from Westchester — let me know about it. You can email me at tberg@sny.tv or use the contact form above.

The sandwich: Spicy pork meatball hero with spicy red sauce and mozzarella, from The Meatball Shop, 84 Stanton St. in Manhattan.

The construction: Several (three?) spicy pork meatballs smashed and spread out onto a baguette with fresh mozzarella cheese. Then they toast the whole thing so the cheese is melted.

Important background information: As I’ve noted several times, my mother is Italian and I am fiercely loyal to her meatballs. Though I love meatballs in concept, I rarely order them from restaurants because I know they will not match the ones I grew up enjoying. Mom’s are a bit less bready than most, I’ve found, so they’re more coarse: delicious hunks of well-seasoned ground beef. And I guess she fries them at a hotter temperature than most people do, because they maintain a bit of a crispness on the outside that I rarely find in other meatballs. Superb, honestly. The showpiece of her very impressive array of culinary delights.

But the Meatball Shop is all the rage in the trendy Lower East Side, and though I’m not what you’d call trendy myself, I figure when trends overlap with sandwiches I should probably get on that. Plus a bunch of people whose opinions I respect told me I must eat this sandwich.

I trekked down there on Thursday and the place was packed. No open tables and people stacked about three deep at the bar. This is sort of pathetic, but since I was alone and starving I wound up ordering the sandwich to go, hopping in a cab to Grand Central and eating it in the dining concourse while waiting for my train back to the suburbs.

What it looks like:

How it tastes: Hell and yes.

Believe it or not, the thing that first jumps out at you on this sandwich is the baguette. As mentioned, it’s toasted so it’s got a great crispness on the outside, and it’s sturdy enough to withstand a 10-minute cab ride’s worth of grease accumulation from the meatballs and cheese. That’s impressive.

And the pork is excellent. Since the meatballs are smashed up the experience is more akin to eating a sloppy joe (the ground-meat kind, not the Jersey kind), only if the sloppy joe were made with loose sausage meat from a spicy Italian sausage. That’s about as best as I can describe the seasoning, I think — it’s a melange of flavors, though principally it is spicy in the red-peppery way that things can be spicy.

Next time I venture to the Meatball Shop, though — and this sandwich was good enough to guarantee there will be a next time — I might try something different than the spicy pork meatball and spicy sauce combination. The Meatball Shop’s sandwich offerings are fully customizable: pick a meatball, pick a sauce, pick a cheese.

And though the spicy pork with spicy sauce was recommended by the Grub Street sandwich list, among others, I wonder if the sandwich might be a little more interesting with one of the other sauces. I won’t dismiss it as a one-note sandwich because there were too many good flavors in the meat itself, but I found myself wondering which flavors were coming from the meat and which from the sauce, and it seemed like there was some overlap there.

And due to the spice and the powerful meat flavor, the mozzarella served more as a binding agent to hold the meatballs near the bread than an additional source of flavor. Not that I’m complaining — this thing was messy enough with the cheese and would likely have ruined my shirt without it. But I do think fresh mozzarella loses something when it’s fully melted. Don’t quote me on that because it’s a theory I’m going to have to revisit, but I feel like all my favorite sandwiches incorporating fresh mozzarella pile thick slices on top and don’t mess with them.

What it’s worth: Cost $9, and it was a lot of food. It was a good enough sandwich that I kept plowing through it even after I was stuffed, which happened about 2/3 of the way in. Cleaned the plate. Came with a small but pretty decent footnote of a salad, too.

How it rates: I struggled with this one. Again, a reminder that all these ratings are completely subjective and I might very well rate any sandwich differently if I ate it at a different time, in a different mood or whatever. It’s three days later and I’m still thinking about how great the meatball hero was, but at no point did it feel quite like a Hall of Famer. I’m going to give it an 88 out of 100, and remind you that this might be a Hall of Fame sandwich to anyone who didn’t grow up with a mother that makes unbelievable meatballs.

I ate a bad sandwich from a good restaurant on Friday night. I was going to write about it, since I figured at the very least it would shut Russ up about all the sandwiches being rated in the 80s.

But I realized a couple things: I liked the place and the people there seemed friendly, plus all the other food I had was good, so I’m not eager to rip it in print. Second, Sandwich of the Week is to revere the greatness of sandwiches, not lament their shortcomings.

So I went out Sunday and found a sandwich worth celebrating.

The sandwich: Chili Cheese Dog from Hubba, nee Pat’s Hubba Hubba, nee Texas Quick Lunch on Main St. in Port Chester, N.Y.

The construction: A hot dog split lengthwise and grilled with chili and American cheese on a hot dog bun. I added ketchup.

Important background information: Hubba is a tiny storefront on a main drag in Port Chester, a cramped space consisting only of a long counter with about 10 stools. The walls are papered in bills, most of them American dollars, many of them marked on.

I understand Hubba’s is a popular late-night spot, but there was only one party there when I entered and I’m pretty certain it included Tim Teufel. That is to say I saw Tim Teufel and his family eating at Hubba. (Should I not write this? Is this too TMZish?) I didn’t say anything; the last thing I want to do is bother Teufel while he’s enjoying greasy, chili-smothered food with his family. But then I realized I’ve actually spoken to Teufel on multiple occasions and there was some reasonable chance he recognized me.

That made me feel a little uncomfortable. I didn’t want to insult Teufel’s intelligence by assuming he didn’t remember me, but at the same time I recognize Tim Teufel probably meets a fair share of reporters and that I probably resemble any old schmo who might be alone in a greasy spoon on a Sunday afternoon, waiting on a chili-cheese dog. And there was some chance it was just some guy who looks a lot like Teufel, since Teufel’s not exactly Gheorghe Muresan in terms of distinctiveness of appearance.

Because the thought of sitting down next to Teufel — remember it’s a small place so there weren’t any other seating options — and either acknowledging him or not acknowledging him was too awkward to handle, I scrapped plans to eat in Hubba and placed my order to go. Then I stood and tried to estimate how many dollars were on the walls and ceiling. I figure it’s about a couple thousand.

Then I thought, wait a sec, Tim Teufel was on the ’86 Mets. No way a world champion should be paying for his own chili dog. Isn’t that part of the deal? My understanding is you win the World Series and everything you ever eat within a 50-mile radius of the home stadium is free. That seems reasonable, at least.

But by this point I had already paid for my order and the guy was putting my food in a bag, and plus I had no idea how to smoothly offer to pay for Tim Teufel’s meal (without paying for the rest of his party, because if Teufel’s wife wanted a free hot dog she could have gone 4-for-9 with a homer in a World Series too). So I bailed and went to chow down in my car.

Incidentally, if you had told me five years ago that in 2011 I would spot Tim Teufel in a hole-in-the-wall hot dog place and it would prompt professional awkwardness, I would have marked you as a crazy person.

What it looks like:

How it tastes: It’s a chili-cheese dog, for sure. And that’s obviously a good thing.

The chili is the highlight. It’s pretty much just ground beef, grease and really finely chopped hot peppers, with some seasoning that turns the grease orange the way it is when you make tacos at home with one of those kits. It’s got a good bit of spice to it, and because there are no beans and the peppers are cut so small it essentially has a consistent texture, which makes it a good topping.

The cheese tastes like American cheese. Obviously it complements the chili and hot dog well, because, you know, chili cheese dog.

As for the wiener: Splitting hot dogs lengthwise and grilling them seems to be a Westchester thing, and it’s one I appreciate. It usually — or at least it is intended to — give the hot dog a little more snap, a quality which, to me, separates the great hot dogs from the bad and the merely OK.

At Hubba, though, the dog itself is a bit soft, even after grilling. It’s not bad — the flavor is good and appropriately hot-doggy — it just doesn’t have much crunch to it.

With the ketchup adding sweetness, the salty hot dog and the spicy chili and creamy cheese combined to provide a pretty excellent array of flavors in each bite. This is a very good sandwich, even by chili-cheese dog standards.

What it’s worth: Super cheap. It’s not a ton of food, mind you, but the chili-cheese dog and a decent-sized order of fries ran me only $5. Not sure how it broke down, to be honest.

How it rates: 77 out of 100. This is a tasty sandwich, but for something as straightforward as a chili cheese dog to reach Hall of Fame or near-Hall of Fame levels it would have to far exceed my already high standards for chili cheese dogs with near-perfect execution. And that means a snappier hot dog. Still delicious and certainly a meal worthy of a world champion Met, but it didn’t do enough to distinguish itself from other great chili cheese dogs I’ve had. In other words: Call me when you’re Ben’s Chili Bowl.

This sandwich, from a pizza place, comes on recommendation from former intern Jimmy, a former pizza-place employee who knows a thing or two about pizza places. Incidentally, if you’re a college student eligible for college credit, you too could have the opportunity to work here for no money and recommend sandwiches to me — especially if you have a background in web design or programming. I don’t hire our interns, but if you email me your resume I’ll put it in the right hands.

The sandwich: The “Tuesday” sandwich from Previti Pizza, 41st St. between Park and Lexington in Manhattan.

(Note: This sandwich is only available on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I don’t know what happens if you go in and ask for it on a Wednesday, but you could always try and then fall back on the delicious-looking pizza if you can’t get it. Plus if they have a Tuesday sandwich then it stands to reason they probably have a Wednesday sandwich, and maybe that’s really good too.)

The construction: Roast beef with jus, fresh mozzarella cheese, garlic butter and sour cream and onion potato chips on house-baked bread.

Yeah, you read that right. Sour cream and onion chips. On the sandwich.

Important background information: I am Italian and I love garlic. One time I smoked a bunch of garlic cloves in my home smoker, and though I intended to use them in more involved concoctions, I wound up just eating most of them as snacks. When a recipe calls for garlic, I generally double the amount. My wife and I have spent time discussing whether anything could really be too garlicky, since I’ve never reached that mark with anything I’ve made at home.

What it looks like:

How it tastes: Really good, and really garlicky. Maybe on the cusp of critical garlic, that ever-elusive “too garlicky” distinction. Not quite there, because it was still quite tasty. Just don’t plan on spending your afternoon making out with anyone who hasn’t also eaten this sandwich.

The bread is the highlight here. I’m not sure if it’s just a ball of pizza dough baked to crispiness and sliced in half or not — it tastes like it could be — but it’s got a great, crispy crust and a nice doughy inside that soaks up all the roast beef and cheese juices. It’s clearly fresh, and it comes piping hot. The one thing, though, is there’s some sort of powdered seasoning on the outside part of the bread that gets all over your fingers and also might be responsible for taking this thing up to that garlic threshold. Salty, too.

Inside the sandwich, the roast beef, cheese, potato chips and garlic butter all kind of ooze together into a delicious meatcake. Because it’s all hot, the roast beef is more toward the well-done side and doesn’t have that rare redness on the inside that a lot of roast beef enthusiasts are partial too, but then if you’re looking for a sandwich that emphasizes the roast beef your probably in the wrong place. The essence of this sandwich is the combination of textures — crispy bread, meaty beef, gooey cheese, crunchy chips — and though you can taste all the elements, the most powerful flavor, by far, is the garlic.

The sour cream and onion chips, I should mention, are an inspired addition. They don’t hold perfectly hold their crunchiness because of all the juices inside the sandwich, but then there’s a heck of a lot of crunch from the crust of the bread anyway. And the seasoning gives it a nice, familiar, potato-chippy aftertaste. Really clutch for those of us who like to accompany sandwiches with potato chips, because now you don’t even have to bother opening the bag and eating them one by one, they’re already on there so chow down brother.

(Incidentally — and I know this sounds gross — crumbled up Nacho Cheese Doritos go pretty well on a hot dog. Try it before you judge it.)

What it’s worth: It came with a can of soda, and I believe it ran me $8. And since it’s right near Grand Central and I ate it for lunch on a day I was coming in late, it wasn’t really out of my way at all. Certainly well worth the cost — especially when you consider the price of lunch in Midtown.

How it rates: Russ from programming is going to get on me about this, but I’ve got to put it in the 80s. It clearly needed something more to make the Hall of Fame — perhaps some sweet element like a marinara? — and maybe a bit less saltiness and garlic flavor. But it was still really good, as all sandwiches in the 80s are.

That’s the thing — I normally eat way more sandwiches than I review here, so only the notable ones get written up. I bring a sandwich for lunch most days that’s probably in the 50s. I had a sandwich from the deli around the corner last night that was probably high 60s. I imagine sandwiches could be charted on a bell curve of excellence, so there are more sandwiches in the 70s than the 80s and more sandwiches in the 80s than the 90s. So shut up, Russ. Also, that meeting you run is excruciatingly boring. You should consider PowerPoint or a musical interlude or bringing in the Knicks City Dancers or something. 83 out of 100.