Some of The Most Beautiful and Delicious Sandwiches You’ll Ever Eat

Last week, I was hitting Refresh at a mile a minute because I had to pre-order some special sandwiches. “Which sandwiches?” you might ask. Sandwiches from Sandoitchi.

Sandoitchi’s team originally had plans to open a brick and mortar restaurant in Dallas, but when COVID came, their plans were put on hold. Instead, they shifted to a pop-up style restaurant and traveled around. In addition to Austin, they’ve had pop-ups in Plano and Houston among other Texas cities. 

The Sandoitchi pop-up had been gaining a lot of buzz and in its first week in Austin, the business sold out within seven minutes. For week 2, I came prepared. I had to sign up to get notified when pre-orders would begin. Yes, you would pre-order on a Sunday evening and pick it up that week. I got to choose the pick-up window and opted for Saturday when I wouldn’t be at work and could travel to the location. 

Since I knew how quickly the pre-orders sold out the previous week, I set an alarm to go off two minutes before the pre-order would open (they told me it would be around 6 pm on Sunday). I then just kept refreshing the page until I hit the order window. 

I ordered three sandwiches out of the five offered. A pork katsu, a chicken katsu, and a Japanese egg salad. They also offered a fruit cream sando and Wagyu beef sando. As much as I would have loved to try the Wagyu beef, I just didn’t have $75 laying around for one sandwich. 

The week passed and Saturday came. My pickup window was between 11-12:30. They suggested you wait to arrive until your notification email was delivered to keep everything socially distanced and running smoothly. By 12:30, my email still hadn’t arrived so I started driving down anyway. At 12:45 when I was still on the road, I got the email. 

Picking up was super smooth just like they promised. Everyone wore masks and the line was short enough that we could all stay spread out. I gave them my order number and my bag of sandwiches was out within minutes. 

The sandwiches themselves were both beautiful and delicious. The pork katsu had a sweet sauce that reminded me of another Japanese restaurant here, Don. The chicken katsu had a bit of a kick to it, but would not be considered too spicy for anyone. The egg salad was also really yummy, though I’m not 100% sure what made it Japanese. Perhaps the hard-boiled egg inside. 

Overall, I was impressed. This pop-up was pretty pricey (about $12 per sandwich), but the sandwiches were filled with a lot of meat and/or toppings and I was left feeling satisfied. I wouldn’t say this would be a type of lunch I would eat multiple times a week when I step out for lunch because it is on the higher end side, but for the occasional weekend lunch, it was perfect. 

Sadly, I won’t be having it again for a while since it was just a three-week-long pop-up. Currently, they are looking for more pop-up locations out of the state before eventually opening their brick and mortar in Dallas. Until they eventually open in Austin, I’ll be on the hunt for more sandos!