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

64 Serrano ham and fresh tomato (whole-grain bread)

Serrano ham and tomato could describe a Spanish sandwich even more classic than Serrano ham alone, or Serrano ham with manchego cheese. But montadito No. 64 steps back a bit from that lofty perch. There's the whole-grain bread, for one thing. Good, but not classic.

And then there's the form the tomato takes. A typical ham sandwich in Spain would include some tomato pulp, in the form of whatever sticks to the bread when the sandwich artist cuts a tomato in half and rubs it on said bread. Rub a little harder, and maybe add some garlic and olive oil*, and you have pan con tomate, tomato bread, so simple and yet one of the best things this world has to offer.

Anyway, this is close to a classic sandwich but not quite. And let's be honest: As with all the Serrano-ham sandwiches, it's good if you're in the mood for salt, not so good if you're not.

*How is olive oil not an ingredient on any of these montaditos? I'm just saying.

Montaditos down: 64
Montaditos to go: 36
Next: 65 Serrano ham, mozzarella and pesto

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

36 Mozzarella, fresh tomato and pesto (whole-grain bread)

Two new ingredients today: Mozzarella and pesto. Now then.

I love basil. I could sit in your garden and eat it leaf by leaf. Olive oil? I could drink the good stuff. Glug, glug. Garlic, pine nuts, Parmesan cheese? Check, check, check.

But I don't like pesto. Not very much, at least. How can that be? Shrug. To me, it's a jarring flavor, and usually I'm all about the jarring flavors. This one is less than the sum of its parts.

So keep that confession in mind as I tell you I didn't like this sandwich. The bread was fine. The mozzarella needed salt. The tomato needed salt. The pesto was pesto. Have I told you how I feel about pesto?

Montaditos down: 36
Montaditos to go: 64
Next: 37 Mozzarella, pesto, piquillo pepper and arugula

34 Blue cheese, anchovies, lettuce and fresh tomato (whole-grain bread)

The first bite of this picky-eaters-need-not-apply 100 Montaditos sandwich started out interesting but things got very salty very fast.

I'm thinking blue cheese and anchovies should generally be kept apart, and both -- especially anchovies -- work better in supporting roles.

Montaditos down: 34
Montaditos to go: 66
Next: 35 Blue cheese, arugula, crispy onion and honey mustard

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

17 Shrimp, lettuce, crispy onion and caesar dressing (whole-grain bread)

This is a big moment: Our first bread shift! Whole-grain! And it's not bad at all. I think I prefer the regular bread, but this is nice for a change.

Crispy onion is always a good thing, and the lettuce didn't assert itself as much as it did in No. 16. There was some sort of dressing or mayonnaise or aioli, but I wouldn't have identified it as Caesar if I hadn't know it was supposed to be Caesar.

Overall, the sandwich is on a par with No. 15, maybe slightly superior.

Montaditos down: 17
Montaditos to go: 83
Next: 18 Shrimp, lettuce, piquillo pepper and ali oli