Sublime suburban subs

Café Milano’s renowned sandwiches and
coffee have been a St-Leonard staple since ’71

by GENEVIEVE PAIEMENT

Food cravings can fly at you from any direction. How many people tried making timbale after watching the movie Opening Night? They can bubble up while reading a particularly evocative food-related passage in a book and before you know it, you are hankering for some dish you may never have tried but are suddenly nostalgic for.

This month it was Gourmet magazine’s Italian-American issue that started me lusting. One look at the cover (a perfectly styled bowl of spaghetti and meatballs dusted with flecks of parmigiano-reggiano cheese) had me hankering for the kind of comforting food inventions that came out of the melding of these two cultures. I didn’t want to eat the picture exactly, but some deeper memories had bubbled up; those of a suburban childhood where going out for Italian had meant vinegar-doused Mike’s submarines (now rebranded as pseudo-old-countryish Mike’s Trattoria), or dinners of oily Alfredo with dad at Pacini’s (there was one near his work and—that bread bar!).

This time of year, that distinctly Italian-American strain of cheesy, meaty, tomato saucy, carb-tastic cooking really satisfies. So it was that I found myself headed east on the 40 one recent snowy afternoon toward Café Milano, a pillar of the café scene in la Citta Italiana, the suburban Italian enclave of St-Leonard, to have the kind of Italian sub-style sandwich Mike’s imitates so ham-fistedly.

Next to the restaurant section is the traditional coffee bar where folks drop in to stand, knock back an espresso and go on their way. Behind this is the foosball table where, on my recent visit, a half-dozen 20-something men shouted and jumped in the throes of a game, while the same number of silent, middle-aged men sat engrossed at a row of video lottery machines in the small adjoining room next door that leads back to the restaurant. The young men in black Café Milano t-shirts who run the place are always polite, always smiling in that genuine, down-to-earth way. They run a well-oiled machine: order at the counter and, within a few minutes, a guy yells your name to find your table’s location, then serves you your sandwiches in a red plastic basket lined with wax paper.

Of course there’s more to Milano than the sandwich—there is the coffee with a cult following, the convivial community centre vibe—but let’s start with the sandwich, shall we? There are six types: sausage, steak, steak and capicollo, veal cutlet, chicken, tuna and veggie. They lure the lunch crowds, largely composed of Bluetooth-sporting businessmen and boisterous groups of office workers.

Two of us went for three halves—one sausage ($5.50), one veal cutlet ($6.50) and one steak and capicollo ($6.50)—and a small boconcini salad for $7.50 (there’s a choice of iceberg or mixed greens; we went for the latter). I’m a big greens fan but this one was a pretty weak effort—the leaves were past their prime, the mini balls of boconcini were sorely lacking flavour and the lot was drowned in vinaigrette. But no one comes here for the salad, so I’m not complaining too loudly.

The bread used is that real sub bread that flattens between your fingers, and the condiments (I recommend going for the works: hot peppers, shredded lettuce, tomato, marinated eggplants and fried onions) are chopped up and well distributed so each bite is a delight. I can’t pick a favourite. The sausage was sweet with a spicy bite, the veal was tender with a delicate breading (not too stodgy) and the steak and capicollo was a lovely combo of textures and the char-grilled flavour was balanced by the salt of the cold cut.

Two shots of espresso (“bazuka-strength,” my companion says after knocking his back) jolted us back into reality as did a wonderful sugar rush from two very satisfying sweet treats. The biscotti, though not made in-house, was made close enough: “It’s an old lady from the neighbourhood who makes them,” the guy behind the cash tells me. It was crunchy and dense, with chunks of rich chocolate and a dusting of icing sugar. And the cannoli? Forget about it. The tube of fried dough managed to be both light, flaky and crispy all at once, while the sweet mascarpone balanced the sweet-rich equation with aplomb.