Author Archives: Pete

Philly Cheese Steak – Philly Style Food, E Santa Clara, San Jose, CA

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I have looked at the Bay Area cheese steak before, and I found it lacking. Philly Style Food is a more recent addition to downtown San Jose, and it sits almost directly across the street from the Cheese Steak Shop. It’s hard to imagine it is anything other than a direct challenge, a move befitting an establishment bearing the colloquial “Philly” in its name. Aside from the name, though, Philly Style Food makes no additional boasts of authenticity. There is no note on the origin of the bread, for example. It seems they are content to let the food stand on its own; it will either pass as Philly Style or it will not. I wish I could offer you a verdict there, but I fear they walk a line so narrow it would take a local to make a fair ruling. I have walked Philadelphia, friends, but I have not lived it. The sandwich featured what I know of a cheese steak sandwich; beef was thrown a flat top with onion, minced fine, provolone laid on top to melt. After placing that in a roll, pickles and ketchup were added, and that’s where my knowledge fails. (I had, as is policy at On Sandwiches, replied to the standard “Everything on it?” with a simple “Yes, please.”) Pickled and ketchup aren’t completely out of place on a cheese steak, but they’re not part of the traditional, classical concept, and more than that I could have sworn that that sort of sandwich hailed from some other part of Pennsylvania. In short, it seemed to me that a sandwich distinctly billed to be Philly Style was exactly the opposite. But I cannot say for certain, and so I will reserve judgement on the philosophical component of the sandwich.

What I do feel qualified to rule on, though, was the quality. It was a fine sandwich. The cheese melted all the way down, mixing in with savory beef and well cooked onions. The roll had a nice chewy crust and the ketchup wasn’t so sweet it took over the sandwich. So while I may not be able to say with any certainty whether or not this was strictly Philly Style, I can assure you that it was a tasty sandwich.

Short Rib Grilled Cheese – Biergarten, Western Ave, Los Angeles, CA

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In direct contrast to the quad deck from Beer Belly, the short rib grilled cheese at Biergarten goes to work with minimal cheese and maximum short rib. Rather than letting the non-cheese materials be swept away, they’re highlighted. The whole thing comes off more like a melt than like a grilled cheese, much to its benefit. I apologize that it doesn’t come across in the photo, but the sandwich is packed with tender shredded meat that’s tossed in a bit of sweet sauce, playing wonderfully against the cheese. The sandwich is crisp and not too greasy. Thinking about it, I suppose I might feel differently if I came in looking for a grilled cheese, in a sort of inverse of the Beer Belly situation. There I looked for moderate cheese and got too much, here someone else might look for copious cheese and find too little. Ultimately it’s something that can only be settled by each enthusiast on their own terms. On this enthusiast’s terms, I will say, this was a delightfully nimble sandwich in a world full of lead-footed dunces.

Beer Belly Grilled Cheese – Beer Belly, Western Ave, Los Angeles, CA

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Any sandwich enthusiast who takes a wide survey these days is bound to find a good number of grilled cheeses. Somehow they’ve caught fire and everybody wants to try their hand at some monstrous tower of cheese. For their part, Beer Belly offers a “quad-deck 4X4,” essentially two standard sandwiches melded together via more cheese. All told, it features cheddar, gruyere, asiago, and goat cheese. There’s bacon and maple syrup in there too, and why not? So many of these grilled cheeses set out not just to gild the lily, but to set in a few precious stones and then have the whole thing bronzed. Now, I have no philosophic objection to the ostentatious. But intention will always come second to execution, and when it comes to this quad deck I’m staying in steerage. It’s entirely too much cheese, with the asiago standing out mostly by virtue of an overwhelmingly grainy texture. The bacon is there because it’s the kind of thing one adds to signal a sandwich of supreme decadence, but it’s just lost in the cheese. The maple syrup, meanwhile, isn’t lost so much as willfully buried. I took to dragging the sandwich through the drizzle left on the plate, hoping to gain some sense of what the sandwich was supposed to taste like, in concept. It was no use. This was a poorly thought out shot at the moon, a sandwich assembled without sense or care. I appreciate a sandwich that wows me, but one that bowls me over is a bit too much.

Chicken Melt – Literati Cafe, Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles, CA

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I make no secret of my cheese skepticism, and a melt is an unlikely choice for me. There’s almost always something else I’d rather try, and trying a sandwich built around cheese runs a high risk. But it’s still a subject worth exploring, so I have this sandwich and two grilled cheeses coming up next week. Here we have two pieces of melted swiss surrounding grilled chicken, romaine lettuce and caesar dressing. I wasn’t expecting much, but I was pleasantly surprised by a well balanced sandwich; the dressing helped cut the flavors, the grilled chicken was flavorful and a welcome texture, and the lettuce provided a nice earthy undertone. The bread didn’t wow me, but it was decent enough. I came away satisfied, and sometimes that’s all you can hope for from a sandwich.

Steak Torta – Adelita’s Taqueria, Leigh Ave, San Jose, CA

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Due mainly to widespread availability and a high floor / high ceiling situation, the torta is the sandwich archetype I consume most frequently. On balance I think that’s a good thing, as a great many tortas are quite tasty, but it is not without its downside. This is the peril of any obsession, I think, that the more you learn, explore and experience, the more unforgiving your comparisons get. What I’m driving at is that this wasn’t a bad sandwich, but it wasn’t good either. Specifically, it was a far cry from what would be available at Mexico Bakery #2 or Los Reyes de la Torta. Los Reyes are a good distance away from my home base, so thoughts of them tend to be wistful and with a more romantic sense of regret. Mexico Bakery is very close by, though, and so when consuming a sandwich such as the one I got at Adelita’s I felt the sharper sting of a lost opportunity. This was a decent sandwich, but a little bit more effort and I would have had a very good one. The lettuce was crisp, the guacamole as tasty as guacamole usually is, the steak seasoned well enough and though the roll could have been better a few moments on the griddle gave it a decent crunch. In spite of all that, though, I have heard the songs of tortas much more lyrical than this one, and so I came away disappointed. This is no fault of the establishment, and originally I hesitated, sullying the internet with negative words they don’t deserve. But this is On Sandwiches, and sometimes we must overcome our hesitation in search of truths.

And make no mistake, friends, this is not a small issue. What this comes down to is the matter of habit versus experimentation. I could have headed downtown and gotten a torta at Mexico Bakery #2, and it would have been good. For that matter I could have made plans to travel to Arizona and gotten one that was truly spectacular. But I wanted to try a new establishment, even knowing that I might come away disappointed. This is an issue we must all confront virtually every time we set out to have a sandwich, and there is no easy answer. You could try as many places as possible, but you would be doing yourself a disservice by never returning to the truly great sandwiches. You could rely on a set of standby sandwiches, but you would be haunted by thoughts of opportunities wasted. Of course there’s a balance to be found between these two extremes, but what comfort is that? At every opportunity you feel the tug of both viewpoints, and there is never a hope of satisfying both. The best any of us can do, I suppose, is to weigh our options, trust our gut, and know that there will come a tomorrow, with another opportunity for a great sandwich.

Slummin’ It: Ham & Turkey, and Bacon Club on Wheat Bread – 7-11

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We all have moments where we fall prey to cravings. If you’re reading this there’s a good chance that your average craving, like mine, is for a sandwich. And when these cravings strike we are often able to seek out our local favorite, or a new establishment we’ve had our eye on for a while, or we simply head to the kitchen and see what we can put together. But what happens when that need strikes in less opportune times? I headed out with the full intention of buying this sandwich, but in my mind I was imagining a situation of much uglier circumstances. I pictured myself stranded on foot, heading through an unfamiliar city, beset by a foul mood or a string of bad luck. In such a situation I might say to myself that I just want a sandwich, any sandwich will do. What sandwich am I most likely to come across? Is it likely to be any good? If, in my darkest moments, I put my faith in fate and just go for the nearest sandwich, am I likely to meet satisfaction or further dismay? This is almost certainly geographically specific, but if dropped at random the only thing you’re more likely to come across than a Subway is a 7-11. So 7-11 was the natural choice to explore this hypothetical set of unfortunate circumstances, and 7-11 is where I went.

Look at the name of the sandwich for a moment. Ham & Turkey, and Bacon Club on Wheat Bread. Why is the first “and” an ampersand and the second one the full conjunction? It feels as if the cold cuts and the bacon have been segregated somehow, almost placed in different philosophical categories. What necessitated this? The label also includes “with tomatoes,” but doesn’t include the information that lettuce is present. Again, there seem to be two sets of rules for two different ingredients. It’s hard to overstate how unsettling I find that. But I went to the 7-11 for the sandwich, and I was not going to leave empty handed.

I went into this with pretty low expectations, but this sandwich still managed to fall short. The tomatoes are tasteless mush, the ham and turkey are flavorless & uninspired, and the bacon…the label doesn’t mention that the sandwich contains mayo, but it does. It contains a lot of mayo. This is likely to protect the bread, but it’s so much mayo that it manages to match the bacon in intensity of flavor. Granted, it’s particularly bland bacon, but just consider that. The sandwich featured flavors of bacon and mayonnaise in about equal proportion. If that sentence doesn’t horrify you, well, let’s just say you and I worship at different churches. I only ate half of this number, because while I’ll swallow a bitter pill in the service of sandwich blogging, swallowing two is just silly.

Returning to my earlier hypothetical situation, what I learned in eating this sandwich is not very comforting. It raises the question of whether any sandwich is better than no sandwich at all, an issue which I am not prepared to settle at the present moment. It’s a larger question than this sandwich can answer, and I hope that the next time I consider the issue I’m not in a strange city, walking the streets desperate for a sandwich, any sandwich at all.

Chicken Pesto – Which Wich

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Having recently discussed Subway and having recently consumed a Togo’s sandwich not even worth discussing (pictured here for the curious), I thought it was high time to discuss a franchise sandwich eatery that actually does a few things right. Which Wich is a chain of less than 150 locations, with a central gimmick based around a highly customizable sandwich. Upon entering, the consumer selects a brown sandwich bag with a pre-printed menu, choosing from a half dozen categories: chicken, beef, veggie, etc. Then, marking the bag with red pen, the customer selects the type of bread, size, cheese, spreads & mustards, veggies and other accouterments. The menu is lacking in specific sandwiches, just presenting vague archetypes like “Roast Beef” or “Chicken Pesto.” Where in most sandwich shops the roast beef is already explicitly laid out, at Which Wich it’s almost entirely up to the consumer. While I do enjoy seeing what other people put forward as the ideal sandwich, the sheer number of options available make a fine substitute. Eleven cheeses are available, from the standards to feta to cream cheese. You can chose from four mustards, nearly a dozen spreads and sauces, onions three different ways, more than a dozen vegetable options and more. You can only get two types of bread, white or wheat, but the vast number of options available suggest not an establishment hamstrung by limited vision but one bolstered by supreme focus. Rather than hiding behind gimmickry, Which Wich seems an honest attempt to do things well.

For my part I went with the chicken pesto, adding mozzarella cheese, caramelized onions, bell peppers, mushrooms, garlic powder and salt & pepper. It wasn’t a fantastic sandwich, but it was far and above what you might expect from your average franchise affair. I’m reminded of Lenny’s, the quality NYC chain that has been around longer but has a far smaller reach. The bread had a nice crunch to it, nothing in the sandwich was overpowering. The chicken was sliced cold cuts, but better that than a dried, salty chicken breast, no? Altogether, Which Wich puts forth a perfectly competent sandwich. And given the more dreary options on offer from the larger players in the sandwich industry, perfectly competent is as fine a result as one could hope for.

Dessert Burger – Burger Bar at Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas Blvd S, Las Vegas, NV

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The sixty dollar Rossini at Burger Bar comes with a few perks, beyond the thrill of finding out whether it was worth your money and the story you get to tell. Specifically, it comes with your choice of a milkshake or something from the dessert portion of the menu. Though a number of the gourmet milkshakes looked delicious, one of the dessert offerings was the dessert burger and I couldn’t pass up another sandwich. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, and when it arrived I was a bit tickled. A glazed donut is cut in two and a patty of chocolate fudge is added. There are a few slices of kiwi standing in for the lettuce, strawberry for the tomato, and a small square of gelatin does duty as the cheese. Raspberry coulis offers a ketchup garnish. I picked it up and dug in.

I wanted to like it. The idea is delightful, the presentation is cute. There’s nothing unreasonable in the ingredients, if presented in a list I’d tell you they would work quite well together. But in practice it just didn’t fly. The fudge was the catalyst for the failure, I think. It had a slightly grainy texture, but more importantly there was just too much of it. It was a thick, dense patty of chocolate and the whole thing turned into all fudge as the other ingredients disappeared early in each bite. It was lacking balance and as well all know, balance is crucial. A patty made of something lighter, cake dipped in chocolate perhaps, or just a different bit of donut, would have gone a long way. I’m glad I so enjoyed the Rossini at Burger Bar, because the dessert burger made for a disappointing cap to my meal. I’m all for incorporating sandwiches into as many parts of a meal as possible, but to do it poorly is to do a disservice to both dessert and to sandwiches. Some things, it seems, are better left unburgered.

The Godfather – All About The Bread, Melrose Ave, Los Angeles, CA

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As I spent some time last week maligning Subway for their woefully inadequate bread, I thought it would be as good a time as any to talk about one of the better offerings out there. In the Subway post I mentioned that I can forgive people for crowing about great bread, and All About the Bread is certainly crowing. It’s in the name, of course, and they make sure to inform you that the bread is baked fresh every 30 minutes. I’m not exactly sure what that means. Am I getting the bread that’s fresh out of the oven? Do you take a batch, sell what you can in a half hour, then throw the remainder away and start fresh? While the specifics are hazy the implication is clear: This is fresh bread. As for the rest of what’s on display here, The Godfather is a pretty standard Italian sub. The ingredients vary a little depending on where you are, and All About the Bread features spicy capocollo, mortadella, prosciutto, ham, salami and provolone on the namesake bread. I thought it was OK, but enough of my associates proclaimed it too heavy on the mustard and hot peppers that I feel obligated to pass that information on to you. Considered apart from the sandwich, though, the bread was spectacular. The crust is marvelously crisp, having bubbled up into a crackly shell just waiting for your bite to smash through. The interior of the bread is soft and light, not tasteless but willingly playing a supporting roll to the sandwich. Although I would likely steer clear of The Godfather again, they offer a number of other sandwiches your humble enthusiast is anxious to pair up with that outstanding bread.

Sweet Onion Chicken Teriyaki – Subway

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Recently I found myself without lunch and without the means or opportunity to go and get lunch. Because I live in America, there was a Subway nearby. So, I shamefully admit to you, I went and got a sandwich at Subway. That’s just the way things shake out sometimes. Last time I talked about Subway I had a very specific grievance with their Pulled Pork, but today I just want to talk Subway in general.

Subway sandwiches, as they are fond of reminding you, feature fresh baked bread. It isn’t really baking in any sense that you might imagine it, of course. Baking is the term for it, though, because they certainly aren’t making bread. A frozen stick of dough is thawed, proofed, and then baked. The smell drifts from the store and each and every little Subway can proudly boast fresh baked bread.

I don’t eat at Subway with any real regularity, and I’m never particularly pleased to be doing so, but I’ve eaten my share of Subway sandwiches. And I can say in all honesty that I have never once paused and thought to myself “you know, this is really good bread!” And the reason I have not thought that is simple: it isn’t very good! I could forgive Subway the boasting, I could forgive them any number of Quick Service Restaurant food prep techniques if the damned bread was any good, but it isnt! There’s no crust, there’s no body, there’s all manner of crap piled on top. Herbs, oats, parmesan, it all goes on top in a terrible inadequate attempt to camoflage the rest of the loaf. They display a wide range of types of bread, but they’re all the same where it counts. Put together a sandwich at Subway that would benefit from a soft, yielding crust and put together one that needs a sharp crunch. Sorry, you’re out of luck on both ends, the only thing that’s available is some silly middle of the road that doesn’t do anyone any favors.

I can forgive people crowing over great bread. And I can forgive just-ok bread if nobody tries to sell me on it. But taking the worst of both worlds and puffing your chest out over mediocrity is unforgivable. They take the sandwich consumer for a sap, arguing by assertion that their fresh baked bread is a delicious compliment to any sandwich. It isn’t true, it just flat-out isn’t true, and if there’s one thing I don’t like on my sandwich it’s a big fat juicy lie.