Linda Falkenstein
A thick roast beef sandwich.
Housemade roast beef gets the three-way treatment with mayo, barbecue sauce and American cheese.
Sometimes transplants from other parts of the U.S. open what I like to call homesick restaurants. There’s always a lot of heart in these places. Some years back, there was a spot in Fort Atkinson called Ken and Betty’s that specialized in real Philly cheesesteaks. It sold Pennsylvania-based Herr’s potato chips, featured a South Philly cheesesteak made with Cheez Whiz and stocked Tastykakes for dessert. Tastykake makes Hostess-like desserts for convenience stores, and if you ever see Kandy Kakes for sale, grab one. Sadly, Ken and Betty’s closed in 2018.
North Shore Pizza and Subs in Monona is that kind of place. This time the revered locale is Boston, specifically the shore north of Boston, where the grinder shops sell a special kind of roast beef sandwich they call a three-way. It consists of very rare, thinly sliced roast beef, with a combo of mayo and James River BBQ Sauce slathered on, finished with a slice of American cheese. This is served cold on a sesame-seed hamburger bun.
If I were actually that close to Boston I personally would be ordering lobster rolls and steamers, but we’re in the Midwest, and roast beef does seem the wiser choice for a homesick restaurant. The three-way is the kind of ultra-local specialty that Roadfood pioneers Jane and Michael Stern would advise you to eat before it disappears, in their book 500 Things to Eat Before It’s Too Late, about regional U.S. food quirks.
Boston-area transplants Dennis and Savannah Laubner opened North Shore in Monona in August of last year. The roast beef is housemade, slow-oven-roasted with a few seasonings, Dennis says, and it is very very thinly sliced and piled high. The beef flavor is subtle but right on. The beef is so tender it must be what people mean when they say “melts in your mouth.” The three-way is more or less hidden on the menu as “roast beef sandwiches, house made roast beef sliced thin,” which seems like the restaurant is hiding its light under a bushel. NORTH SHORE THREE-WAY is what it should say! This isn’t just any deli roast beef.
The three-way treatment is sloppy, for sure, and I think the bun would be better if it were toasted a bit, but the sweet/tart combo of the sauce is the kind of thing you keep thinking about after you finish eating.
Linda Falkenstein
Black and white signboard listing tourist sites in Boston.
A little local color.
The same roast beef is used in the restaurant’s regular sub sandwich. Cold subs are all design-your-own (choice of lettuce, tomato, pickle, onion, hot peppers, mayo, mustard, ketchup, oil and vinegar). I liked a simple treatment of lettuce, tomato and pickle, but I dream of combos that would further enhance the roast beef — Russian dressing and sweet pickle relish, for instance, or piquillo peppers and fresh mozzarella, or horseradish and caramelized onion. There are other subs, cold and hot, with a lot of “parms” not frequently seen around Madison — chicken, meatball, eggplant and veal parm. I particularly liked the meatball, with housemade meatballs (made from beef and sausage and a dozen-some seasonings).
Subs don’t stop there, with a raft of pastrami combos and also steak subs. A steak and cheese was very tender (no gristle of any kind) and enlivened with a lot of black pepper. Don’t forget (I did) that you can still add any of the cold sub toppings, so some pickles or hots wouldn’t be a bad idea.
Pizza here is good old east coast style, with dough handmade in the shop daily and hand tossed — the center is thin; the puffy edge crust soft. There’s a pleasant bready flavor to it, and a nice balance of sauce to cheese to toppings. The sauce is a thin tomato that doesn’t get in the way. Mushrooms are fresh. There are some house special topping combos, but overall there’s nothing fancy about the pies — they just hit all the right pizza notes.
Salads, gyros, appetizers, and plenty of kid-pleasers like hot dogs, chicken fingers and grilled cheese round out the menu.
North Shore is located in the old Rossi’s Pizza, and yes, the arcade is still there. Noontimes on school days it can get a little loud during Monona Grove High School’s two lunch periods (around 11:45 a.m. and 1:20 p.m.) — it’s right across the street — but they don’t last long.
The front dining area has been redecorated to pay homage to Boston; there’s a three-panel mural of the Boston harbor skyline and a signboard listing significant sites from Fenway Park to Harvard Square. All the place really needs is a raspberry lime rickey on the beverage menu.
North Shore Pizza and Subs
4503 Monona Drive, Monona
608-467-7792; northshorepizzaandsubs.com/
11 a.m.-8 p.m. Mon.-Wed., 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Thurs.-Sat.
$3-$20
