There’s more to breakfast sandwiches than bacon and egg rolls. Take Tita’s egg, cheese and longganisa (spiced pork sausage) on a house-made pandesal muffin, for example. It’s a star at this Marrickville carinderia , a Filipino street eatery serving affordable breakfast, lunch classics and home-style dishes (and one of Good Food’s top 20 cafes of 2024 ).
“I wanted an entryway for someone not familiar with Filipino food,” says co-owner Kenneth Rodriguez of the petite yet mighty roll. It was love at first bite, catching the attention of Sandwich Watch , a column dedicated to the essential sandwiches you need to know about. The aromatic flavours dance on your tongue, and it’s a combination of sweet, savoury and smoky all wrapped up in a wonderfully fluffy muffin.
Tell us more about this muffin Pandesal is a mildly sweet bread roll eaten daily in the Philippines. Head baker Luisa Brimble makes it with a 72-hour proofed dough, before it is formed into that familiar English muffin shape and baked, then grilled. These pandesal are everything you want in an English muffin, only lighter and airier.
Then comes the filling When cooking the casingless longganisa pork sausage, it’s pressed down so the sugars in the spice mix caramelise and char. The egg is cracked into a ring to cook and then topped with American cheese. “’Cause that’s just, you know, the best cheese,” says Rodriguez.
A little mayo is added to the roll to balance the flavours, but what brings everyt.