First, it’s important to explain to those who aren’t familiar with the concept: what exactly are “sandos”? Basically , they’re traditional Japanese sandwiches made with shokupan—a soft, traditional milk bread—and come in both savory and sweet varieties.
In our first experience with this Japanese delicacy, we focused on the savory version, discovering four options at Sando Sando that you’ll learn about right away.
What will you find at the Sando Sando pop-up store?
As I mentioned above, Sando Sando—for now—doesn’t have its own physical space yet, so it’s “borrowing” the kitchen and about 12 seats from the Son of a Burger restaurant .
That’s also whySando Sando is more focused on selling its sandwiches for takeoutthrough populardelivery platforms—a fact I noticed as soon as I walked into the store, where I observed some confusion with the orders, including mine, but we’ll get to that later.
Our experience at the location
I’d had my eye on this sandwich for quite some time; I wanted to try the famous Japanese sandwich, and one day, while walking by here, I realized they served it as a specialty.
The store was packed when I visited, which led to somewhat chaotic service, with some orders taking longer than expected. They asked me to wait about five minutes while they reassessed the situation, but in about three minutes I was already placing my order. I thought, “Perfect!”
The base of these sandwiches is homemade shokupan, a special type of bread that’s lightly toasted on a griddle with butter, and at Sando Sando there are four options on the menu:
- Burger Sando (€14.50)
- Kinoko Sando (€13.50)
- Tonkatsu Sando (€14.50)
- Torikatsu Sando (€14.50)
Our pick: the Torikatsu Sando
The Katsu Sando, with its famous fluffy bun, is the best-known of this type of Japanese delicacy, available in pork and chicken versions. Then there’s the Tamago version, made with egg (currently unavailable), as well as the sweet options, like the Ichigo Sando (€8), with strawberries and whipped cream (which can also be ordered at this pop-up store).
I opted for the chicken version, and after about 10 minutes, I received the wrong order—the pork version. I realized right away that the protein was wrong, but I still took a bite to check the flavor, knowing that the color of the meat bore no resemblance to what I’d ordered.
And it’s a good thing it did: Sando Sando’s Tonkatsu Sando leaves a lot to be desired— or maybe I was just unlucky and happened to get a piece of pork that was very chewy and, in my opinion, not very edible.
I placed my order, and in just over 10 minutes, the chicken sandwich was already in front of me: the meat was cooked just right, though it wasn’t very crispy (which I found strange), with a filling of kale and a generous amount of sauce, but the famous shokupan bread didn’t impress me; I mean, it’s really good for the first few bites, but as you eat, it becomes heavy and even cloying, largely because of the amount of butter it absorbs while being toasted on the griddle.
This seems like an easily solvable “problem” to me, because aside from that, it’s a very fluffy bun capable of satisfying even the most demanding of hungry diners at lunchtime. I truly believe that, for two people, half a sandwich accompanied by fries and two drinks would be ideal for a quick meal in Lisbon.
Useful information:
Address: Rua Rodrigo da Fonseca 40B (Marquês de Pombal-Rato)
Hours: every day from 12 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. and from 6:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m.
Average price: €16–€20 per person
Reservations and menus: on the website
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