At The Amazing Garden, Discover the Best Grilled Sandwich in Brooklyn

What's more Brooklyn than a garden fundraiser featuring local foods, renowned chefs making sandwiches and a resident public radio host?

On Sunday at 4 p.m., the coordinators of The Amazing Garden on Columbia and Carroll streets are holding a sandwich competition to raise funds for the public space, but also to finally determine what the best grilled sandwich in Brooklyn is!

The contestants competing for the honor are:

Evan Hanczor of Egg in Williamsburg, a local who tends a plot in the garden

Ashley Fulk of Hill Country Chicken in Manhattan and a "Top Chef" Season 6 contestant

Rick Hauchman of on Court Street

A $20 ticket, available at the garden on Sunday, gets you homemade lemonade and six different sandwiches to try. Each contestant will make one meat and one veggie sandwich.

WNYC Public Radio host Leonard Lopate, a 3-time James Beard winner and a local resident, will judge the sandwiches.

"I think community gardens are important, and as a resident of the area, I wanted to support one of the ones that I admire most," Lopate said.

Sandwich ingredients were donated by Fairway in Red Hook, and some herbs from the garden plots will be available to the chefs to use in their concoctions.

The funds raised will go towards maintaining the garden.

"We hope we can build a nest egg for repairs," said one garden coordinator Ilya Marritz, adding that the composting set-up was falling apart, the border areas of the garden needed some filling in and the garden hose needed to be replaced.

The Amazing Garden, which has existed since the mid-90s, is a city parks department community garden, but is largely maintained and paid for by community volunteers. The city provides insurance for each community garden under their auspices.

The fundraiser will also help the coordinators of the garden to better serve the population.

"This little garden gets so much traffic during the course of a week," said Marritz. "Moms bring kids, people have cook-outs, it gets a lot of use."

"I think of it as the friendly garden," he added.