AUBURN — All I know is, Heidi’s isn’t your normal restaurant franchise.

It certainly looks like it — an upscale version of your downtown sub shop with glossy professional food photos and catchy sandwich names like “transplanted New Yorker” and “Hell’s Kitchen.”

I went in expecting a normal sub shop eggplant sandwich. (Have you detected a pattern in my restaurant ordering lately? I hereby apologize to everyone who’s not fond of eggplant.)

What I got was this: a thick sandwich on homemade bread, with cheese and an oregano-y sauce that wasn’t so thick it drowned out the flavor of tasty, sweet eggplant.

Oh, and the very

very

very

most delicious

cannoli

ever.

Seriously, if you read this column, you know I’m prone to hyperbolic pronouncements, but forget that — it was phenomenal. The filling — oh, the filling was so good it was like eating a cloud of pure…wonderfulness.

See? I’m losing my ability to think of descriptive words just contemplating the sheer joy of eating that cannoli.

Well, half that cannoli.

The other half went to Christine Crockett, who also raved about the goodness of the cannoli.

“The filling we make here from scratch,” said franchise owner Michelle Tribou. “I like cannolis and I like to go to Mike’s Pastries (the famous North End bakery in Beantown) and I think ours are better,” she said. “I think it’s a good recipe. The founders of Heidi’s are transplanted New Yorkers who found themselves in Colorado and started it up. … I think it’s their own family recipe and it’s probably our best-selling dessert.”

Heidi’s has only been open in Auburn for two weeks, but Tribou already has quite a following. It’s the only restaurant in the Wal-Mart/Lowe’s shopping area that’s neither a fully sit-down restaurant nor fast food, so it’s a great middle-of-the-road choice for people who want a good lunch in a shorter time frame.

It’s also got great sandwiches, Tribou said.

Some of her favorites include the Fresh Mozzarella (mmmm), the Cony Island Reuben and the Cajun Turkey with Avocado — but the eggplant is quite popular, too, she said. Everything comes on bread that’s baked fresh at the store every morning. The non-cold-cut meat and eggplant are also cooked fresh at the deli.

And it shows.

My sandwich surprised me, because I didn’t realize when I ordered that it’d be a sandwich, instead of a sub — so there wasn’t as much sauce as I expected. But it was really, really good — even after the 20 minutes it took to get back to the office. The bread was out of this world, and the eggplant — spiced with oregano, salt and pepper — was a far cry from your run-of-the-mill eggplant sub. My only real criticism was that there wasn’t enough sauce, and the eggplant was a bit salty. But I still loved it.

I’ve gotten into the habit of ordering heavily cooked things like eggplant and reubens because they’ll taste great no matter how fresh the ingredients are (within reason). With sauce and other condiments, less-than-crisp veggies or sub-par meat is nicely disguised.

But now I know about the fresh ingredients Tribou is so proud of, I’m tempted to go outside my box and try something different — like the sandwich with avocado or the fresh mozzarella with pesto. Because judging by what I have tried, it’ll be delicious!

Tasty tidbits

What: Heidi’s Brooklyn Deli

Where: 600 Turner St. in Auburn (in the new shopping center across from T.G.I Friday’s).

When: Monday-Saturday 7 a.m.- 9 p.m., Sunday 10 a.m.-7 p.m.

What: The sandwiches are great, but the cannolis are out of this world.

Call: 784-3434

maustern@sunjournal.com

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