The new Dos Hermanos Bakery and Cafe brings fresh and inventive chopped sandwiches, and delicious bread to inner Southeast Portland.
My family ventured to the new Dos Hermanos Bakery and Cafe in inner Southeast Portland for a Saturday lunch. We were already fans of Dos Hermanos, which had a booth at the summer-and-fall Woodstock Farmers Market. We’d often pick up danishes, brightly colored pan dulce, or a sliced loaf of slightly tangy Miche bread, the perfect base for breakfast sandwiches.
The new space on Southeast Stark Street provides expanded production facilities and room for a cafe with ample seating. When we arrived, the line wrapped along the back wall, but it moved quickly and we placed our order in about 10 minutes. In addition to Mexican pastries, Dos Hermanos sells cookies, scones, muffins, bolillos, loaves of sourdough and more. And by 1 pm, they were starting to sell out. But the main menu items are chopped sandwiches dreamed up by Lardo’s Rick Gencarelli. I’d only seen chopped sandwiches on IG Reels, with cooks taking all the ingredients normally layered into a sandwich — and chopping them all up together and mixing with condiments. We got to see the sandwich creators at work as we got to the front of the line; they wielded huge, two-handled, curved cutting blades, rocking them up and down through piles of ingredients before scooping the mixture into sesame or plain 16-inch baguettes.
I ordered a Get Him to The Greek sandwich, which came with feta, chickpeas, olives, pepperoncini, tomato, lettuce, red onion, dill, cilantro and red wine vinaigrette. My husband tried the Papa Gabe, with ham, escabeche, queso fresco, salsa verde, chicharrónes, cilantro, crema, lettuce and tomato. My 11-year-old daughter, Adela, ordered the TBA, a turkey, bacon and avocado sandwich minus all the condiments. I was slightly worried about what my picky 9-year-old son, Cruz, would order. Then we spied some custom sandwich order forms. He built his own sandwich with roast beef, pepperoncini and lettuce. We all got half sandwiches ($11-$13 each), which were actually quite large.
The wait was a little longer to actually get our sandwiches, but we took a few bites of a cajeta (goat’s milk caramel) bread pudding and a special Rosca de Reyes pan dulce (three kings bread) stuffed with a creamy, cherry-chocolate filling to tide us over (pictured above). Eating the Rosca de Reyes bread was messy. But the kids loved it. I also liked the cinnamon flavor of the bread pudding, which reminded me of the sweet tamales my family made while I was growing up. We also took home a loaf of Miche.
When we got our sandwiches, we dove right in. Both Adela and Cruz really liked their orders, eating a fair amount of the big sandwiches. We were sitting at a small table and unwrapping the giant paper my sandwich came in proved to be too much for me. I spilled some of my filling before my first bite — and continued to make a huge mess while eating it. But I absolutely loved the flavors in the Get Him to the Greek and my sesame baguette, which was a light, airy and crunchy base. With the ingredients all chopped up, I didn’t mind some foods I normally shy away from: raw red onion and Kalamata olives. Each bite was tangy, creamy, crunchy and fresh — something I’m actually craving as I write this. It was the best sandwich I’d had in a long time. My husband liked his Papa Gabe, but he wasn’t as blown away as I was. He thought the sandwich would have benefited from some slow-cooked Mexican beef instead of the ham. But he especially liked the chopped bits of chicharrónes.
All in all we left Dos Hermanos quite satisfied. And I know I’ll be looking for another excuse to get my hands on a Get Him to the Greek chopped sandwich.
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