This is Brisbane’s best chicken sandwich
This thing will reaffirm your faith in the humble white bread sandwich. But there’s a lot going on under the hood. Here’s what makes it so special.
The value of white bread is underestimated. Leaham Claydon thinks so, too.
“For me, you can’t find a good sandwich on a piece of white bread,” says Claydon, who owns Jane’s Deli, which recently opened in Coorparoo with his partner, chef Jianne Jeoung.
“I love white bread sandwiches that you can smash around. It’s the perfect platform for a good sandwich.”
Or a great sandwich, as in Jane’s Deli’s Hainanese chicken sanger. A very, very great sandwich.
Who is Jane and where is her deli?
Claydon and Jeoung opened Jane’s Deli in the front half of the building that formerly housed California Native. The logic behind the venue was simple: sell a range of menu items regularly in demand at popular cafe and wine bar Snug.
“They asked us for smoothies and sandwiches,” says Jeoung.
“It’s really hard to push high volume takeaways at Snug, and the food we serve there doesn’t really lend itself to that… It’s set up entirely as takeaway. You can sit down if you want, but it’s all about grab and go.”
As well as smoothies and sandwiches, Snug also sells an impressive range of stylish pantry items, cheeses and small items.
Jane’s Deli’s Hainanese chicken sandwich
Why didn’t anyone think of this before?
Hainan chicken, of course, is often associated with chicken rice, a national dish of Singapore (as well as chili crab), and is also hugely popular in neighboring Malaysia.
One caveat when sticking it into a sandwich, however, is that most of the flavor of chicken rice usually comes from the rice and typical condiments like spicy garlic chili, dark soy, and ginger sauce. The chicken itself is as much about its glossy texture as it is about its taste.
Claydon and Jeoung are handling this.
Let’s start with this bread. Characterized by its soft interior and thin crust, the French-style sandwich loaf is a bitter bread. This is an absolutely perfect product by Cordelia Sourdough Bakehouse, not rich or sweet, silky and soft. It will reaffirm your faith in the humble white bread singer.
The chili de mie is given a generous helping of mayonnaise, a layer of salted cucumber and chopped iceberg.
For protein, whole chickens are separated into legs and heads and then left in hot brine with shaoxing, ginger and spring onions.
Then the chicken is rested, shredded, cooled and tossed in ginger green onion sauce.
The resulting chicken meat is juicy but firm, and the skin is left in the mixture, again reminiscent of traditional chicken rice.
The final garnish is a drizzle of Mama Liu’s chili oil (available on the shelves at Jane’s Deli) for a big dollop of umami.
We sometimes talk about chef-made sandwiches in this column, but this one definitely has a clear, purposeful flavor profile. But it’s also in the texture and mouthfeel. The only thing keeping you from devouring it is the time (and maybe a few curious prods inside) to spend wondering how Claydon and Jeoung managed to achieve something so rare and valuable.
“Jianne and I actually did this a few years ago at a sandwich stand,” says Claydon. “It’s a lot more thought out and better now. Our main goal was to make the sandwich in a way that could be made in the morning and pushed out very quickly without sacrificing quality.” [on] quality.”
This sandwich absolutely sings. Please go eat it.
Where to buy?
The Hainanese chicken sandwich costs $15.50, making it a relative steal compared to many fancy crooners around town. Find it at Jane’s Deli, 321 Chatsworth Road, Coorparoo.
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Matt Shea is Food and Culture Editor at the Brisbane Times. He is a former editor and editor-in-chief at Broadsheet Brisbane and has written for Escape, Qantas Magazine, Guardian, Jetstar Magazine and SilverKris, among others.
