Out to Lunch
Lake Creek's Noble Pig presents an honorable selection of (seriously delicious)sammys
Looking for a good sandwich? A really good sandwich? Then set your sites on Noble Pig in Lake Creek. I know what you’re going to say, especially once you look that address up on Google Maps: it’s so far away! True, this place isn’t exactly a hop-skip-and-a-jump from Lady Bird Lake. It’s a bit of a trek up north, but I promise, if you make the effort, you’ll receive a noble reward.
Serving up sandwiches, deli sides and tasty desserts, Noble Pig is your answer to ordinary lunch fare. But this is no ordinary deli. The brainchild of chefs John Bates and Brandon Martinez, Noble Pig is a special place not only showcasing a mastery of charcuterie technique, but deft skill in building a sandwich from the ground up with everything—bread, condiments, pickles, and relish—made in-house. (Desserts and breakfast items, too.) Where the words ‘artisan’ and ‘craft’ have become adjectives commonly used to describe chefs, brewers, distillers, and coffee roasters alike in Austin, they now easily define the art of sandwich making.
“The amount of work and effort that goes into what we do, and the combination of the things... You know, we try to present ourselves in a very casual way, but we make about 95% of what comes out of Noble Pig from scratch, there’s nothing casual about our approach or our dedication to the food.” says Bates.
You’ll find familiar things like a club sandwich and a BLT on the menu, but you’ll find them anything but ordinary. And signature sammys like grilled cheese and cauliflower, roast beef and horseradish or spicy Thai chicken salad manage to tempt the taste buds in all the right ways. I’m partial to the deviled egg sandwich with garlic mayo, myself, with all of its beautiful simplicity bound by toasty white bread. But I recently lost myself in a duck pastrami on rye with fresh pickles.
Martinez and Bates have also released a convenient catering menu with a promise to deliver around town (so long as you’re willing to pay a delivery fee), and later this year, the two will push through to their adjacent building space to expand business and sell their homemade goods as retail items. At the moment, it’s all they can do to have enough for service each day.
Aside from the relative long distance from the city center, Noble Pig also faces a size challenge, with only 26 seats in a very tight 1,000 square-foot strip mall locale. And believe me, every one of those seats turns over a number of times before breakfast and lunch are finished. But a full house is better than an empty house and in Noble Pig’s case, there’s little concern about keeping the seats warm.
Below, a sample of Noble Pig’s Menu:
BREAKFAST
Milk biscuit with country sausage and black pepper gravy
Chorizo and egg with cheddar and salsa picante
Crispy blueberry waffle with sausage and scrambled egg
Fried egg, potato and cheddar
Spicy ham, scrambled egg and Monterey-jack
Vanilla and dried fruit granola with honey and yogurt
Five spice rolled oatmeal with blueberries and honey butter
LUNCH
Creole catfish with tomato tartar sauce and romaine lettuce
Smoked duck pastrami with Russian dressing and rye pickles
TNP Italian sausage with roasted tomato, herbs, and provolone
The Noble Pig - Spicy ham, pulled pork, provolone and bacon
Thai chicken with jalapeno-cabbage slaw and cilantro
Knuckle Sandwich - Roast beef, horseradish, onions and cheddar
BLT - House smoked bacon with lettuce and tomato
Pressed cauliflower and three cheese
Deviled egg with garlic mayo, red onion and lettuce
TNP Club - Herb roasted turkey, house bacon olive oil pickles