It's also the name for Delgado's pop-up restaurant that has been making regular appearances across Miami and the Wynwood weekend-only Smorgasburg.
Originally from Caracas, Delgado relocated to Miami in 2015. To date, the chef has cooked in and around Miami for nearly a decade. No stranger to the workings of a kitchen, he's held positions ranging from kitchen assistant to sous chef and head chef alongside the likes of Carlos Garcia of Obra Miami and Cake Thai's Phuket Thongsodchareondee.
Inspired to put his stamp on the Miami food scene, Delgado decided to combine his two passions.
"My goal was to explore combining Latin American seasoning with Asian ingredients, translated into a high-quality — but also very accessible — sandwich that uses seasonal ingredients and innovative products," Delgado tells New Times in an email interview facilitated by Google Translate.
After nearly a year of recipe testing, Delgado endeavored to take the humble sandwich and imbue it with complex flavor elements. To that end, every menu item is prepared using various Latin American and Asian techniques and ingredients — from kewpie and aji panca to guajillo and gochujang — to yield a depth of flavor.
"We were inspired to create the ideal crunch for our proteins. The secret is a dry mixture that we add to the frying process, which creates the perfect finish," Delgado shares.
Take his chicken katsu, a complex riff on the standard Japanese sandwich.
It begins with chicken marinated in a Thai-apple brine seasoned with the chef's proprietary blend of herbs. The thigh meat is juicy and tender, matched with a coleslaw salad flavored with coriander and yuzu kosho and finished with an orange miso glaze that manages to tie everything together with an umami citrus kiss.
Sandoches offers Latin- and Japanese-inspired katsu sandwiches at Smorgasburg Miami.
Photo by Nicole Danna
A brisket katsu uses coffee-marinated meat, flavored with a blend of secret seasonings, and smoked for ten hours. Thick slabs are cut to order, accompanied by guava and guajillo jelly, caramelized onions, and mushrooms.
Although the menu focuses on Delgado's take on katsu-style sandwiches, the chef's creative riffs also include a cold egg salad, a classic approach prepared with chives, masago, furikake, and nori — but with an egg that's first marinated in soy and mirin.
There's also mashed potato puffs, a side Delgado chose to appeal to both children and adults. Not quite mashed potatoes, not quite fries, his potato puffs fall somewhere in between — bite-sized globes of creamy, whipped potato encased in a thin, crisp shell, accompanied with a truffle-infused, white-cheddar sauce, and topped with homemade furikake seasoning.
Don't miss Delgado's monthly special, recently in the form of a Peruvian turkey butifarra, a riff on a classic Catalan-style sausage. The turkey is marinated and roasted in different herbs, including cilantro, mint, basil, and chives. It's served with a Peruvian Creole salad that marries sweet potato purée with a sake, black garlic, and anticucho-spiked sauce.
Moving forward, the plan is to use the pop-up as a way to create a growing roster of flavors and ongoing chef collaborations, Delgado shares.
Of course, having a standalone location and a book is also part of the plan.
"[It's] a small, simple space where people can go to eat or pick up their sandoches every day," sums up Delgado. "The idea for Sandoches was born not only to have creative sandwiches but also to develop a recipe book where we bring together all the flavors that we have developed together with our friends in the industry."
Sandoches. 1 to 9 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, at Smorgasburg Miami, 2600 NW Second Ave., Miami; instagram.com/sandoches.
