Open Market (https://openmarket.la/) is a sandwich shop in Los Angeles’ vibrant Koreatown neighborhood, where I stay when I travel to the great city for work. It has kind of a “hipster bodega” vibe because they also sell bottles of wine and random fancy foods, like some high-end tinned seafood. But the sandwiches are the main draw.
I always do much more walking in L.A. than I ever do back home in Florida. Of course, just walking back and forth between my hotel and work isn’t a huge distance, but it is decent exercise just the same. Luckily, Open Market is walkable from both.
It was a hot August day on my first visit there, and even though Open Market’s coffee and tea drinks always sound good, I’m not much of a coffee or tea drinker. I am a big lemonade aficionado, though. I started out with this seasonal hibiscus lemonade, as beautiful as it was refreshing.
I ordered the O.M. (Open Market) breakfast sandwich, which is the best breakfast sandwich I’ve ever had, and certainly the most exciting. it includes a house sausage patty, a fried egg, cheddar cheese, arugula, pickled fennel, harissa tomato jam, and paprika aioli on a potato bun. That’s a hell of a way to start your day, but the problem is that the day pretty much peaks there and has nowhere to go but down. Awe-inspiring sandwich, though.
I returned to Open Market a full year later and ordered three sandwiches I’ve been thinking about ever since: for lunch there, for dinner back in my hotel room, and for lunch at work the following day.
I started with the Normandie, which makes a lot of “best sandwiches in Los Angeles” lists, and for good reason. The sandwich includes sliced brisket, provolone cheese, mustard mayo (mixed together, like Mr. Show’s legendary Mustardayonnaise sketch), ginger-pickled radish slices, and scallions on a fresh-baked baguette, served with a cup of au jus for dipping. I had to eat it on the premises while the au jus was piping hot, and that was the way to do it.
The Normandie sandwich felt like a tribute to the French dip, the legendary sandwich invented in L.A. Two iconic, historic restaurants take credit for it: Philippe the Original (where I dined back in 2023) and its competitor, Cole’s, which I think just recently closed. Philippe the Original lived up to all the hype and proved it is not a sad shadow of its former self, like some old-timey restaurants, and the Normandie showed that there is always room to experiment and revamp the classics. The Open Market website even says it was a tribute to the French dip from Philippe the Original (so I was right!) and Yoshinoya’s gyudon beef bowl, which I have not been lucky enough to try yet.
I have been a little obsessed with tuna sandwiches recently, so I also tried the Kenmore, a sandwich of Korean tuna salad (a tribute to Koreatown), cheddar cheese (not melted like a traditional tuna melt), pickled radish, burdock root, gim (dried sheets of edible seaweed used in Korean cuisine, similar to Japanese nori), and perilla leaf, another Korean ingredient that tastes like a combination of mint, basil, and anise.
This lovely sandwich was served on lightly toasted pain de mie, which is sometimes called a Pullman loaf and similar to Japanese milk bread. You can keep your super-crusty sourdough; pain de mie is the perfect bread for a grilled cheese, and it was perfect for this Kenmore sandwich as well.
Best tuna sandwich I’ve ever had? Yes, I think it was, without a doubt.
Finally, I tried the Wilshire, because of my lifelong love and obsession with Italian subs. This baguette sandwich includes soppressata salami, mortadella, provolone cheese, lettuce, tomato, Calabrian chili, and balsamic vinegar. I ate it the following day, so all those intense flavors had time to meld in my hotel room mini-fridge.
All four of these sandwiches were winners, but Open Market also serves a special every Friday — usually a sandwich, but sometimes other things, like rice bowls. They also do a lot of collaborations with other local restaurants. I hope I catch one of those the next time I’m in town!
The Saboscrivner 