Shauna Eats Sunnyside

Pride of the Irish!

The other night, B and I were patiently awaiting the sun-down arrival of our new obsession, El Vagabundo Taco Truck, and decided to kill time and rampant hunger pangs by cruising through the side-hustling Butcher’s Block for a shareable handheld snack, then getting our grocery shopping on over at Associated (this last part took some cajoling on my part). Anyone who bleeds green in Sunnyside likely has a soft spot in the stomach for the tastiest (and cheapest!) of Butcher’s Block specialties, the sausage roll…

Assembled fresh every morning, the scent of juicy smoked pig parts swirls hurricane-style around a 41st St. epicenter day in and day out. Fat, moist, crumblesome meat sabers sheathed in flaky layers of buttery, crisped-to-perfection croissant, the sausage roll rings up at a very manageable $1 and, for our pre-Vagabundo snack attack, fulfilled the portable-dining criteria. B loves his snausage grenade with hot sauce or Colman’s heart-attack-inducing hot mustard; I can (and did) handle the Colman’s, but usually prefer a tamer spicy brown.

A potential downside to any deli-counter encounter is that the Butchers are rarely on the same page – therefore, service varies. A young Irish chap of years past used to do up the sausage rolls with a squirt of mustard right down the inner shaft of the croissant, which kept all condimentation neatly within the confines of the breading, pressed hard against the pork. The youngin’ no longer works there - *tear.* The current staff tends to just slather (way too much) of your choice mustard on the outside of the roll, then wraps it in wax paper and tin foil for a truly awkward and messy run-in. On the upside, our roll on this particular day had been camped out under a heat lamp for 12-plus hours and was still crisp and juicy – even thoughtless service can’t keep a good meat log down.

We tacked on a blackcurrant Ribena Spark for good measure, but something about its carbonated children’s cough syrup aftertaste rubbed me the wrong way. On a good note, the standard juice-based Ribena boxes remain one of our Butcher’s Block faves, along with Finches sparkling orange and the imported Cadbury Fruit and Nut bar.

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The Butcher’s Block
43-46 41st Street
Sunnyside NY 11104
718-784-1078