Category Archives: General Sandwich Discussion

Avocado Al Fresco Sandwich – Whole Foods, North Glendale Ave., Glendale, CA

Posted on by

Tomato, arugula, avocado, parmesan, bacon and olive oil on a delicious brown sweet pretzel roll.

Many have railed against the at-times unnecessary, yet ubiquitous inclusion of tomato in the sandwich field. In fact, I noted in my first posting here that the unskilled sandwich maker will view tomato as much a requirement of a “true sandwich” as bread. Today, I am pleased to present an example from the opposite end of the spectrum.

The daily special at the Whole Foods sandwich counter was the Avocado Al Fresco sandwich. Olive oil, arugula, tomato, avocado, parmesan, salt and pepper, to which I added bacon and selected a sweet pretzel roll to hold it all together.

As the sandwich was being constructed, I noticed that the Whole Foods employee took pains to build the sandwich in a specific way: oil on both sides of the sliced roll, two thick tomato slices, halved into semicircles and laid down as the “ground floor” atop which was tipped the salt and pepper, and so on. It was a sandwich constructed in a deliberate way. Whether it was due to Quality Control, or because of the demands of the sandwich itself, I cannot say. But I will say this: sandwich construction is important, particularly when building at home, and a careless hand often leads to a sandwich with neither adequate soul nor taste.

The sweet pretzel roll was outstanding, the perfect mix of firmness and lightness that lent itself to the bacon and avocado. The bacon-avocado marriage is something that cannot be denied; salty and creamy, chewy and smooth. But what really held it together were those four pieces of tomato. The perfect ripeness, the perfect thickness. Not mushy, watery, or inundated with seeds, as so many sandwich tomatoes are. They offered a spectacularly satisfying texture and gave the sandwich heft. The parmesan did not add anything noticeable to the experience, but the rest of the sandwich was so pleasing that this can hardly be considered a complaint.

The tomato has not worn out its welcome.

 

Old Fashion Chicken Salad Sandwich, The Oinkster, Colorado Blvd, Los Angeles, CA

Posted on by

Chicken Salad sandwich from the Oinkster. A chicken salad sandwich sliced into two triangles, piled with nearly equal portions of chicken salad and pickles.The Oinkster is an eatery of moderate fame in the north end of Los Angeles proper, in the Eagle Rock area. It is famous for its pastrami sandwiches and its peanut butter-and-jelly cupcakes. I have a particular affinity for neither of these items. I visit The Oinkster frequently, but my “regular” item of purchase is their pulled-pork sandwich, which my esteemed colleague has written about, at length, but which I find more than agreeable.

I felt that my first foray for On Sandwiches should not be a well-traveled road, so I selected the “Old Fashion” Chicken Salad Sandwich. Chicken salad is a very interesting sandwich star: underrepresented, little thought-of (at least on the West Coast, and among those under 40), and potentially pleasing under ideal conditions and when in a particular mood. In my mind, chicken salad has two defining characteristics: the first is that it is the classier older brother of tuna salad; the second is that it is the very definition of the “Oh, ______ sounds good” menu item. An item you see on a menu that you hadn’t considered before sitting down, but darn if that doesn’t sound tasty on a fine Spring afternoon.

So it was with the thought of giving time to the neglected Chicken Salad that I ordered. As is customary for On Sandwiches, I ordered the item as presented on the menu. The only item that gave me pause was the inclusion of pickles. I am traditionally averse to pickles, but pressed ahead, eager to file my first column. My eagerness turned to dread when confronted with the sandwich itself, which, as you can see in the above photo, was fairly inundated with pickle.

In the interest of full disclosure, I must relay the following information: on the menu board at The Oinkster, the ingredients were listed as follows: “pulled roast chicken, housemade (bread and butter pickle), mayonnaise, tomato and onion on focaccia bread.” I had never before encountered the term “bread-and-butter pickle,” so the wording of the sandwich ingredients was beyond baffling to me, particularly when the placement of parentheses were considered. What was housemade? The pulled roast chicken? The bread? Some sort of “butter pickle?” Perhaps it’s my West Coast location, perhaps my picky eating as a child, or maybe due to my unfamiliarity with pickled cucumbers and their briny ilk, but the term had passed me by. All I knew was that it was a chicken salad sandwich, and pickles were involved.

I hefted the sandwich and took a bite, expecting an overwhelming burst of briny, acidic pickle dwarfing everything else. It was at this moment I learned that “bread-and-butter” pickles are sweet, rather than the salty tang of your standard dill. And this element, ladies and gentlemen, is truly what made the entire sandwich sing. I can only imagine how my eyes must have lit up upon that first bite. What an experience! The creamy, savory chicken salad was the yin to the sweet pickles’ yang. Joining the two as a splendid accent was the crisp bite of the onion, which was administered with skilled hand in just the perfect amount. The focaccia bread was, in a word, the perfect vessel, a spectacular firmness without being hard or crunchy, and without soaking up the moistness of the components within. If there was a fault to be found with this sandwich, it was the inclusion of tomato, which truly added nothing to the experience. It has been written about on this blog before, but it has come to the point that the watery fruit is, more often than not, added to a sandwich out of a perceived necessity than paying attention to the needs of the individual sandwich. “Making a sandwich, eh?” the unwashed masses must say to one another, “Better make sure you throw some tomato on there.”

I can scarcely remember a time I have so enjoyed a new sandwich. This experience serves as an excellent reminder to not only myself, but to all of us, that you never know which run-of-the-mill sandwich base  may allow an architect to create something around it that will truly knock your socks off.

Vegan Sandwich – Figueroa Produce, N Figueroa St, Los Angeles, CA

Posted on by

The "vegan sandwich" at Figueroa Produce in Los Angeles, CA

This was a fine sandwich. The bread was particularly good, large, tender sourdough bringing together fake chicken, fake cheese, lettuce, tomato, and a bit of avocado. I could go on a diatribe about the woeful inadequacy of yellow mustard, but that’s best saved for another day. The “vegenaise” was a more than acceptable substitute for the standard mayo, and that points at what is bothering me about this sandwich. The fake cheese wasn’t particularly good; you could see where it was aiming but it missed the mark. But the fake chicken, like the mayonnaise, was a fine substitute. Sampled alone, outside of the sandwich, it had a pleasing taste and a texture not at all unlike your standard cold cut. This was a good sandwich, I enjoyed eating it and would gladly return to Figueroa Produce and order another one. But even good sandwiches sometimes suggest larger problems.

I like chicken. It’s tasty, it’s versatile, it’s more-or-less good for you, and it makes a damn fine sandwich. You’ll find plenty of sandwiches here built around a chicken breast. But a lot of chicken sandwiches aren’t made with the breast. The same can be said for ham sandwiches, and turkey. These sandwiches are made with cold cuts, with lunch meat. This feels like a bit of a confession, but I don’t particularly care for lunch meat. Think about a chicken, and think about the kind of chicken you might get from the folks at Boar’s Head. Try as I might, I have trouble connecting that to an honest-to-goodness chicken. And that’s what this sandwich points to. What is done to meat that a couple of soybeans can cling together and stand in its place? Through the flavoring, the shaping, the retexturing, how does chicken get so far from itself that it’s just as easy and just as good to have such a drastically different ingredient? How might be the wrong question here, I don’t want the process explained to me. A better question is why? I understand the demands of cost and efficiency, but should we not aspire to higher ground? A sandwich can be a moment of delicious serenity in an otherwise chaotic life. Why let processing and preserving and stabilizing horn in on that?

I know I’m tilting at windmills. Let the supermarket delis exist, let franchise sandwich chains bury processed meat in salt. Let what was once an honest bit of pork sit, hopelessly round and absurdly pink, one side exposed to the air. Let it sit there for years, never going bad. I will be elsewhere, looking for a better sandwich.

Buffalo Stew Sandwich, Tommy’s Joynt, Geary Blvd, San Francisco, CA

Posted on by

The so-called Buffalo Stew Sandwich at Tommy's Joynt, San Francisco

Tommy’s Joynt is a fairly notable establishment, and has been serving their particular brand of comfort food for a long, long time. (The decorations include a flag with only a few dozen stars, a wagon wheel, and an inflatable football promoting the Bud Bowl. Exact age would be hard to pin down.) With age, though, they have yet to find wisdom. I’ll start with the punchline: Tommy’s understanding of sandwiches is about as solid as his spelling. I would try and show more patience, both with Tommy and my own meager joke, but I’m tired of this nonsense. Tired, just dog tired of getting my hopes up for a fine, interesting sandwich, and having those hopes stomped back down by some no-account restaurateur who can’t understand that, at the very least, you eat a sandwich with your hands.

Every so often after I write something about eating a sandwich, someone will point out to me that it could have gone differently. There was a topping bar, they’ll say, or tell me that I could have asked for no cheese. It’s all true, but that isn’t the point of my endeavor. I want to find the wonderful sandwiches where others have dreamed them, exactly how they have dreamed them. To search for dreams, though, leaves one open to finding nightmares.

I ordered the Buffalo Stew Sandwich because it was, by far, the most interesting thing available. Think of it: A sandwich wherein the main ingredient is stew! It’s exciting! The french dip demonstrates that a sandwich can handle liquid, even a considerable amount. I could think to myself how I might go about making a stew sandwich, and I was intensely curious about how the tinkerers at Tommy’s Joynt had carried out such an idea. But my curiosity turned to dismay almost immediately. After slicing a french roll in half, the man making the item took the top half of the roll and sliced it in half again. I was shocked, and as has happened before, that I did not storm out immediately must be chalked up to that state of shock. That extra slice left me in stunned silence, knowing that whatever other steps were taken in preparing this so-called sandwich, they would be a waste. It turned out to be fairly simple, just a ladle full of stew over the bottom of the roll. I was issued a fork and a knife, a rattling mockery of the obvious fact that I could not pick up and eat what had been sold to me as a sandwich.

What I find myself thinking over, again and again, is how this just wasn’t necessary. Get a roll with a good, sturdy crust. Scoop a bit of the bread out of one half, give yourself a pocket to sit your portion of stew in. Serve me that with a few extra napkins and you’ll hear no complaint. It isn’t hard! Tommy could go to sleep at night knowing he understood and respected sandwiches. The extra napkins might cut into the margins a bit, but it’s tough to put a price on a good night’s sleep. The last time this happened I expressed a bit of shame over my own mistakes. Not being careful in my reading of the menu, making unwarranted assumptions, etc. I’ll take on no such blame here. Going forward I will make no changes to how I conduct myself. I am not in the wrong here. Invite me over to watch cricket, I’ll blame you when we sit down and tune in to handball. It maybe a lovely game, but for the love of god, I wanted a sandwich! Is that so much to ask!? I’m getting away from myself. It comes down to this: I believe, and I refuse to stop believing, that a person should be able to walk into an establishment that purports sells sandwiches, order a sandwich, and be served a sandwich.

Elvis Keith – Ike’s Place, Market St, San Francisco, CA

Posted on by

The Elvis Keith sandwich at Ike's Place in San Francisco

Ike’s Place is a sandwich shop. Plenty of establishments serve sandwiches. In finer dining they can be an afterthought, in something like a bistro they can occupy a respectable portion of the menu, and in something like a deli they can be the only option. The deli is the closest cousin to the sandwich shop, but they differ in attitude. I do not mean to malign the institution of the deli, but many of them present the sandwich as something you might as well eat. There can be a fine selection of breads and meats, but leaving the emphasis on the standard set of options and the interchangeability of ingredients seems misplaced to me. This is not the case at a sandwich shop. Where a deli might list a handful of specials, Ike’s has over 50 named, specific sandwiches on the menu. Where a deli has an obligatory veggie option, Ike’s has a full 20 vegan options and over 30 vegetarian sandwiches.

What I see in this celebration of sandwiches is the realization of a dream. I see years and years of a man making sandwich after sandwich, exploring seemingly contradictory, seeing how he can take a good flavor to great, how far he can push great before it falls apart. Sandwiches at Ike’s come with his Dirty Sauce standard; this is a man who has done the legwork in making amazing things and now wants to share them with the world. And the world is happy to share in those sandwiches: Having arrived in only 2007 Ike’s is in 3 locations currently and will soon add another 3. Their sandwiches are widely praised by both press and public.

When I see a place like Ike’s, where I detect a long road of love culminating in a realized dream, I look at the first listed special. In that sandwich one often finds the favorite child: The sandwich loved longest, made most often, the sandwich in which someone’s dream begins to take form. It was with that in mind that I ordered the Elvis Keith, and it was there that I grew unsettled.

The Elvis Keith proceeds along a fairly predictable but likely satisfying path: Chicken breast, a fine base if ever the was one, teriyaki sauce, a strong sweetness, and wasabi mayo, reigning the sweetness back in. Were it to stop there, you would have a fine balanced sandwich, albeit a simple one. But there is one more ingredient: Swiss cheese. I was wary, but trusting. I ordered the sandwich and retired to a nearby park. The sandwich was good. It could have used more wasabi, but that might just be a matter of taste. All in all it was the simple, balanced sandwich I had suspected it could be, sweet and savory. What struck me is that the cheese was completely lost, obliterated by the teriyaki, unnoticeable. So if it was totally absent in flavor, what was it doing there?

Of the over 100 sandwiches listed on the menu, only three are genuinely free of cheese, two of which are more-or-less the same sandwich. (One has meatballs, the other vegan meatballs.) The third is the Unoriginal, apparently so named because it is nothing but meat on bread. Think about that; whether these sandwiches are all the design of Ike or some process of committee or community, essentially only two are deemed appropriate without cheese. That…I can think of no word for it other than lunacy. It is lunacy. The first conclusion is that a person or persons who love sandwiches has reasonably concluded that less than 3% of the sandwiches in their life should be served without cheese. I refuse to believe that. I simply reject it outright. Ike’s shows a blatant love of sandwiches, a respect and an understanding, and I cannot accept that with that kind of obvious passion comes such a stunning ignorance as to throw cheese onto every damn sandwich they see. I am not unequivocally opposed, I have said in the past that with a skilled hand cheese has its place. But that place cannot be everywhere.

So if it is not madness, it is mandatory. I don’t know exactly when it was established that a sandwich included cheese, but it seems to be the accepted standard. But enough is enough. I am not even suggesting that the default be thrown the other way, to making every sandwich without cheese. I’m just asking that together we take each sandwich as an individual, and ask ourselves whether cheese is needed. Whether you’re making yourself a quick lunch or you own a shop with 100 sandwiches on the menu, we can all take a moment to ask that question. Ask it, and it is in a fair and honest answer that we will find our way to better sandwiches.

Southern Fried Chicken Sandwich – Flanagan’s Ale House, Baxter Ave Louisville, KY

Posted on by

Recently I was discussing sandwiches with a fellow enthusiast, and the conversation turned to what might be the worst possible sandwich. We both flexed our imaginations and plumbed the depths of our worst nightmares, coming up with a number of horrors. He suggested that the worst possible sandwich was some unholy combination involving white bread, bologna, individually wrapped slices of cheese (or possibly cheeze) and, if you can believe it, ranch dressing, ketchup, and yellow mustard. My position, though, was that when considering the worst sandwich while it might be fun to consider the worst possible sandwich, what is truly ghastly is to consider the worst sandwich that actually exists. While I’m not sure exactly what that sandwich is, I know that a strong argument can be made that it is currently sitting under a heat lamp.

As discerning sandwich consumers, I think we sometimes forget they exist. I think we get so lost in our own world that we forget that millions of times every day, for millions of people, a sandwich is ordered by number and comes wrapped in paper. Let me give you a specific example: I once found myself in a Jack in the Box near a cattle ranch in Coalinga, California. As is fitting in such a location, I was…I was in a bad way. And so I found myself sitting at a table, suffering the competing waves of screeching children being shouted down, staring at what the teenager behind the counter had called a Fish Sandwich.

The Fish Sandwich. A bun, roughly comparable to cotton in both taste and texture. A lonely leaf of iceberg lettuce. An inappropriate amount of mayonnaise. And finally, in the starring role, a piece of fish so thin you’d think it had been taken from an honest fillet with a woodworker’s plane. With a ratio of breading to fish of at least 3:1, this little pile just wasn’t worthy of the title sandwich.

But what does all of that have to do with the above? The Jack in the Box Chicken Sandwich might be the lowest of the low, but the high-end of that scale isn’t far off. Many people enjoy a particular brand of fast food sandwich, and I don’t mean to begrudge them that enjoyment. Chick-Fil-A, for example, has inspired fanaticism in fans of their simple chicken sandwiches. But even the best fast food sandwiches can barely be considered pedestrian. Take a moment to consider the above, and you see how easily such a thing is bested with a little effort. There’s nothing fancy about the fried chicken sandwich from Flangan’s Ale House. A chicken breast, breaded and freshly fried. A bit of lettuce, tomato, and onion, and the signature touch of pickles. Nothing fancy, but all of it well executed. And that, my friends, is the ultimate indictment of Jack and his ilk. You can forgive someone who aims high and falls short. It is easy to imagine someone without the means to do their best. But to see someone with such means and opportunity aim so low is truly despicable. The margin between simply being the best of a bad lot and being legitimately good is not so wide, and it is a shame more large-scale establishments do not try harder at crossing. Thankfully, we have establishments like Flanagan’s Ale House. There I found a fine sandwich, freshly fried, well seasoned, and tasty as could be.

BBQ Pulled Pork Sandwich – The Oinkster, Colorado Blvd, Eagle Rock, CA

Posted on by

The BBQ pulled pork from Oinkster, which for some reason was served without sauce.

A few weeks ago while in Los Angeles, my associates and I were all set to venture to a local sandwich shop to pick up lunch. It turned out, though, that there simply wasn’t enough room in the car for all of us. Having reviewed the Oinkster menu online, I felt secure in what I wanted and so I simply told them to bring me back a pulled pork sandwich. Having heard tell of The Oinkster’s reputation, I spent the wait imaging the sandwich I was soon to relish, stuffed full and singing with a fine Carolina sauce. That is not what I got. A quick glance at the picture above will tell you that something, somewhere went wrong.

It is hard for me to not get angry. When ordering a sandwich, it is an exceedingly rare occasion where I will make specific requests. I trust in the person who has come up with the sandwich that they understand balance and layering and that their desire to create a fine sandwich matches my desire to eat one. I trust that they will do right by me. I have been let down before, certainly, some yahoo will load up on the cheese or go wild with the chilies. But those are understandable sins, products of misguided enthusiasm. This…I don’t know how this came to be. It was a pulled pork sandwich served without sauce. Pork is a fine, fine meat, but a half pound of it sitting naked on a roll is, dare I say, bland. This sandwich was a movie with the last two reels missing, a season of baseball cut short by strike. The cabbage and onions were both tasty, but the lack of sauce was so distracting it was hard to enjoy anything about the sandwich.

The simplicity of the sandwich allows for a lot of latitude. There are a million different things you can do, and it excites me to see people explore new territory. But this isn’t a vision, it’s a mistake. When you stand up and claim you’re taking a shot at an archetype, there are rules. There are lines there to guide you, and this sandwich fell well outside. Next time I’m in LA I intend to return to the Oinkster, to see if they can’t right this wrong.

The Piaf – Klein’s Deli, San Francisco Airport, San Francisco, CA

Posted on by

"The Piaf" sandwich from Klein's Deli. Features roast beef, cream cheese, horseradish, dill pickle, and tomatoes on light rye. One’s options for food in airports might charitably be called “woeful.” Fast food, overpriced, overcooked hamburgers in pseudo-sportsbars, it just isn’t a friendly scene for your average sandwich enthusiast. I was surprised, then, to happen upon Klein’s Deli. Formerly a standby in the Portero Hill section of San Francisco, Klein’s has apparently taken up residence in two locations inside San Francisco airport. With their roster of sandwiches named after notable women of the 20th century, I thought I might finally happen upon a good airport sandwich. I ordered the Piaf, the legendary singer transmogrified into roast beef, cream cheese, horseradish, dill pickle and tomatoes on light rye. There will come a day when I bring you a report of an amazing airport sandwich. That is not today. The Piaf is a decent sandwich. It’s a fine concept; roast beef, cream cheese and horseradish would nicely compliment each other if deployed in the right proportion. That’s the issue, though, isn’t it? Cream cheese isn’t bold in flavor but it is perfectly capable of drowning out other notes, and there simply wasn’t enough horseradish here to stand up to it. The few thin slices of pickles also weren’t up to the task at hand. This could have been a really great sandwich, in a perfect world you’d see tender, in-house roasted beef, and enough horseradish to let you know it was there. But this isn’t a perfect world, and the sandwich I got, while tasty enough, just wasn’t that great.

The so-called “Italian Beef Beer Bread” – Four Peaks Brewery, E 8th St, Tempe, AZ

Posted on by
The so-called "Italian Beer Bread" at Four Peaks Brewery, Tempe, AZ

A wrap masquerading as a sandwich. Sickening.

This is, sadly, familiar territory. This is the listing from the Four Peaks Brewery menu: “Lean roast beef with sautéed red onion, green peppers, mushrooms mozzarella and garlic honey mayo rolled in our fresh baked beer bread.” I cannot tell you how disappointed I was when the above was brought to my table.

I am left wondering who is to blame. It was only in going back and preparing to write this post that I actually noticed those words. “Rolled in.” In the poor lighting of the outdoor patio, and in my haste, I missed the crucial words that would have tipped me off to the fact that I was going to be served a wrap, and not a sandwich. Is my disappointment solely my fault? The heading for this section of the menu is “Alehouse Sandwiches.” Was it unreasonable of me to assume that any and all items under that listing would be sandwiches? When one considers beer bread, a tortilla hardly comes to mind. And that is what troubles me, friends. What can be excused by carelessness and unwarranted assumptions on my part can only be explained by callous disregard on the part of whoever decided to call this a sandwich. This is a wrap. I know that a lot of things have changed over the years, and words do not always mean what they once did, but a sandwich is not a wrap. It is not now, and it has never been. But someone at Four Peaks Brewery is either unaware of this or simply does not care. I made a mistake in not reading the menu closer, I’ll admit to that much. But I did not make the mistake repeatedly, day in and day out. I did not serve a customer expecting a sandwich piled on hearty beer bread a bit of limp flat bread. I try to give restaurants the benefit of the doubt, I don’t grill the waitstaff about the construction of their sandwiches. I will take responsibility for not ferreting out the fact that someone with such disrespect for sandwiches designed the menu at Four Peaks Brewery, but the responsibility for so abusing my trust lies entirely with the establishment.

In the end, I hope this will exist as a cautionary tale. Read your menus carefully. There are those out there who, through ignorance or recklessness, will try to serve you a wrap and call it a sandwich.

This is not a sandwich.

Posted on by

Porky's Revenge
The Porky’s Revenge, Hank’s Eats, Polk St, San Francisco, CA

I have sat down to write this post several times and each time I have refrained from doing so. This blog is supposed to be a celebration of things, an honest expression of a love. That need not include, I thought, rantings from me about intent and honest representation and the proper axis of a sandwich. No one likes a curmudgeon and so up until now I have avoided all of this discussion. I will apologize in advance for what I am about to say but I cannot take it anymore.

Though I have been known to spend quite some time considering a menu there was no such lengthy deliberation at Hank’s Eats. The Porky’s Revenge advertised slow roasted pork shoulder topped with tomatoes, onions and Hank’s Special Sauce. I expected just the kind of simple but delicious sandwich I’ve been seeking out these days, and what I got might best be described as an overgrown taco!

The idea of what is and is not a sandwich comes down to the obvious and the intent. The obvious is the precious few simple qualifications that must be met, namely bread on the top and the bottom and some other ingredient in the middle. The intent is what makes it a sandwich and what ends up disqualifying the Porky’s Revenge. In order to be a sandwich the intent must be for the food to be eaten aligned horizontally. It is in this that we find sandwiches in harmony with our mouths and indeed our larger selves. It is in this that we find each bite encompassing the sum total of the ingredients in the sandwich, all of them represented in their proper proportions. It is in this that a sandwich becomes a sandwich.

There are sandwiches served on rolls, even sandwiches served on rolls that weren’t sliced all the way through. What separates them from what is pictured above is that, despite a lack of care or effort from whomever wields the knife, they intend to be sandwiches. They align themselves in the proper way, as we have known sandwiches for hundreds of years.

Items like the Porky’s Revenge are closer to the taco or even the hot dog than they are the sandwich. I have no grudge against an establishment that wishes to sell such an item, and indeed there are times in my life when that’s just the kind of meal I might enjoy. Those times are not when I have ordered a sandwich.