Many moons ago on a visit to Boston, I went with my friend I was visiting to Neptune Oyster Bar where I indulged in his recommended vitello tonnato sandwich.

It was as glorious as he opined, a sandwich of shredded roasted veal topped with a wickedly spicy tuna tartare and fresh cucumbers all on toasted house-made white bread. While not true to the original Italian dish of thin slices of poached veal with a tuna and caper mayonnaise spooned over it, it’s more of an inspiration, and it’s one of those things that has stuck with me in the back of my mind.

In a recent twitter post series, a local food writer friend was extolling the virtues of his favorite sandwiches in Buenos Aires, and one of them that caught my eye and brought this memory back, was a vitel toné sandwich (being the Spanish for the same dish).

I had kind of hoped I could really get out there and find some interesting versions. But after a pretty extensive search online and asking for recommendations, it seems that the vast majority of places that offer this veal and tuna sandwich are neighborhood bakeries, and most of them offer a sandwich de miga. Literally, that means a “crumb sandwich” – they bake these huge sheet pan sized “loaves” of bread, slice them into thin sheets, and remove the crust. You’re left with “the crumb”. and then they make sandwiches out of them. They’re ubiquitous in Argentina as snacks. The vitel toné version, here exemplified by one of my neighborhood bakeries, La Nueva Recoleta, Charcas 2902, Recoleta, is two thin slices of white bread, with a couple of very thin slices of cooked veal – probably peceto, or what we’d call top round, some chopped egg, capers, and a bit of mayo with some bits of canned tuna strewn about, and, of course, because Argentines just have to, a slice of cheese. Checking out several other panaderias that are touted for their vitel toné sandwiches, I saw pretty much the same thing. Now, it’s not bad for what it is, but not what I was looking to find.

For years there’s been a food court at the Paseo la Plaza, with various, mostly mediocre, places to eat, in and around a movie theater, event space, some shops, and more. Sometime recently it was converted to Manduca, a colloquial word meaning food, refurbished as a series of cream colored glass-front stands, mostly with only outdoor seating. Some of them are branches of well known local spots, like San Paulo Pizzeria, Asu Madre Cevicheria, Heladeria Scannapieco, plus some one-offs. One of those was the place my friend recommended, Batacazo Sangucheria, Av. Corrients 1660, San Nicolas.

Now, this is a damned good sandwich. A generous amount of poached veal topped with hard boiled egg and capers, and the whole thing slathered over with a rich, creamy, tuna mayo. Maybe a little sloppy there was so much of the mayo, and it was a little more liquid than mayo-like, but worth it. I’m not sold on brioche as the choice of bread. It’s a little sweet for me, plus this version of it crumbled and fell apart, though that was at least partially due to the aforementioned mayo. I didn’t leave any crumbs. And the accompanying thick fries are really good.

Now, I’d thought the previous sandwich was generous until I got to Caversaschi & Co., Nicaragua 5510, Palermo. This thing is huge, with thicker slices of poached veal, maybe half a centimeter thick, and eight of them on the sandwich. On the other hand, there wasn’t a lot more to it. It had a nice tuna mayo coating the slices of meat, and a hint of caper flavor in that. The bread, brioche again, was cut thick and griddled, like Texas toast. Again, a bit sweet, and also just a lot of bread. I ended up taking the top slice off and eating the rest with knife and fork. No accompaniment to the sandwich. It was good – if I could pair this bread with the filling from the previous place, but in the quantity and thickness of this one, but with the toppings of the other… well, a mashup in my mind that sounds better. I’d still want a different bread than brioche in the end.

Though, I’m going to admit, I far preferred the brioche to the small hamburger bun offered up as a “panini” at Cabañas Confitería & Panadería, Av. Francisco Beiró 5384, Villa Real (and two other nearby locations). When I think panini I think either thick cut toast like the previous place, though of a more rustic bread, or the Italian version of a sub roll, pressed and griddled in a panini press. This place, one of the bakeries noted above, went onto my list to check out, despite the hour-long trip to get there, because panini didn’t conjure to mind the sandwich de miga style. And, it’s not. But it’s also not as good as those, with two tiny rounds of dried out roasted meat topped with maybe a teaspoon of tuna mayo spread on top. That’s two plus hours I’ll never get back.

There was another bakery nearby, El Condór, that was touted for their version as well. I dropped in, but it turns out they only make them for catering orders, and I’d have to order an entire platter of a couple of dozen, and they’re mini one or two bite-sized hors d’oeuvres.

And that seems to be it other than the miga style places. So far, my best recommendation is, go to Boston, though I’d actually eat either the one at Batacazo or Caversaschi again, and happily. If anyone knows of a place that does a worthwhile vitello tonnato sandwich in town or nearby, let me know. Willing to travel to check it out, of course!

It may be, I’ll just have to make my own when the mood strikes.