I’ve been covering Orlando’s food scene for more than a decade, and never once have I made a discovery that I wanted to gatekeep.
But for maybe a minute, as I sat in the serenity of D’Amico & Sons’ expansive patio, watching squirrels root around in the leaves, listening to Christmas music, sipping my coffee and luxuriating in the comfort of a breakfast sandwich that could have been transported from my old neighborhood bodega in Rego Park, Queens, or the massive Midtown deli I hit on my last trip home, I actually considered it.
Because there was no line here on this Sunday morning. Not yet, anyway.
Co-owner/operator Philip D’Amico told me later, after I’d finished my breakfast and introduced myself, that the space in front of the counter usually starts piling up around 10 a.m. But in this moment, I am marveling that one of the final pieces of my “beloved foods from home puzzle,” maybe the very last one, has snapped into place.
I’m letting it all sink in.
To my right, there’s a guy at a table having his own egg sandwich and coffee. His blue-silver hair is combed straight back. He’s wearing black shorts and a black shirt, black sunglasses and a thick gold bracelet.
This guy gets it, I think. Central Casting couldn’t have sent me a better paisan. I thought about double-checking to see if he was from New York, but I decided we were both here for serenity. When I watched him leave in a huge, black Cadillac SUV, I smiled.
My friend, who ordered the Taylor ham version, was skeptical. Not anymore. (Amy Drew Thompson/Orlando Sentinel)
I guess he could have been from Jersey, but he was legit. And I am legit. And we were both here because this egg sandwich is legit.
So is the one I found recently at a perma-parked downtown Tampa food truck called Bacon, Egg’n Cheese. It’s been a luscious occasional treat since the discovery. I love the way their menu reads “BECSPK all one word,” but the sandwich is $10.
I pay it happily, mind you. But the one at D’Amico’s is $6.99. And it’s actually a little better, because it’s so close to home.
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I’ve been scoping out a few places around town lately, hoping for synchronicity, but the sandwiches had scrambled eggs. To me, this is immediately a disqualification unless you ask for it, which, in 30 straight years growing up in New York, working at my dad’s breakfast-and-lunch joint, has only rarely ever happened.
Antonino D’Amico is similarly perplexed.
“It’s not the right way,” he says. “I mean, if you wanna order it that way, be my guest, but the only way, really, is over-easy. You bite into it, the yolk comes out a little bit, that American cheese oozes out, almost like a cheese pull when you fold the halves away from each other.”
I’m still kind of reeling from the feels this sandwich gives me. D’Amico’s has filled one of the essential missing pieces in my “foods from home” compendium. (Amy Drew Thompson/Orlando Sentinel)
And the Kaiser roll. It’s a must. The only way. D’Amico’s gets theirs from a bakery in New York called Malone’s, and while they lack the poppy seeds often seen, they’re perfect just the same. They offer the sandwich on a bagel, too, but I’m not sure why.
“A lot of people don’t know what a Kaiser roll is,” Philip D’Amico explains. “So we kind of have to offer the plain bagel, the sesame, the everything.”
D’Amico & Sons opened a few years ago in the former Chamberlin’s space at Oviedo Mall, and business has grown steadily ever since. With big changes coming for the property, brothers Philip and Antonino D’Amico project things to get even better. (Amy Drew Thompson/Orlando Sentinel)
I don’t even ask where they get them. I don’t care. I don’t even think it matters in the context of an egg sandwich.
The brothers laugh and agree, but business is business. I respect this entirely.
“But you know, most of our customers now, we try and put them onto the Kaiser roll, and once they’re on it, they don’t want to switch.”
It was just called an egg sandwich when I was growing up. You didn’t have to say bacon or cheese. You didn’t even have to specify “on a roll.”
IYKYK. And if you don’t, you don’t. And that’s OK. You will. (Amy Drew Thompson/Orlando Sentinel)
You might say “salt, pepper, ketchup” when you ordered it, quickly, all in one breath. Or “SPK,” like the sign in Tampa. Or the guy behind the counter might phrase it in the form of a question, a quintessential New York call-and-response.
“Lemme get an egg sandwich…?” you might ask.
“Salt, pepper, ketchup?” would be fired right back.
For me, the answer is “no, thanks.”
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Sometimes, I grab a packet and put it on the second half — I don’t trust other people to ketchup my sandwich — but this is a natural dance, one I grew up with, one that has been repeated, from Brooklyn to Long Island to Queens to the city. I have ordered them in corner bodegas and sprawling Midtown delis, and they are always the same. Always.
The eggs (always two, always fried) might differ slightly in doneness. Yolks range from explosively, deliciously runny to a gorgeous oozy smear you’d only see when the two halves are separated (these sandwiches are always cut before they are wrapped; D’Amico’s knows this) to something harder, but almost always, there’s at least a smidge of orangey, not-entirely-set yolk.
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I guess you could ask for it over hard, but most people, I’ve noticed, don’t specify. It’s like the ultimate preschool lesson: you get what you get, and you don’t get upset.
And you always know what you’re gonna get.
Over time, and I’m not sure if it was just a natural evolution or the influx of “new and imported” New Yorkers into the mix, it became the bacon, egg and cheese. Or the B.E.C. Some people, though I’ve heard this only occasionally, turn the acronym into one word, pronounced “beck.”
Maria D’Amico, center, is flanked by sons Philip, left, and Antonino, right, on a Sunday morning at their Oviedo market. (Amy Drew Thompson/Orlando Sentinel)
I’m never going to call it a “BEC.” It’s not my way, but I don’t mind if you do. This sandwich, by any other name, and more importantly, in my neighborhood, is just as sweet.
The brothers D’Amico run this incredible market with their parents, John (from New Jersey) and Maria (from Sicily), as well as their sister, Rosie, and brother-in-law, Carlos. They moved down to Orlando from New Jersey with their parents when they were small, but regular visits back to see relatives, and the folks who brought them, give them insight into this sandwich and the northeastern American-Italian experience.
Eggs on the flattop at D’Amico & Sons in Oviedo. I can’t even with the joy I’m feeling right now. (Amy Drew Thompson/Orlando Sentinel)
It brings folks like that guy in the Caddy, and others from “New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, P.A., Mass, people from up north,” says Philip D’Amico, here with frequency, many of them driving an hour or more to eat and shop. (Jersey and Pennsylvania transplants will find a Taylor Ham/Pork Roll option on the breakfast menu, as well.)
It is a beautiful store, with scads of Italian imports and heat-and-serve foods, a deli counter for heroes (subs and hoagies for some of you), and arancini, for Sicilian-style pizza squares and pinsa romana.
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There is a pastry counter for every cookie, cake and cannoli you could want. There is coffee. There is gelato. ‘Tis the season, so the Pannetone and torrone are out in force, stacked in colorful bundles on the shelves. There is pasta, dry and fresh-frozen. There is an olive bar. There is wine.
The salamis are properly suspended, and they may not hang from a low-slung ceiling in Bensonhurst, but the vibes are there. The same goes when you ask Maria D’Amico about the cuccidati, and she tells you that although they don’t make them on site, they remind her of her grandmother’s.
The same also goes when they fire back a “salt, pepper, ketchup?” after you order your egg sandwich.
I’ve lived in Orlando for 20 years. D’Amico & Sons’ egg sandwich is the final piece of the “New York foods I miss” puzzle. Jersey peeps: they do Taylor Pork Roll/Ham, too, but I won’t speak to that. Come try it and let your homies know. (Amy Drew Thompson/Orlando Sentinel)
There are waits sometimes. And now, maybe, they’ll be longer. But I could never gatekeep something that made me this happy. In fact, it’s killing me not to just blast it all over social media right now, but the D’Amicos are in the Thanksgiving crush as I type this, anyway.
I ask Antonino D’Amico if he’s worried that a story could bring more customers, that regulars might be annoyed.
“Yesterday, my wife was in Newark,” he tells me. “She went to this place called DeLucia’s. They’re rated the No. 1 pizzeria in New Jersey. It’s an hour-and-a-half wait, right from when they open, just to get a pizza.”
The owners, he says, are grateful. They’ve got a sign on the door thanking customers, but letting them know there’s going to be a wait.
“No one’s complaining. It’s the best pizza.”
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D’Amico & Sons’ kitchen is already doing about 1,000 egg sandwiches a week, says Philip D’Amico, and while it can get busy, there’s really no line. Once their order are in, people mill about, peruse the shelves, and fill their baskets.
“It’s a little bit of a mad house, but we have a good system and a good guy on the grill,” says Antonino D’Amico.
They sometimes have 40 sandwiches going at once.
“It can be a little chaotic for people who aren’t used to it, wondering ‘why the yelling?’ but the people from New York, they’re just waiting there. We don’t do the tickets or the numbers. We want to keep that classic, fun feel.”
And, he says, keep it quick.
“You walk in: ‘Bacon, egg and cheese on a roll.’
‘You got it … NEXT!’”
Want to reach out? Find me on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram @amydroo or on the OSFoodie Instagram account @orlando.foodie. Email: amthompson@orlandosentinel.com. For more foodie fun, join the Let’s Eat, Orlando Facebook group.
If you go
D’Amico & Sons Italian Market & Bakery: 1170 Oviedo Mall Blvd. in Oviedo, 407-542-0783; damicoandsonsmarket.com