Occasionally, one gets what they bargained for. I ducked into Jerry’s Mexican Grill one afternoon in search of a quick torta. “Quick” being the operative word here, as the sandwich took an inordinate amount of time to prepare. I stood awkwardly in the deserted restaurant, certain that whatever lay in store for me, it would not reach the sublime heights of the finest of tortas, but hoped it would at least hit the spot.

The sandwich I was given was an allotment of beef strips, no more than a half-dozen scatted pieces of diced tomato, a leaf or two of lettuce, and a thin, white, tasteless spread that I can only assume to be mayonnaise. Since neither the Jerry’s menu posted in the shop nor the one on their website offers any clues beyond “STEAK SANDWICH” I shall have to leave the matter there for the time being. At least the attempt at a complete sandwich was made, which is more than can be said in certain cases.

The steak was shoe-leather tough, stringy and elastic. The accoutrement barely present. The one saving grace of the sandwich was the charred bread. I have long been a fan of a roll plopped onto a grill for any significant amount of time, as it adds a fine note to any appropriate sandwich. Unfortunately, it was wasted here. The steak sandwich is a dicey proposition: in certain cases, like the transcendent Los Reyes de la Torta, or with a local sandwich which I shall feature in the coming months, steak works well in sandwich form. More often than not, however, you are left tugging at a rubbery bit of meat like something out of a Saturday morning cartoon. Sadly, the gamble is rarely worth the reward.