Poochie & Pang (Eat Chicago)

Chicago’s most unexpected (and possibly best) Italian beef sandwich can be found in a North Shore butcher shop that doesn’t even sell sandwiches most of the time (it’s only served intermittently and announced on social media). Everything about this butcher shop’s version of the Italian beef is memorable, from the tender beef slices to the giardiniera from a fourth-generation giardiniera maker (and Chicago fire fighter). Elsewhere, Poochie & Pang try the most famous sandwich from the Mexican state of Jalisco, sample a deep-fried turkey sandwich on the South Side, and find one of the very few places in Chicago to serve the Japanese egg sandwich.

In this episode, Poochie and Pang learn they share a mutual love of professional wrestling, then go train and get humbled from AEW professional wrestlers Kyle Fletcher and Skye Blue. The group then visits Chicago’s first Australian cafe and tries a sandwich that reminds Aussie native Kyle Fletcher of home. If that weren’t enough, Poochie & Pang visit one of the area’s finest and longest-running Italian delis, devour a legendary Chicago sandwich from a shop that didn’t want to be on television, and close out at an Irving Park Mexican restaurant where the chef pays tribute to his beloved mother…in sandwich form.

What’s a Chinese interpretation of the McRib sandwich? Poochie & Pang visit Bridgeport to find out and discover along the way what possibly may be the city’s most delicious fried chicken sandwich. They then head to Evanston to a Venezuelan food truck-turned-restaurant, an Irving Park sandwich shop serving sandwiches seldom seen in the Midwest and end the day at a unique, frozen-in-time Supper Club in the Southwest suburbs.

In one marathon 12-hour stretch, the duo tries what Kevin in The New York Times calls Chicago’s best breakfast sandwich. Then it’s off to Hermosa for a Cambodian take on a fried chicken sandwich. After lunch, Poochie & Pang head to Bronzeville for a slick and delicious hoagie and top off with a nightcap at a Chinatown cocktail bar with a spectacular grilled cheese sandwich with an Asian twist.