Trip to Brooklyn
Last week, my wife and I took a three-day trip to New York City, and we spent one of our days in Brooklyn eating sandwiches and checking out some breweries. As for the sandwich part of our journey, we visited two locations in the Red Hook neighborhood that geographically are less than half a mile from each other, but in terms of sandwich concepts, they’re pretty far apart. Come along for the stroll as I write about both Brooklyn sandwich shops, and then I will turn one sandwich into a recipe and share tips about how to make or procure the ingredients necessary.
What are these sandwich shops?
The two sandwich shops that I visited in Brooklyn are within a 10-minute walk of each other. They feel very different, though. They’re both casual shops or stores with pretty much no seating or even counter space for you to eat at. You buy your sandwich and keep moving. The first location is called The Ocky Way, and it’s a deli or sandwich counter inside of a small convenience store or bodega. The second location is called Defonte’s Sandwich Shop, and it is a 100+-year-old storefront fully dedicated to selling sandwiches with a focus on good homemade ingredients and well north of 30 sandwiches to choose from.
One thing that they both had during my visit was super friendly employees that did not intimidate you. These are not the type of establishments where you are accosted for asking questions or not knowing exactly what you want. They can both get crowded, though, so you should probably do a little menu research before visiting and jumping in the line to order.
The first location on our two-stop sandwich tour that we visited was The Ocky Way because it was closest to the subway stop we used to get to Red Hook.
The Ocky Way
The Ocky Way is listed as OCKY WAY on Google maps, but the store that the deli is inside of is actually called Red Hook Food or Red Hook Food Corp. I will just call it The Ocky Way to keep things simple. If you’re reading this a long time after April 2025, when this sandwich blog was posted, The Ocky Way may have moved to a larger location next door.
Ocky or General Ock is the chosen nickname of a person named Rahim Mohamed, who has worked at Red Hook Food since at least 2007—when he and his brother took over his Uncle’s store. According to sandwich legend—also known as the link I just shared—Mohamed’s younger brother signed him up for TikTok on a boring morning in 2020, and they started filming and sharing some normal deli activities. After two or three videos that received very few views, they began getting more creative and started concocting new sandwich creations like a bacon, egg, and cheese on a honey bun, which drew in viewers and got their deli a bit of sandwich attention.
Fast forward to today, and General Ock has millions of followers on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube due to his sandwich creativity, personality, and the antics surrounding ordering, making, and serving sandwiches in his bodega.
Wiktionary says that “ock” might mean “akh” in Arabic, which translates to brother. But it alternately claims that ock is “a man of Middle Eastern descent that runs a deli or bodega, typically in New York.”
Ordering a sandwich “The Ocky Way” means that you’re changing a particular sandwich into something different. The deli has an Ocky Way menu containing three different sandwiches, and each of those three sandwiches has the same set of three different bread choices.
The three sandwich options are chopped cheese, philly steak and bacon, egg and cheese. The three bread options are Jamaican patty, waffle, and pancake. With a special bonus bread option of honey bun for the bacon egg and cheese. You can see the special Ocky Way menu in this photo.
A reel I created from our trip to The Ocky Way.
The sandwich we ordered was the first choice with the first bread choice. It was a chopped cheese with a Jamaican patty. It made the most sense since we were only ordering one sandwich. I wanted a default Ocky Way experience.
This sandwich was better than I expected. I went into The Ocky Way with a lot of skepticism, and the experience turned out much better than I envisioned. The sandwich was beefy and cheesy, with some extra gooey cheese coming from the mozzarella sticks, but above all that, there was a lot of texture from the bacon and spinach layers, and the Jamaican patty worked really well as the bread because it had its own crispy texture that held everything together. I do think that the bacon outweighed the “chopped cheese” part, but you’re not going to The Ocky Way to eat a normal chopped cheese; the bacon and other ingredients simply push that part over the top.
Overall, I was pleasantly surprised that The Ocky Way sandwich we ordered was as good as it was. I felt that the whole thing was going to be one big gimmick with an average sandwich, but instead, it was a fun sandwich experience that tasted almost as good as it looked.
But we didn’t stop with just one sandwich. The second stop on our two-stop sandwich tour was Defonte’s.
Defonte’s Sandwich Shop
An 8 to 10-minute walk away from The Ocky Way is a small sandwich shop called Defonte’s Sandwich Shop. According to their menus and Wikipedia, Defonte’s dates back over 100 years to 1922. A person named Nick Defonte opened it as a small convenience store or bodega, but due to the store’s close proximity to the Red Hook docks, longshoremen working in the area started requesting sandwiches, and Defonte’s provided.
Defonte’s hasn’t been just flying under the radar all of these years, either. It’s been a very popular Brooklyn sandwich shop for a long time. It even appeared on the Food Network TV show called Diner’s Drive-ins and Dives on February 20th, 2012. Guy Fieri, the host of that show, sampled Defonte’s steak pizzaiola sandwich and very much seemed to enjoy it.
This is a great video showcasing Defonte’s Sandwich Shop and Larry Demonte, who is now a co-owner of the shop. It shows behind the scenes at Defonte’s. They discuss the some of the history of the sandwich shop, a bit of background on a sandwich they make called the Chenzo 13, and you see that the ingredients of that sandwich are prepared fresh in the store—even the fresh mozzarella. Spoiler alert: the Chenzo 13 is the sandwich I made for this blog post.
Chenzo is short for Vincenzo or Vincent Demonte, who was Larry’s son who passed away in 2021. The number 13 is Larry and Vincenzo’s favorite or lucky number. At some point after Vincent died, his dad Larry created a sandwich in his honor. This is how and why the Chenzo 13 got its name.
Give Defonte’s a visit if you like sandwiches and you get near Brooklyn.
The Chenzo 13
My niece and I ordered and shared the Chenzo 13, and it was a very good sandwich. There’s a lot going on, but it all seems to work together well. You can see the ingredients on the menu photo above, but the sandwich contains slices of prosciutto and sopressata, thick slices of fresh mozzarella, sweet peppers, roasted hot peppers, broccoli rabe, and a balsamic glaze. They make a whole lot of the ingredients, including the mozzarella, peppers, and broccoli rabe, on-site.
If you watched the video above, you already know this, but one of the co-owners of Defonte’s Sandwich Shop invented the Chenzo 13 with the goal of making a new Italian-style sandwich. His creation has become a popular menu option at the sandwich shop.
An extra sandwich
Since my wife and I brought my niece along for the afternoon tour of Brooklyn, we had one extra stomach to help us test these sandwiches. We decided to order an extra chicken cutlet sandwich with fresh mozzarella, roasted peppers, and balsamic drizzle. It was a good sandwich, but it wasn’t anywhere close to as interesting as the Chenzo 13. My niece and I both thought it could use the hot peppers from the Chenzo to liven up the sandwich excitement just a bit.
One thing to note on this sandwich is that I didn’t get a photo of the bread very well on the Chenzo 13, but luckily, this chicken cutlet sandwich uses the same bread, and you can see it much better to compare it to the bread that I eventually made for my sandwich.
A sandwich inspired by the Chenzo 13
The Chenzo 13 is a unique Italian-ingredient-focused sandwich that’s dedicated to the late son of one of the co-owners of Defonte’s Sandwich Shop in Brooklyn. It’s a very popular menu selection for a good reason. It’s complex, but the components all come together really well.
Because this sandwich is dedicated to someone who has passed away, I hesitated at first to recreate it for my sandwich blog. I’m not claiming that my sandwich recipe will be a perfect copycat version; you need to go visit Defonte’s Sandwich Shop yourself to get the real deal, but my recipe is a sandwich that’s inspired by the Chenzo 13.
Not everyone can visit Brooklyn, but now you can give this sandwich a try at home. I hope my recipe does it justice.
First, we need to start with the bread.
Sesame seed hero rolls
This is a new recipe for this sandwich blog, but it’s based on a recipe I have made many times. This is pretty much the same recipe as my semolina hero rolls recipe, with the semolina flour swapped for more bread flour. Bread flour is key to a bread roll like this because the extra protein in bread flour will lend more chew to the final roll. You can use all-purpose flour, and I have done that in a pinch, but the results will be better if you use bread flour.
This was one of the first batches of this particular sub roll recipe, and I didn’t get it quite as dark as I wanted, but it still turned out really well. I have adjusted the oven temperature and time for the full recipe down below because I have baked it more successfully in my most recent batch (for a future sandwich).
This is my sesame hero rolls recipe that I’ve baked 3 times at this point. As I said, it’s based on, and just a slight adjustment in flour type from another recipe I have baked multiple times, so it should work just fine for you. Let me know if you try it. It’s great for cold cut subs or even a Philly roast pork sandwich if you want to give that a shot. This is a good roll for all sorts of sandwiches; the middle is soft but still a bit chewy, and the exterior has a nice crust.
Sesame seed hero rolls
This is a great roll for your next sub or cold cut sandwich. The addition of bread flour gives the rolls just a bit of chew, but the interior is still nice and soft, while the crust of the rolls stays slightly crunchy.
Get RecipeThe two Italian meats
These two meats set the tone of this sandwich and put it clearly in the Italian camp. Prosciutto and soppressata don’t just sound Italian; they are Italian, and they work together very well in a sandwich like this. They’re both salty, have a little bit of chew and some fattiness that gives the sandwich a whole lot of flavor.
Prosciutto is thinly sliced because it can be chewy and stringy, but once it’s sliced properly, it’s a great salty addition to a sandwich like this. Prosciutto is meat that is sliced directly off of the meat. Soppressata, on the other hand, is a sausage, which means it is meat that has been ground and mixed with seasonings and then encased, cured or cooked and then sliced. Soppressata can be sold in mild or even spicy versions, and it does usually have a bit of pepper spice. Both of these meats together bring a lot of complimentary flavors, but they have enough contrasts that they work well in a sandwich.
Roasted peppers
The recipe I share below has a process for making roasted red peppers in the onion, but lately, I have just used the eye of my gas stove to sear the outside of the peppers, which chars the skin and helps to make the peppers easier to peel.
Once the skin is charred, you can move the peppers into a bowl covered by plastic wrap, which steams the skin even more, pulling it away from the flesh of the pepper. The peppers steam until they are cool enough to handle, and then you can simply wipe off the skin and all the extra dark bits with your hands or with a paper towel.
Now that the peppers are skinned, you can slice them into sandwich-sized slices and move them to a container for storage. I typically use a small pint-sized jar for 1 to 2 peppers and a quart-sized jar for 3 or 4 peppers. But you can just use Tupperware or even a regular bowl to store these.
I also like to add a little olive oil to the jar just to add some moisture, but you don’t really want to cover the peppers fully because the oil will solidify in the refrigerator. Just like oil-based sauces/spreads like chimichurri, you might want to bring your peppers out of the fridge 30 minutes or so before it’s sandwich time so that the oil will loosen back up.
Here’s my roasted red pepper recipe, which I wrote with the idea that you’d roast the peppers in the oven. I don’t typically do that these days, though. I just put them on the gas stove eye until the exteriors are blackened. Then, I followed the rest of the recipe.
Roasted red peppers
This is a very easy recipe that lends a lot of flavor and color to a sandwich. You can store them in the fridge for up to a week but if you store your peppers in a container covered with oil they will last at least 2 weeks.
Get RecipeMozzarella
Defonte’s makes their own fresh mozzarella. I have tried making mine twice, and it isn’t super difficult to do at home, but I felt it wasn’t really worth it for me. So, for my sandwiches, I simply bought balls of fresh mozzarella and sliced it fairly thinly.
I did notice that Defonte’s sandwiches had fairly thick slices of mozzarella, and I opted for slightly thinner slices so that the mozzarella didn’t have as much of the flavor/texture focus that their sandwich had. I guess that basically means that if you make this sandwich, feel free to slice your mozzarella as thickly as you think you’d enjoy.
Broccoli rabe
Broccoli rabe and sweet peppers are the only two ingredients you have to cook in this sandwich recipe. Cooking the broccoli rabe requires a two-stage cooking process. First, we blanche the greens, which par-cooks them and allows them to keep their bright green color. This means when they are blanched, you can allow the broccoli rabe to cool and store it in the fridge to be finished when it’s time to sandwich.
Once it’s time to sandwich, you simply need to saute the precooked vegetables with olive oil, garlic, salt, and red pepper flakes. This means you’re left with soft, savory broccoli rabe with a bit of garlic and a tiny bit of spice. All of this makes for a great addition to this sandwich or even just a side dish for your next pork chop or steak night.
Spicy peppers
In my sandwiches, I used pickled jalapenos. In the official Chenzo 13, there are more than just jalapenos in their hot peppers, or they are using red and green jalapenos. Either way, the peppers are pickled, and they’re spicy but not super spicy. They add a bit of heat to the sandwich, but mostly, they help to balance everything out with their pickle-y goodness.
I used some jarred pickled jalapenos that I had in the back of my fridge, but I also have this recipe that produces some really good pickled jalapenos that are great to have in the fridge for your next taco or nacho night.
Pickled MSG jalapenos
Need a spicy kick with a bit of crunchy texture in your next sandwich? They're also perfect to spice up your next nacho or taco night.
Get RecipeBalsamic drizzle
We like to keep a good balsamic glaze in the refrigerator at all times. It’s a super addition to pretty much any roasted vegetable, like broccoli or brussels sprouts. Just a squeeze on top of a side of asparagus will add sweetness and a bit of tart flavor to elevate the vegetable into something much more exciting.
From my understanding, a balsamic glaze has sugar, while a balsamic reduction does not have additional sweetness. I don’t know if this is always the case, but we just buy the brand that you see in this photo, and it is sweetened.
It’s also a great thing to add to a sandwich. I’m not sure if Defonte’s is adding a balsamic glaze or a balsamic reduction, but they are definitely adding a drizzle because you can see it and taste it in the sandwich.
Sandwich build process
Here’s the build process that I use for this sandwich. I tried to mirror the way that Defonte’s Sandwich Shop builds their Chenzo 13 with clearly defined layers.
Click any photo to start a build process slideshow.
Wrap it up
A lot of the sandwiches that I share on this sandwich blog have a “wrap it up” section, and this one, in particular, will benefit from being wrapped up in paper or foil.
First off, this sandwich unwrapped is really tall (as you’ll see in the photos below) and has a whole lot of fillings that you have to bite through. But if you wrap it up, you make the sandwich a lot neater, and everything holds together much better. You can also just slip the sandwich out of the paper just a little bit, and the paper will help to keep the sandwich a bit easier to eat and handle.
Here are some action gifs of the wrapping process if you like those sorts of things.
Tribute to Chenzo sandwich recipe and photos
This sandwich is really good; the two different types of peppers bring a bunch of different flavors that balance out the fat in the meat and creaminess that all the mozzarella provides. For a sandwich like this, you do need a bread roll that has a bit of chew, which is provided by my sesame seed rolls.
Check out the photos of all the sandwiches I made in the process of testing this recipe and get the full recipe just down below.
Tribute to Chenzo
This is my version of the Chenzo 13 that was invented at Defonte's Sandwich Shop in the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn, NYC. If you get the opportunity, visit Defonte's for a great, old-school sandwich experience.
Ingredients:
Sweet peppers- 2 to 3 red or orange bell peppers
- salt
- olive oil
- 1 bunch broccoli rabe
- 1 teaspoon olive oil
- 2 to 3 cloves of garlic, minced or pressed
- handful of blanched broccoli rabe (from above)
- pinch of red pepper flakes
- small pinch of salt
- 1 six to eight-inches hero or hoagie roll
- sweet peppers (from above)
- 4 to 6 slices of prosciutto
- 2 to 3 slices of fresh mozzarella
- garlicky broccoli rabe (from above)
- 5 to 7 slices of soppressata
- 6 to 8 sliced, pickled hot peppers (like jalapenos)
Directions:
Sweet peppers: Preheat your oven to 450 degrees F (230 C).
Cut your red bell peppers down the center into two halves and remove the stems and all the seeds. With a small knife, remove as much of the white membrane on the inside of the pepper as you can.
Place your pepper halves face down on an aluminum foil-lined sheet pan. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until the skins of the peppers are fairly black.
Remove your peppers from the oven and transfer into a bowl large enough to hold all of them. At this point you want to steam them slightly to make the skins easier to remove. You can either cover your bowl with another inverted bowl or you can cover your bowl with something like plastic wrap. Covering a bowl with a cutting board will also work. You're just trying to trap the stem in with the roasted peppers.
After about 5 or 10 minutes, your peppers should be cool enough to handle. Remove the peppers from the bowl to a cutting board and carefully strip off all the skins and the burned or charred bits of pepper skin or flesh. Discard all the burned parts and the skin.
Slice your roasted peppers into slices or large pieces depending on what sort of application you want to use them on. I like to slice it in long strips and then cut those strips in half.
After you finish slicing your peppers in the manner that you like, you should season them with salt and pepper and taste one to make sure you think they're seasoned properly. Store in a container in the refrigerator for up to a week, or you can cover the peppers in oil and store for at least two weeks.
Broccoli rabe: trim the ends of the broccoli rabe pieces and then chop the whole bunch into 2-inch pieces.
Place a pot of water over medium-high heat and bring it to a boil. Salt the water with a couple of large pinches of salt and when it is boiling, add the chopped broccoli rabe in batches, boiling for one minute and then moving the boiled/blanched broccoli rabe to a paper towel-lined sheet pan to dry.
After you're finished blanching the broccoli rabe you can move it to a sealed container in the refrigerator until it is time to sandwich. Once you are ready to make the sandwich, remove it from the fridge and add a teaspoon of olive oil to a medium pan over medium heat.
Once the oil is shimmering, add the minced garlic and saute for 2 minutes. Then add a sandwich-sized handful of blanched broccoli rabe. Cook the broccoli rabe and garlic for 3 to 4 minutes, and then add a pinch of salt and red pepper flakes. Stir everything together and cook for another 2 minutes, and then it should be ready for a sandwich or a nice side dish.
Sandwich assembly: slice your bread roll and add some sweet peppers with a bit of their juice/liquid to the bottom of the bread roll. Top the peppers with several slices of prosciutto.
Add slices of fresh mozzarella and a pile of the garlicky sauteed broccoli rabe on top.
Place soppressata slices on top of the broccoli rabe, and top the slices with some pickled jalapenos. Add a drizzle of balsamic glaze and a small drizzle of olive oil to the top roll before closing the sandwich up. Wrap the sandwich tightly in paper for best enjoyment of the sandwich.
Serve and enjoy.
Check back next week
I just got back from a short vacation, so I’m a little bit behind in my sandwich making. Not sure at this point what I’ll be making, but stay tuned and come back Monday to find out!
Jenel says:
If you come to Minneapolis, my husband and I have sandwich recommendations we’d like to share.
Jonathan Surratt says:
Ok, I will take you up on that! Thanks.