On most Saturday mornings, getting out of bed is a laborious process, and on rainy Boston days, when a look out of the window reveals only murky gloom, I need an especially exciting motivator to get myself up and moving. Before I was at Tufts, this motivation would be the smell of bacon sizzling downstairs, signaling the start of breakfast. But at college, I've had to become more creative.
So last Saturday, on one of those brutally windy and wet mornings I've come to know so well, with my head pounding from a long night of various shenanigans and a small pool of drool forming on my pillow, I told myself, "Today is a Dave's day."
During a hectic first year of college, being able to grab the occasional Saturday afternoon sandwich at Dave's Fresh Pasta in Davis Square has kept me reasonably sane. In an ironic twist, the best sandwiches within a few-mile radius of Tufts can be found here, at a place which is not even first and foremost a sandwich shop.
Dave's presents itself as a "specialty food and wine shop" that also does caters and sells salads and sandwiches. The shop is extremely popular in the community (as I was preparing to write this I took a quick glance at the reviews on Yelp.com, which are overwhelmingly positive) because of the extremely high quality of food that they sell, from imported olives from Italy to freshly cut pasta and homemade sauces.
Because I'm a freshman who doesn't do too much cooking of his own, I tend to focus on the sandwich portion of the Dave's menu. And so far, in my five or six ventures down to Dave's, I haven't been disappointed with any of the shop's offerings.
Highlights include the "Steak and Blue," a powerful flavor combination of grilled flank steak and blue cheese, with some caramelized onions for sweetness and arugula for texture, and the "Turkey and Cheddar," which features a tasty contrast between the savory turkey and sharp cheddar cheese portion, and the syrupy-sweet honey mustard element.
The reason that Dave's sandwiches are in a league of their own is not just that the flavor combinations presented are especially ingenious; it's because the store simply uses better ingredients. Because it is a gourmet food shop, Dave's can use fresh, often homemade foods to construct its sandwiches. These sandwiches just cannot be compared to those offered even at a great deli like Deli-icious or Tasty Gourmet (sandwich shops in Davis and on Boston Ave. that were featured in the April 8 edition of this column), as the ingredients at Dave's place it on a different playing field.
In my last visit to Dave's, for example, I tried the "Caprese," made with handmade fresh mozzarella, homemade basil pesto, fresh tomato and a balsamic reduction, along with extra virgin olive oil drizzled on top. The addition of prosciutto is optional here, but I decided to go vegetarian for once.
As the server grilled my sandwich, I did my usual stroll around the store, which is filled with free samples of olives, cheeses and condiments. And walking home in the rain, I was unable to make it back to my dorm before devouring the meal. The sandwich wasn't perfect — the cheese wasn't totally melted, and I would consider adding some honey or maple syrup to the pesto to add a bit of sweetness — but it was pretty close to it.
I can't recommend ordering Dave's sandwiches more than a couple times per month, since they all cost around $8 or $9 — not exactly fitting a college kid's budget — but it is such a relief to know that a great sandwich, made with fresh, homemade ingredients, is only one Joey ride away.
--
Ben Kochman is a freshman who has not yet declared a major. He can be reached at Benjamin.Kochman@tufts.edu.
