Street Food : Sandwiches

With this location (a stone’s throw from the Rue de la Paix), you’d expect a smart address. So it’s a pleasant surprise to find Le Petit Vendôme on the Rue des Capucines, with its colourful frontage, neon signs, handwritten menu on chalk boards over the bar and hams strung from the ceiling.A huge queue stretches out of the door, putting off the casually curious. The waiting faithful are hypnotised by the promise of a rapide croute auvergnat (a speedy Auvergne snack), watching the generous layering of ingredients – Bleu d’Auvergne cheese? Garlic sausage? Country ham? Behind the bar...

A popular weekday lunch spot, Label Ferme is full of good things. Old crates on the walls hold salamis, jars of jam, fruit juices and fresh vegetables, and at the sandwich counter there are delicious trays of meats, cheeses and more for you to choose for your salad or sandwich (around €7 to €10 with a drink). There are a few tables, but it’s really about a quick takeaway lunch or buying cooking supplies. Further decoration comes from photos of the farmers behind the products, as Label Ferme’s philosophy is to make ‘fast’ food from quality ingredients. The owners have scoured the Savoie region and beyond to source homemade...

Mondays and Saturdays, 10am-5pm, there’s only one reason to come to Abri (‘shelter’), a pocket-sized restaurant next to the Poissonière metro: their multi-layered, super-stacked, millfeuille-esque sandwiches, put together by chef Katsuaki Okiyama. One regal specimen contained grilled bread, a deep and lovely sauce, a vegetable omelette, crusty breaded pork (‘tonkatsu’), sweet and sour cauliflower purée and soft cheese.The rest of the week, there are plenty more of the young Japanese chef’s talents to enjoy. His CV (Robuchon, Taillevent, Agapé) would already be impressive on a far older chef, and against a bare décor...

The banh mi sandwich cleverly mixes Asian flavours with crusty French baguettes, filling them with roast meat, Vietnamese pâté, cucumber, carrots, white radish, coriander and chilli, and Thieng Heng has made it a speciality. You can get it with grilled chicken, glazed pork, lemon beef or dumplings, all at less than €4, making this hybrid sandwich almost as popular with BoBo Parisians as the traditional jambon beurre. Feel like something warm? Ask for a banh gio (pork meat, mushrooms and rice noodles for €1.80) or a glazed pork bun (€1.40).

The queen of the city’s food trucks, Californian Kristin Frederick, has set up shop in Ménilmontant, and the sandwiches are every bit as appetising as the ones she serves from her van. The shop, all blue walls and red blinds, provides a suitably casual environment in which to chow down on one of Kristin’s inspired sarnies – try the Glénan (tuna, chipotle, garlic mayo and vegetables).Prices are reasonable – think €11-13 for a set menu including a side and a drink – but the service errs on the unreliable side, with sandwiches sometimes arriving late, cold or missing ingredients...

You risk burnt fingers and tongues trying to get into your hotpot too soon at La Taverne de Zhao, with its wonderful casseroles full of bouillon, large translucent soft noodles, beef, coriander, mushrooms, seaweed and tofu. Cool down with a pull of milky bubble tea with tapioca balls, and take a break to snack on pork buns.No roast duck here: the cooking is native to X’ian, the capital of the Shaanxi province, where traditional recipes prefer cooking in a pot, adorning with edible flowers and adding mysterious herbs. Chef Zhao offers many dishes you won’t have had a chance to taste before – not everything works...

‘Buffalo mozzarella, pesto Genovese and grilled artichokes’, ‘home made potted tuna, capers, artichokes and radishes’, ‘brawn with vinaigrette, sweet onions and Polish cornichons’, ‘horse tartare, herb mayonnaise and thai spice’, ‘smoked herring from Holland, radish puree, sweet onions, preserved lemons and cornichons’, ‘calf’s head pâté, gribiche sauce and watercress’…Even though it might seem like it, you’re not reading a high-end bistro menu – this is the list of sandwiches at l’Epicerie du Verre Volé, the deli branch of the wonderful canal-side wine bar and restaurant...

We love this New York deli-style takeaway sandwich bar, all in a simple and soigné décor of stone, wood and metal. It's the latest addition to the Frenchie family by Grégory Marchand and his team, so naturally wildly popular – come early to avoid the queues, and place your order at a large bar loaded with scones, cakes, cookies and muffins. If you’re lucky, you’ll get a seat inside, but more likely you’ll end up on one of the peaceful benches set around the streets and squares of Paris's ‘Little Egypt’. On our visit we finally decided on the Reuben Sandwich with pastrami (smoked in house and teamed with coleslaw...