The sandwich ranks alongside football and cricket as great things we have given the world but which have been excelled at by other countries.

An example of this is with the recent opening in Worksop of Subway, the American eatery chain.

Subway has taken the humble sandwich, crafted it and honed it into a thing of mouthwatering beauty – a taste sensation.

However, as wonderful as its subs are, they are unrecognisable from the quintessentially English style of sarnie.

And so now that summer has finally arrived, one warm and sunny lunchtime I ventured to go and get me a good old traditonal style English sandwich.

I chose the Acorn Sandwich Shop on Potter Street in a bid to find a tasty version of what I remember from my childhood.

Not a sub, not a bagel, not a panini, not a wrap. But a sarnie on a large, soft, white bread roll.

Although Acorn is quite small, it is bright, clean, and welcoming.

I was pleased to see a large array of sandwiches up on the board and it took me a good few minutes to choose my ‘weapon’.

On offer are a mixture of hot and cold sandwiches with a choice of sizes - small, large, or extra large.

The hot sandwiches include variations using popular breakfast ingredients such as sausage, egg, and bacon.

But as I was visiting on a hot day I reasoned that it would be pure folly to opt to have a hot sarnie.

So instead I paid close attention to the long list of cold sandwiches.

No patrami, parma ham, meatballs, salami, or chorizo on offer here.

Instead more traditional offerings such as tuna, chicken, prawn, and roast beef. All available with or without salad.

I opted for a large ham salad sandwich, which I was pleased to see freshly prepared in front of my very eyes.

If you are not in the mood for a sandwich then fear not, Acorn also offers a variety of other light and hearty snacks such as jacket potatoes with different fillings, salads, pies, pasties and sausage rolls.

Indeed, I could not resist the hot pastry delights on offer and decided to complement my sandwich with a cornish pasty.

Being a man with a very large appetite I was not finished there, and I also picked up a generous wedge of home-made lemon cake.

The service was swift and efficient and I was very pleasantly surprised to have bought a large sandwich, pasty, piece of cake, and an ice cold can of fizzy pop and still have change from a fiver.

When it came down to the business side of things, although not the best sandwich I have ever had, it was filling and more than satisfying, while the pasty was better than any one would find in any of the chain bakeries in the town centre.

As for the lemon cake, it was light and fluffy and topped with a sumptous icing, a perfect way to round-off a very satisfying lunch.

Acorn Sandwich Shop may not offer a cosmopolitan selection, but it certainly reaffirms one’s faith in the good old English sarnie.



by Ben Green

Star rating HHHH