86 PEPITO: brie cheese, garlic pork loin, piquillo pepper and arugula

I keep saying the garlic pork loin is different every time, and this example was, uh, no different. Or, rather, it was a throwback to my first taste of the ingredient -- thinly sliced and very garlicky but otherwise kind of bland.

Brie did not prove to be a good match, either, so even my new best friend brie couldn't rescue this sandwich. This may be the least successful of the "gourmet" montaditos.

Montaditos down: 86
Montaditos to go: 14
Next: 87 TIRITITRAN: philly steak, brie cheese, crispy onion and mustard

85 LERELE: goat cheese, arugula, piquillo pepper with olive oil

That was subtle and lovely. I could see having it for tea (the meal, not the beverage -- or well, both, but if I meant the beverage I'd have said with tea), and indeed goat cheese and arugula isn't far removed from cream cheese and watercress.

And this time I actually tasted the olive oil. Also lovely.

Montaditos down: 85
Montaditos to go: 15
Next: 86 PEPITO: brie cheese, garlic pork loin, piquillo pepper and arugula

82 ROMERITO: shrimp, bacon, hard boiled egg, arugula and honey mustard

This Spanish sandwich on Italian bread in America just screams "Scandinavia." (Romerito? More like Sven!) This is what I picture eating for lunch in Stockholm or Copenhagen. It's cool, it's dainty. There are no strong flavors or saturated colors.

I like the pairing of shrimp with bacon (though this sandwich could have used a little more bacon). That's what I'm expecting in the "gourmet" section: Ingredient combinations and even ingredients that haven't shown up earlier. This is a successful sandwich all around.

Montaditos down: 82
Montaditos to go: 18
Next: 83 VIKINGO: smoked salmon,hard boiled egg,pepinillo (pickles from Spain) and mayo

80 Anchovies,manchego cheese, piquillo pepper, arugula and mayo

Mercifully, the menu has run out of anchovies. If you have to eat an anchovy sandwich*, this is one of the better ones. The manchego helps.

*You don't have to eat an anchovy sandwich. It's in the Geneva Conventions.

Montaditos down: 80
Montaditos to go: 20
Next: 81 HISPANO: tuna, piquillo pepper, hard boiled egg and mayo

79 Anchovies, brie cheese, piquillo pepper and arugula

If there's one ingredient in which I'd invest some hope in taming the mighty anchovy, it's my new friend brie. Unfortunately, I did not get to fully test this hypothesis. The sandwich I was served contained some brie (it's at the right), but most of its cheese was goat cheese, in pearled-crumble form, as the photo shows. (Maybe they ran out of brie and compensated with the chevre?)

I guess I did get my wish of another sandwich with goat cheese.

For the record, this No. 79-with-an-asterisk was better than the previous anchovy sandwiches, though it was still an anchovy sandwich.

Montaditos down: 79
Montaditos to go: 21
Next: 80 Anchovies, manchego cheese, piquillo pepper, arugula and mayo

76 Smoked salmon, cream cheese, fresh tomato and arugula

The final montadito in the smoked-salmon section, with tomato added to the No. 71 template, is probably the truest to the Jewish-deli tradition. And it's good. Again, with the delightful exception of No. 75, I'm not likely to order smoked salmon on a montadito, but if you're in a bagel-and-lox mood and your dining companion insisted on this Spanish place instead of a Jewish deli, order this one.

Montaditos down: 76
Montaditos to go: 24
Next: 77 Anchovies, fresh tomato,mayo and pepinillo

74 Smoked salmon, blue cheese, arugula and olive oil

Wait a minute. Olive oil? That was an option all along, and yet we're seeing it for the first time here at No. 74? One could argue that every one of these montaditos, or at least those without a competing condimental spread, should have olive oil.

Having said that, I have to admit that I messed up and jotted down the wrong numbers and had to come up with the next three on the fly and failed in my quantum-theory method and ended up with two smoked-salmon sandwiches in the same lunch. I was flustered, I didn't look at the menu to confirm what I was eating, and I didn't notice any olive oil. It may have been there, but I wasn't looking for it and I didn't notice it. I noticed blue cheese. Hard to miss blue cheese. And it wasn't as weird with smoked salmon as you might think.

This is not an order I would have repeated, but I may have to repeat it in the name of journalistic integrity.

Montaditos down: 74
Montaditos to go: 26
Next: 75 Smoked salmon, blue cheese, crispy onion and honey mustard

73 Smoked salmon, cream cheese, piquillo pepper and arugula

Again I'm wondering about the editing of this menu. The piquillo pepper is not a bad addition to No. 71, but it's the only difference between this and No. 71. For the record, I like this one a little better. Precisely one slice of piquillo pepper's worth of better.

Montaditos down: 73
Montaditos to go: 27
Next: 74 Smoked salmon, blue cheese, arugula and olive oil

71 Smoked salmon, cream cheese and arugula

And now for the Jewish-deli portion of the 100 Montaditos menu! Sure enough, it's a bagel with lox and cream cheese, only instead of a bagel you have some pretty decent crusty bread. Instead of onion, capers and tomato you have ... arugula. It's not bad, but I don't see many New Yorkers ordering this.

Montaditos down: 71
Montaditos to go: 29
Next: 72 Smoked salmon, hard boiled egg, lettuce and mayo

69 Brie cheese, arugula, crispy onion and honey mustard

I am on record as approving of brie on 100 Montaditos montaditos, and No. 69 is no exception. Arugula, crispy onion, honey mustard and whole-grain bread probably isn't a combination I would have come up with, but it's pretty good. You could do worse for a meatless lunch.

Montaditos down: 69

Montaditos to go: 31

Next: 70 Goat cheese, fresh tomato, lettuce and anchovies

58 Chorizo, manchego cheese, fresh tomato and arugula

My server, Myrelle, told me this was her favorite, and after trying No. 58 I can't fault her taste.

There's a lot going on in this montadito, and that's a nice switch from the often more simple sandwiches on the menu. These ingredient combinations form paradoxes at times, which is the only way I can explain how adding tomato and arugula can turn montadito No. 56, which I found heavy on would-be starring ingredients, into something pretty darn satisfying.

Montaditos down: 58
Montaditos to go: 42
Next: 59 Chistorra, hard boiled egg and piparra

37 Mozzarella, pesto, piquillo pepper and arugula (whole-grain bread)

In yesterday's installment, you may recall, I dumped on pesto. As with some of the other hasty hastiness on this blog, I may have been too hasty in that hasty moment.

If anything, I thought the absence of tomato would make mozzarella and pesto even less appealing, but this montadito managed to win me over. If pesto is less than the some of its parts, the sandwich as a whole was the opposite. It had an agreeable sweetness to it. I probably won't order it again, as my refrain goes, but it won my respect.

Montaditos down: 37
Montaditos to go: 63
Next: 38 Mozzarella, serrano ham and green pepper

35 Blue cheese, arugula, crispy onion and honey mustard

Honey mustard is our new ingredient today at 100 Montaditos, and I have to admit I was skeptical about its introductory pairing. Blue cheese? With honey mustard?

But it actually kind of works. Honey mustard softens the pungency of the blue cheese, and blue cheese keeps honey mustard from being cloying. Crispy onion and arugula are rarely bad ideas. I probably wouldn't order this one again, but it was a pleasant surprise.

Montaditos down: 35
Montaditos to go: 65

Next: 36 Mozzarella, fresh tomato and pesto 

33 Blue cheese, bacon and arugula

Bacon? There was bacon? You know blue cheese is an assertive ingredient when you find that it can upstage bacon.

Meanwhile, I have to say that 100 Montaditos didn't wimp out on the arugula this time. I can respect that.

Montaditos down: 33
Montaditos to go: 67
Next: 34 Blue cheese, anchovies, lettuce and fresh tomato

28 Philly steak, brie cheese and arugula

Brie? Arugula? Really? It's as though 100 Montaditos is telling Rocky Balboa to go f--- himself.

Now, I've never been a fan of brie, even in more brie-appropriate dishes. By which I mean pretty much all other dishes. So I'm prepared for a gustatory disaster in addition to the philosophical one.

But, you know, this isn't bad. The brie is full of creamy goodness -- maybe my brie experiences date back to my sort-of-picky-eater days. If I can't have Whiz or provolone or American cheese, I'll take it over the previous sandwich's cheddar. And the arugula helps alleviate that something's-missing feeling.

Still, that meat. Maybe call it something else? I'm thinking it's not even an actual cut of beef -- it seems more like the shaped-slurry kind of product you find at Arby's and in gyros. I don't hate it, but I am tempted to put quotation marks around "Philly" and "steak."

Montaditos down: 28
Montaditos to go: 72
Next: 29 Philly steak, cheddar cheese, piquillo pepper and crispy onion

25 Tuna, fresh tomato, pepinillo, arugula and ali oli

This is one nice tuna sandwich, with all the additions bringing something to the table. The pickles. Yum.

Montaditos down: 25
Montaditos to go: 75
Next: 26 Tuna, fresh tomato, lettuce and mayo

24 Tuna, fresh tomato, arugula and mayo (whole-grain bread)

Arugula isn't a traditional accompaniment, but this sandwich more than any of the others in the tuna category just screamed "tuna-fish sandwich" to me. Very American, which is pleasant but maybe not what you're after when you go to 100 Montaditos. Maybe it was the whole-grain bread. The mayonnaise, of course, contributed to the effect.

Montaditos down: 24
Montaditos to go: 76
Next: 25 Tuna, fresh tomato, pepinillo (pickles from Spain), arugula and ali oli

13 Meatballs, bacon and arugula

Well, darn, that's two errors in a row. This was another good sandwich, with meatballs, bacon and the aforementioned tomato product, but the arugula was nowhere to be seen.

Another one I'll have to order again.

Montaditos down: 13

Montaditos to go: 87

Next: 14 Meatballs,manchego cheese and piparra