The Christmas special bar is so loaded it left me in a food coma for the rest of the afternoon.

The debate over the best Christmas sandwich returns every holiday season, with supermarkets and cafe channels competing to be crowned the winner. For many office workers, it’s not officially Christmas until the limited-edition festive sandwiches hit the shelves of your nearest food stores.

I have always been a fan of a Christmas sandwich, with the M.S. And Greggs releases usually take first place for me – although Pret also deserves a special mention most years. I’m always looking for a new festive sandwich to try, and I can’t resist the winning combination of turkey, cranberries, stuffing, and all the fixings, all presented in a convenient-to-eat format.

But this year, I decided to step away from the chains available to me and try the Christmas sandwich offered at my favorite independent sandwich shop. Out To Lunch is an absolute institution in Liverpool’s CBD, and anyone who works on or around Old Hall Street will know its hot counter.

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The friendly staff serves a variety of hot dishes and soups every day, as well as freshly made meat sandwiches that often have a queue outside the door. But it was the Christmas special I was watching after my colleague Gary said it was the best he’d ever eaten.

It was so remarkable that Gary saved a photo of the sandwich on his phone from last Christmas and showed it to me at the office – twice. With such a glowing recommendation, I had to go down and try it for myself.

Priced at £9.50, the Out To Lunch Christmas sandwich is considerably more expensive than most supermarket or cafe chains – but that’s because it’s made fresh in front of you, with the meat cut straight from the counter. Above all, it’s also absolutely huge.

As the staff member serving me assembled the bar, I could only watch in disbelief as she stacked it higher and higher. It defied physics and I still don’t understand how she managed to maintain the structural integrity of the sandwich while still filling it with meat.

The sandwich contains roast turkey, whole Cumberland sausage (yes, whole), bacon, sage and onion stuffing, cranberry sauce, bread sauce and gravy – all on one bar. The contents of one sandwich were probably more filling than what I will make for my Christmas dinner this year.

I walked back to the office, carrying my precious cargo in a bag that weighed about as much as my son did when he was born. I returned to my desk, dropping the bag with a thud before being questioned by my colleagues about what that incredible smell was.

Taking the bar out of the bag, it had been expertly wrapped in paper and cut in half, to try and keep as much of the filling inside as possible. Initially, I wasn’t sure how to pick it up and eat it, because the sandwich was so loaded that I was afraid I would start dropping turkey and sausage all over my desk.

Despite the structural challenges, I bravely struggled and stuck. I’m not exaggerating when I say this is the best Christmas sandwich I’ve ever had in my entire life. This has to be Liverpool’s best. Maybe even the world.

The turkey is cooked to perfection. This is a meat that often gets a lot of criticism for being too dry, but it was juicy and full of flavor, even without all the condiments that had been covered in it. The bacon was crispy and generously applied and the Cumberland sausage was sliced ​​lengthwise and placed on top of the stuffing. Cranberries were layered on top of the stuffing, and just when I thought it couldn’t get any better, the bread sauce and gravy hit me.

It was still very hot when I got back to the office, and it was like eating the best Christmas dinner you’ve ever had, all in a buttery bar. Comfortably worth the price of £9.50, the special sandwich was so filling that I spent the rest of the afternoon trying not to fall asleep at my desk.