Sandwich Of The Week: A Week Of Eating Eataly's Sandwiches Slideshow

Monday's sandwich is pork arista (arista being what Tuscans call unboned pork loin). According to the good people at Eataly, the rub on the meat includes salt, black pepper, fennel seed, and sugar. The bread is slit open in the middle, keeping the ends closed. It's held upright, the slit facing up like a toploading bun. They drizzle olive oil inside, tuck in the quarter-inch-thick pork slices, drizzle more oil over the meat, sprinkle salt flakes, pepper, close the bread up, cut it in half, and wrap it up.

The meat starts to crumble apart right away after your first bite. You definitely get that fennel seed flavor, the meat is moist with oil and there are little bursts of salt crunch.

This is not the sausage you'd find on a typical Italian-American, New York City sausage and pepper sandwich, but meat that's sliced thin — it resembles sliced loin. There's a pepperyness and caraway flavor, or is that fennel seed again? It's not the best item on the Rosticceria sandwich rotation — it was a bit salty, and even the oil on either side of the ciabatta couldn't prevent it from being a little dry.

Returning to a place over and over, you sometimes get to see special off-the-menu items you might otherwise have missed. So it was with this suckling pig sandwich. It was similar in texture to Tuesday's arista sausage sandwich, with similar seasoning, and it was assembled the same way.

But it was a more moist, more peppery, and there was a rounder, sweeter flavor. Little bits of crackling created a very  rewarding crick-crack bite. They should think about replacing the Sunday porchetta sandwich on the regular rotation — which is a double of Thursday's featured sandwich — with this one.

The brisket sandwich is a star of the Rosticceria rotation — it's the third-best option. The brisket is cooked with onions, garlic, bay leaf, salt, pepper, white wine, and generic rub (salt, pepper, brown sugar, white sugar, and chili flakes). It's dressed with a salsa verde made with mint, basil, parlsey, olive oil, salt, pepper, capers, anchovy, and Dijon.

Long wet strips of quarter-inch-thick, fatty brisket are laid overlapping the length of the roll. It's very tender and juicy — one of the more moist sandwiches at the Rosticceria. It gives the great brisket at nearby Hill Country a run for the money.

The rub on the porchetta includes salt, black pepper, fennel seed, sugar, garlic, and olive oil. The sandwich, served on ciabatta, featured the trademark salt flakes. The meat has a thick treacly crackle on the skin. Best bites are those of the long, thick pieces with treacle and pieces of fat.

A layer of "spicy tomato marmata" is ladled the length of the inside of the bread. Call it marmalata or sauce, it tastes like mighty fine gravy. It's made with tomato, tomato paste, chili, onion, garlic, salt, and honey. Six meatballs are nestled inside, and halved. A drizzle of olive oil and you're on your way.

Most meatball sandwiches have dry balls and a dearth of sauce. Not here. These moist, saucy meatballs are made with Parmesan, Pecorino, salt, pepper, garlic, parsley, eggs, and panko. You're not going to want to walk far with this. You feel its warmth through the paper and plastic, and the scent of sauce wafts out with each step. Better eat it amidst the chaos of Flatiron lunchers and Eataly tourists. This is the second-best sandwich on the weekly rotation. And this from a guy who doesn't order meatballs out because, not to be cocky, but nine times out of ten, I make them better at home.

This is the fourth-best sandwich on the weekly rotation. They do about seven slices of braciole folded into the sandwich. The works that had been wrapped inside the pork shoulder start falling out: a mixture of fennel, onion, and prosciutto cooked in white wine. Never fear, they scoop it up and put it back on the sandwich.

Unlike other Rosticceria sandwiches (besides the brisket meatballs), this has a second major element to it. The sweet onion mixture adds a dimension to the juicy meat that really works.

This the wettest sandwich at the Rosticceria, and is the best sandwich there. Lucky for you, they sell it daily. The rub is made with porcini powder, brown sugar, salt, black pepper, and chili flakes. It creates a slight crust, but the inside is very moist, like the best rare roast beef.