The feelings I harbor for the sandwiches at Mario’s Butcher Shop in Newport Beach border on obsession. I can’t help but feel a certain way about a place that blasts Anita Baker and the Whispers and piles thick slices of smoked bologna onto a soft roll with an obscene amount of yellow mustard and white onion. Chef-owner Mario Llamas approaches your paper-wrapped lunchtime sandwich with the same bravado you’d expect from someone who cares about stars from that tire company, smoking his own pastrami and curing the various meats for his Italian sub. He prepares Niman Ranch steaks to your liking on a wood-burning grill for the “special” steak sandwich. Dressed with chimichurri and served on good, crusty bread, it’s an homage to the time the chef spent cooking at an Argentine steakhouse in Guadalajara. Mario’s is the busiest place in the Plaza Newport shopping center, with many people stopping in for a sandwich and supplies for dinner. There’s a refrigerator full of Wagyu Bolognese, fresh pasta, smoked salmon candy dip and other grab-and-go items next to vacuum-sealed packages of beef cheek, spleen and marrow bone. And I appreciate any place that prioritizes Have’A corn chips over those neon orange triangles. — J.H.

1000 BRISTOL ST. N., NEWPORT BEACH, (949) 316-4318 l MARIOSBUTCHERSHOPDELI.COM