Meat Cheese Bread's Green Bean Sandwich

Meat + cheese + bread = sandwich. This is basic culinary arithmetic, and something that Portland, Oregon's Meat Cheese Bread knows well. This shop recognizes the elementary base of the sandwich, but one sandwich has surpassed grade school mathematics and is the result of more complex equations.

You might not think of a sandwich if I were to say "meat, cheese, green beans, bread," but Meat Cheese Bread has managed to make the green bean the star of one of their tasty hot sandwiches. We know that the green bean is rarely associated with the word "tasty." Maybe because way too many green beans end up as those limp, water-logged grayish-green things from the can.

Meat Cheese Bread's take on the healthy veggie may have some changing their tune. Fresh green beans are grilled to maintain their crisp texture, then topped with bacon relish (yay, bacon!), sliced soft-boiled egg, parmesan cheese and aioli on hand-made bread. It's just the right combination of decadent flavors to distract you from the fact that you're eating the vegetable you once dreaded. Like many restaurants in Portland, Meat Cheese Bread uses ingredients sourced from local farmers and ranchers. If this doesn't convince you to eat your green beans, we don't know what will.

More sandwiches of the week from Food Republic:

• Grilled Macaroni and Cheese Sandwich
• Fried Catfish Po Boy
• Baoguette Does Banh Mi Justice