12/12/2014
Best Bets: The Calkins sandwich at Republic Coffee
Michael Donahue
I finally got around to trying the Calkins, the sandwich named after my colleague, Geoff Calkins, at Republic Coffee.
I loved it. The tasty smoked salmon was an inch or more high.
The Calkins consists of cream cheese, capers, onions and salmon by locally owned Ambrosia — Food of the Gods, Food is Love and is served on Republic’s Everything Bagel.
I asked Christopher Jones at Republic how popular is the Calkins sandwich. “It’s tied with the DeNiro sandwich — bacon, egg and cheese on a bagel,” he said.
Calkins, known as the Ahab before Republic changed the name because of the columnist’s affinity for the sandwich, is in good company; Republic Coffee also serves the Neil Young, Leno and Thumper— named for the rabbit in the “Bambi” movie. “All our sandwiches have goofy names,” Jones said.
The salmon was what got me to try the Calkins in the first place. I recently tried a bite of the salmon when I was doing an interview at Republic Coffee for another story. I loved the freshness of it. I ordered a Calkins the next day, although the same salmon is used on the restaurant’s salads and other dishes.
“They didn’t come to me and ask me to design a sandwich,” Calkins said. “What happened was I just kept ordering it. Without me knowing it, it suddenly became named after me.”
To date, Calkins said he’s eaten “certainly more than 100” of the Calkins sandwiches. “First of all, it’s a Northeastern kind of sandwich, a variation of bagels and lox,” he said. “It reminds me of the days I spent living in the Northeast a little bit. The salmon is really terrific salmon. It’s slightly more robust salmon.”
The Calkins isn’t the same as lox and bagels, said Malcolm Levi, owner of Ambrosia — Food of the Gods, Food is Love. “Lox is cured, not smoked,” he said. “You basically take a piece of raw salmon, and you put kosher salt and sugar on top of it and weigh it down, maybe put a board on top and bricks over that, and leave it in the ice box over night.”
Levi smokes salmon, chicken, turkey, mushrooms, tomatoes and cream cheese for Republic Coffee and nearby Just for Lunch in Chickasaw Oaks Village.
“I’ve got a smoker at my house,” he said. “It’s an old hospital tray warmer. It’s a big cabinet, a foot-and-a-half wide and six feet tall. A regular sheet pan goes right in there. I’ve been doing salmon for years and years.”
Ann Barnes, owner of Just for Lunch, was a fan of his smoked fish and meat, Levi said. “I’d already been supplying it to Republic. She said, ‘Why don’t you build me a smoker and move your operation over here?’ She had a cabinet similar to what I was using. I outfitted it and made it into a smoker. I’ve been smoking over there for a year now.”
The title of Levi’s business is self explanatory: “It’s food of the gods.”
And Geoff Calkins.
