Breadline

2006 Fall Dining Guide
By Tom Sietsema
Washington Post Magazine
Sunday, Oct. 15, 2006

Feel free to be skeptical of my endorsement of the city's best sandwich maker; Mark Furstenberg, its former owner (now a consultant), is a longtime friend of mine. Yet Breadline's impact goes beyond the perimeters of the cafe- bakery itself, to the breadbaskets of some of the area's top dining rooms, and to the thinking that mayonnaise should be made by hand and you don't eat tomatoes when they're not in season. The payoff: baguettes that transport you to Paris and daily specials that find their fans marking their calendars as if they were holidays. Tuesdays yield ham sandwiches that are models of their kind, constructed from sweet butter, French ham and Swiss cheese; Fridays find crowds lining up for stellar fried fish sandwiches. Some of the best french fries around are (twice) cooked here, and if there's a better egg salad in town, I have yet to find it (the version here is spread on olive bread). At rush hour -- say, noon on any weekday -- the crowds and cacophony remind you of a Metro station, and seats in the industrial, self- service space are scarce. But that's a small price to pay for lunches packed with so much thought.