Living in New York City I have access to a lot of restaurants.  The variety available to me is overwhelming and often disappointing but every now and then I come across a gem of a place that offers everything I could want in a restaurant.  I found one such place when, based on a friend’s recommendation, I went to a sandwich shop in my neighborhood called Saltie.

Saltie is the brainchild of a few folks who were all associated with another local Brooklyn restaurant, Marlow & Sons (who uses greens from my favorite Brooklyn project, Rooftop Farms). Together Rebecca Collerton, Caroline Fidanza and Elizabeth Schula are now making simple, tasty and environmentally friendly sandwiches, soups, ice creams and pastries.  On my first visit to the shop I noticed a bunch of awesome things that made me happy to be a customer, which for some reason seem to be quite a rare experience these days.

Below is my list of what makes Saltie awesome and a place you should visit if you are in the NYC area. 

1) There are no printed menus. They write the menu by hand everyday and only have one copy (no to-go copies).  This not only means less paper waste from extra menus but also accounts for the fact that there menu is always changing based on the what is seasonally avaiable. Which gets me to my second awesome thing.

2) They use fresh seasonal produce.  While I was waiting for my sandwich the woman at the counter was telling the man behind me that they would be changing their menu soon because of the availablity of certain vegetables.  She actually said to him “well, we’re about to lose green tomatoes so we need to change some things.”

3) They bake all of their own bread, meaning a truck from somwhere doesn’t need to deliver them the bread.  One less car or truck on the road is always a good thing.

4) When I got my anise-hyssop ice cream to go they put it in an eco-friendly container (I can’t remember the brand but it was clearly labeled as such) and they also didn’t put my sandwich and ice cream in another plastic bag–they just handed them to as is.

5) This doesn’t have much to do with the environment but I thought I’d just add that The Clean Slate (pictured above) was perhaps the best sandwich I have EVER tasted.  It was made with freshly baked naan, humus, quinoa, pickled vegetables, saurkekraut and a yogurt sauce. Being that every one of those ingredients is pretty healthy I wasn’t expecting fireworks to go off–I was mostly expecting a sandwich that was tasty that I felt good about eating. Well let me tell you, fireworks definitely went off!  And if you don’t believe me give a read to what The New York Times had to say about it:

“Even the vegetarian Clean Slate ($8) is as vibrant as it is hefty. Generous scoops of quinoa and hummus are rolled in a blistered naan with pickled vegetables, sauerkraut and tangy yogurt. The combination works. Culturally speaking, it’s fearless, if a sandwich can be such a thing.”