'The best sandwich on earth'

It's the barbecue pork sandwich (above) at the Skylight Inn (below) in Ayden, North Carolina, according to none other than Alan Richman, a food critic for some two decades who's probably eaten as many sandwiches as anyone on our planet.

In an article in the November, 2007 issue of Condé Nast Traveler, he listed and described his top 20 iconic American dishes.

He wrote, "At the Skylight Inn, which has been around since 1947, the pork is cooked on hickory and oak, enhanced with a spicy vinegar-based sauce, topped with finely textured coleslaw, reunited with crunchy bits of fat and skin from the pig, and placed on a hamburger bun.... The first time I visited the restaurant, I ate two of them."

Another reviewer wrote, "During our twenty minutes there, we were the only customers sitting at any of the six tables — the rest, about thirty of them, were to-go customers, all ordering the only food entree on the menu: coarsely chopped pork from the whole hog, sprinkled with a sauce of vinegar and red pepper flakes."

The Skylight Inn is located at 4618 S. Lee St. (tel: 252-746-4113).

The sandwich costs $2.50.