Upper Crust

I had a horrible, horrible sandwich earlier this week, so for my next long train journey, I fully intended to arrive at the station early to give me more time to choose something yummy to eat on the train. However, I fail at life, so by the time I had collected my tickets, I only had 6 minutes to buy something and board my train. Oops.
Luckily upper crust is located next to the platform of my train (phew) so I risked another chain-​food-​stand sarnie. I chose a roast dinner in a baguette. It involved pork + pork scratchings + gravy + apple sauce. The gentleman that served me heated it up (only 30 seconds!) while I paid by card… so it was ready in a flash, even though I didn’t tell him I was in a hurry. I even made it onto my train with 2 minutes to spare!
It was over £4, so not cheap, but oh my goodness it was worth it! It was waaaay better than the sad, sad excuse of a sandwich I tried from the bread box in Victoria station earlier this week. It smelled pretty good, so I tried a little bite at about 11:30 (I had meant to save it for lunch… but who can resist trying a little taste when it smells nice.) I kept having little bites, so had finished the whole thing before 12:00…Ooops.

There were two food stands in Paddington Station that I fell in love with back in 2003 and when I returned this November with my daughter, I was thrilled to see they were still there: One was Upper Crust and the other was Souper Duper.
Upper Crust makes fresh baguette sandwiches and they make them right. No gooey spreads. No mayonnaise or mustards or glop getting in the way. Just fresh baguette and stellar ingredients so you can focus on the basic flavors and have nothing to interfere. This time around, I tried the Brie cheese, spinach and bacon baguette and the New York baguette. Even though the crunchy crust makes the roof of my mouth raw, it is worth it. So flaming good.
I have to time my arrival at the stand when there are no trains arriving. Once a train arrives, a swarm of fast-​moving humanity converges upon Upper Crust and Londoners order so fast and know exactly what they want, that silly visitors like me nearly get trampled in the middle of it all as I stand there, eye-​balling all the varieties and trying to figure out what I want.
Other than that, it’s all good. I will have to practice. Practice makes perfect. And Upper Crust, in my opinion, makes perfect sandwiches. Wish we had them in the US.