Cafe Chew, IMHO The Best Sandwich in Sandwich

This weekend the Town of Sandwich had a street fair on Jarvis Street in the heart of Sandwich Village. They closed off Jarvis Street and had tents and tables set up all along the street selling the usual trinkets and flogging all sorts of stuff. Behind The Belfry Inn there was a contest going on called "The Best Sandwich in Sandwich", where the restaurants in town were supposed to showcase the best sandwich on their menus for judging by a "vox populi" and then by a panel of judges. You paid the organizers $10 and you were given 5 tickets to sample the sandwiches. Now I won't go too deeply into why that part of the event was a bust but I will say that if there are 12 vendors with sandwiches and they gave you five tickets, one for each sample, you were left to either chose which you'd like to try or, according to a sign in the tent, "If you want to try more sandwiches buy more tickets". I can't remember going to a contest like this where you were limited to less than half of the entries. I didn't like the tone of the sign at all either. Also they sold (according the the Cape Cod Times) 600 tickets yet told the vendors to bring enough for 200 people. There were no guides as to where to stand in line and the vendors were running out of sandwiches after 1 1/2 hours. The tent was also way too small to accommodate everyone. I'm sure they will work out the bugs next year (this was the first time they tried this). Perhaps someone will see this and make a few notes.

Our friends at Cafe Chew showcased a sandwich called "The European" which was Black Forest Ham, Salami, Chevre, Fire-roasted red peppers and an artichoke spread on a Bavarian Pretzel Roll. Boy was that yummy.

Chew came in 2nd place in the vox populi voting and also in the panel judging. The odd thing, at least in my eyes and this is my opinion only just for the record, is that the winners' sandwiches were not on the restaurants' regular menus. My understanding of the entries was that they were supposed to be on the menus at the restaurants. I feel that the boys were gypped but they took it in stride and vowed to kill the competition next year. Theirs really was the best.

Here's a little blurb from our guest columnist Tobin, one of the owners of Cafe Chew:

Two eager Brewster/Mansfield sandwich voters waiting in line for the "European" sandwich from the Cafe Chew table at Sandwich's first annual SandwichFest "Best Sandwich in Sandwich". (how many s's in Sandwich? oy).
Chew would like to thank Officer Mike (the cute one) and his sidekick Frenchy (ain't she nuthin') for casting a vote for Cafe Chew.

We came in second (out of 12 Sandwich restaurants) in both judgings, one by a celebrity judge panel (we lost by two points, 80-78) and the other one in the bourgeoisie "let them eat cake" popular vote.

We'd also like to thank Button Productions and Frenchy's House Party for technical support in our first public endeavor.