67 Berkshire Rd, Sunshine North. Phone: 9311 2911

If La Morenita has fallen off our radar a little in terms of eating in since we first discovered the place, it remains a reliable regular for the odd coffee and sweetie and – even more so – take-out empanadas for the freezer and school/work lunch boxes.

We love those empanadas!

It was on a recent empanada run that we happily noticed that La Morenita’s in-house menu had grown with several new additions.

It’s time to check them out!

They include chorizo con huevos for a keenly priced $5, but we figure we’ll leave those for breakfast some time.

The rest of the new stuff is mostly South American sandwiches, but being robust of appetite we choose three of them to share.

We do a sort of reverse-Goldilocks, starting with the littlest, moving on to a bigger number and ending with the biggest.

First up is the arolloado ($5) of sliced pork, avocado and mayo.

It comes in a flatter roll than shown in the photo on the blackboard menu. The sliced pork seems to be more like some sort of pressed ham. Whatever the case, this is a tasty winner.

Next up … the chacarero ($5) of steak, cheese, tomato, mayo, greens beans and hot green chilli.

Now this different! As ever here the sliced beef is very tasty and nicely chewy. There’s a cool chilli undertow, but the best aspect is provided by the greens beans. They’re cooked but still have a little bite left in them, which delivers a most unsandwich-like texture. Another winner!

Rolling right along … we complete our increasingly enjoyable lunch with the chivito ($8), which comprises steak, bacon, ham, lettuce, tomato, tasty cheese, boiled egg, roast capsicum, black olives, onion mayo.

Wowee – what is this? A glorified steak sandwich? Well, yes, if you want to look at that way. It also bears comparison in terms of substance and price to the kind of ritzy burgers served up by Grill’d and Burger Edge.

As with the chacarero, though, there is something delectably different about it that makes it a sandwich to cherish.

And with the inclusion of olives, roast capsicum and cured meats, it strikes me as being a second cousin of the muffaletta, that famous sandwich of New Orleans.

I love it. Bennie likes it, too, but fastidiously picks out the egg and olive bits. Bad Bennie!

We love all our La Morenita sandwiches for their striking personalities.

Gooey with mayo, health food this is not; delicious it is.

With a couple of imported soft drinks the total damage is a fine $23.

Our earlier La Morenita post is here.