Category Archives: Sandwich Reviews

Blackened Chicken on Roast Squash Bread – Made at Home

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Recently I found myself with some leftover squash that had been tossed in garam marsala and roasted. Like any sandwich enthusiast, my thoughts immediately turned to how I might incorporate those leftovers into a sandwich. Rather than the standard route of piling it between bread, though, I thought I might try something a bit different and incorporate it into the bread. So I did just that, combining a cup of diced/shredded roast squash into a whole wheat dough, kneading it smooth and baking it up. With the bread baked, I turned to the rest of the sandwich.

Thinking back to the stellar number I had at Sun de Vich, my first thought was a spread of Greek yogurt, mint, and finely diced red onion. A chicken breast got a healthy coating of salt and pepper, cayenne, chili powder, and garam masala before going down in the skillet, and a few poblano peppers got flattened out and stuck under the broiler. Bringing everything together, it looked like I had a somewhat sparse but perfectly serviceable sandwich. Alas, looks can be deceiving. I wouldn’t call this sandwich an out-and-out failure, but it’s not exactly a success. It’s successful if considered an experiment, but as a finished sandwich it came up terribly short. Firstly, the spice on the chicken proved to be a bit overwhelming. While piling on more yogurt helped that, at that point you end up with flavors fighting each other rather than working together. Secondly, the taste of the squash was completely lost. It was present when the bread was tasted on its own, but by the time the sandwich came together it was long gone. I hadn’t expected a really bold squash flavor (if I’d wanted that I could have just included the squash on standard bread) but there was really no squash flavor of which to speak. So the very thing I’d set out to feature disappeared. I think that there are some strong ideas here, and in the future they’ll work out to a better sandwich, but here and now all I had was a too-spicy sandwich and a missing squash.

Tennessee BBQ Pork — River Belle Terrace, Disneyland

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The River Belle Terrace is located on the border of Frontierland and New Orleans Square in Disneyland and features a few different sandwiches on offer. The Tennessee BBQ Pork is pulled pork in a thick BBQ sauce served on a soft white roll. It comes with a plastic cup of beans and your choice of cold salad.

The pork is tasty enough, with the sauce being about as appetizing as your average inoffensive BBQ sauce. The bread is spongy and unexceptional but holds the contents adequately. It isn’t a chore to eat, isn’t stale and can definitely hit the spot. Anywhere else in the world, this would be a mediocre, unexceptional or even disappointing sandwich. As far as Disneyland sandwiches go (and I have had my fair share), it is above-average. It does not approach the Monte Cristo at the Blue Bayou or the small offerings available during the food and wine festival at Disney’s California Adventure, but if you are at the park and in need of a bite, it will more than suffice.

Slummin’ It – All American Patty Melt, Red Robin

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Red Robin is primarily a vendor of hamburgers, with a selection of chicken sandwiches that appear to be more or less hamburgers with chicken breasts swapped in for the beef patty. But the menu also boasts the “All-American Patty Melt,” and that was what I went with. The patty melt is a sandwich with history but without glamour, which leads to it getting something of a short shrift. It’s easy to just figure it’s a hamburger on toast, or a cheeseburger with a patty in the middle, but that sells the whole thing short. I don’t mean to make too much of it, obviously it’s not a sandwich of electrifying genius, but it is a mid-century American classic. (Californian classic, to be precise. Tiny Naylor put it together at his coffee shop sometime in the 40s or 50s, at the corner of La Brea & Sunset that now houses an El Pollo Loco.) It’s a simple but complete sandwich: Patty, thousand island dressing, sauteed onions, and cheese (preferably swiss) on marbled rye. Red Robin’s version was exactly that, with no re-imagining or unnecessary deconstructing.

Here’s something else that Red Robin’s All-American Patty Melt was: It was the item on the menu with the most calories. In a chain that will gussy up a hamburger with all manner of fried this and sauteed that, I got a chuckle out of the humble patty melt being the most substantial thing on the menu. When it arrived, though, I was a bit taken aback. Where did those 1400 calories go? It’s two slices of rye, two slices of swiss, a patty of not unreasonable size, a couple ounces of dressing and some onions. According to the nutritional information, it isn’t even grilled in butter, they use margarine. Similar to what I’ve found previously while Slummin’ It, there seems to be so much less present than the calorie count would indicate. So there’s some kind of mystery here, about what’s in the dressing or what kind of cheese they use or just what the fat ratio of the beef is. It’s a puzzler, one I haven’t quite figured out yet. Beyond just the simple math of it, the sandwich isn’t particularly rich or indulgent. For all of those calories, you don’t get a sense that you’re eating something especially decadent, or even especially good. It’s not really bad, but most of it is just sort of there. I don’t think that’s quite so damning as it can be in other contexts. With something like a hamburger, “good enough” is enough to sink things, because you likely walked past a better hamburger on your way to the one you’re eating. A patty melt, on the other hand, isn’t the most common offering. It’s far from inconceivable that you might find yourself craving a patty melt and find that Red Robin is your only real option. If that ends up being the case, I should say that this would hit the spot. I wouldn’t suggest that it be someone’s first patty melt, but it’s a sandwich that knows where to set its mark, and it hits that mark. In the end, there are a lot of things worse than a good-enough patty melt.

Kotlet Sandwich – Bijan Bakery & Cafe, Market St, San Jose, CA

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I believe that almost anything can be effectively incorporated into a sandwich, given the right plan and proper execution. There aren’t many things at which I’ll turn my nose up on sight. That said, I often despair at the sight of iceberg lettuce. Don’t get me wrong; like anything else, it has its place. It’s got a lot of water to it, and it it’s pretty crispy, so it works well in spicy situations, or playing against softer ingredients. More often than not, though, it’s not deployed in those situations but instead is just the thoughtless lettuce of the lazy, an unthinking default offering, adding nothing to the sandwich. Combine it with the sight of a mushy slice of hothouse tomato and before your first bite you know that this is a sandwich where nobody was trying very hard. That’s always disappointing, but it’s exceptionally so when other ingredients are above par. The bread at Bijan Bakery was stupendous, a flavorful sourdough with a really substantial crust. The kotlet, a patty of ground meat with a strong dose of turmeric, was also pretty tasty. There was a bit of always-tasty whole grain mustard involved as well, leaving the sandwich a puzzling bundle of contrasting elements. Could this sandwich have been the product of some committee, half its members putting in care and experience, the other half slacking off? Was it assembled by survey, or by mishmash of remaining parts? Perhaps someone died in front of a half-created sandwich, and some uncaring distant relative wrapped things up without a thought for the legacy! I’m sure the real story is much more mundane, but whatever that story is, what sat in front of me was inescapable fact: I had been served a sub-par sandwich.

The Hodge-Podge — Dave’s Chillin’ & Grillin’, Colorado Blvd., Los Angeles

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I have written about Dave’s Chillin’ & Grillin’ before. The Boston transplant has an affinity for pepper spread and unorthodox creations, so I was not surprised when he recommended an off-menu item when I stopped in one January afternoon.

“The Hodge-Podge,” as he fittingly has titled it, is just that. The sandwich is, at its base, a meatball sub, which Dave creates with aplomb (and, of course, with pepper spread). To this, he adds pastrami and roast beef, both sliced thin, and the Hodge-Podge is born. I admit, I expected this to be a mere gimmick, with the sliced meat disappearing into the meatball sub. To my delight, the pastrami and roast beef added welcome layers of both flavor and texture. The result was not quite a reinvention of the meatball sub, but a lovely alternative.

Normally, things that are not broken do not need fixing. But one should always keep an open mind about putting a new spin on them.

Chicken Aïoli – Wolfgang Puck Bistro, Logan International Airport, Boston, MA

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There’s always a question of how much context is relevant to the overall sandwich, as I relate it to you. No sandwich exists in a vacuum, and try as we might there are things that have an impact on how we feel about a sandwich that are not the sandwich itself. Price, restaurant quality and cleanliness, reputation, all of these and more influence expectations, which in turn influence how a sandwich is received. The reason I raise this point now is that I’m uncertain whether this was a good sandwich, or a good sandwich for an airport. I wasn’t in the best of ways when I ate this, I was in the middle of a journey home, the sky was a uniformly dull grey, I was worn out after a fruitful vacation, and possessed with the irritability developed by any sensible person who finds themselves in an airport. So it seems reasonable to me that I might get a halfway decent sandwich in an airport and be so soothed that I rate it much higher than it deserves. At the same time, I don’t want to hand this sandwich an unfair discount. It’s a tough call, but I think I can say with some degree of certainty that this was a good sandwich, full stop. Moist chicken, flavorful bread, fresh romaine, tomatoes, red onion and cheese. The cilantro aioli gave things a smooth cilantro flavor, neither overpowering nor being overpowered. It was certainly the best sandwich I’ve had in an airport, and one I think  I would be pleased to have on a warm afternoon in a more pleasing environment.

Croissant Sandwiches – Le Boulanger & Manley’s Donuts, San Jose, CA

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Scrambled eggs, chopped bacon, and cheddar cheese on a croissant. It’s simple, and it would be far too easy to simply inhale one early in the morning and never think twice about it. There’s a lot going on there, though. A tender, flaky croissant. Fluffy eggs. Crispy bacon.  Cheese. The risk of this negligence of attention seems highest at breakfast, I think. The breakfast sandwich is one that is rarely a respite from something else; when one sits down for lunch or supper one is often trying to unwind, taking a short solace in simple pleasures. At breakfast your’re gearing up, considering the day that lies ahead, and as a result your sandwich may get scant attention. In this case, I was at the airport, taking in an early sandwich before I started an extended vacation. I can’t honestly tell you that I gave this sandwich what it was due.

That sort of mindless eating is unfortunate, but the alternative can be even worse. Such was the case with the similar sandwich I got from Manley’s Donuts, also scrambled eggs and bacon on a croissant. My mind may have started to drift, but this sandwich wasn’t having it. The labor required to dispatch tough, chewy bacon functioned as a sort of preliminary roadblock, and the dense, greasy croissant only slowed things further. This compounds the earlier sin, I suppose. The good sandwiches run the risk of passing hardly noticed, but the bad ones refuse to be ignored. In both cases, a sort of lack of effort undermines the whole thing; either you drift away or else you are put upon. I put it to you that true enthusiasm, sandwich or otherwise, requires effort. It requires a certain focus. Don’t we owe that to ourselves? Don’t we owe that to our sandwiches? In instances such as the sandwich from Le Boulanger, such effort pays off in the experience of a very good sandwich. In instances such as Manley’s Donuts, well…take it as a learning experience. The next time I approach the heights of some fine sandwich, I’ll take a brief moment to remember the greasy depths of Manley’s Donuts. There’s no reason to seek out bad sandwiches, but there’s also no reason to let one go to waste.

Canter’s Reuben & Eddie Cantor’s Delight – Canter’s Deli, S Las Vegas Blvd, Las Vegas, NV

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Canter’s, a delicatessen based in Los Angeles and about which I have previously spoken, operates an outpost in Las Vegas’ Treasure Island Casino. While in town sometime back, I made it a point to stop by to see how the sandwiches on offer stacked up against the ones in Los Angeles. The Reuben, I am happy to report, remains a song of the heart, a pile of deliciously salty pastrami and moist sauerkraut. The sandwich itself is just as good, but, as you might expect, the atmosphere is a bit lacking. The Canter’s in Las Vegas is just stuck in a corner of the gaming floor, the floor’s jarring shift from hectic carpet to checked tile making it appear exactly what it is, a secondary appendage, an afterthought. It suffers from that permadusk that so pervades any and all casinos, you order from one window and grab your food from another, and there’s no one to top up your supply of pickles. In short, it lacks charm in just about every way something can lack charm. But it’s in an area that’s light on really high-quality sandwiches, so it’s still well worth your time.

The same cannot be said, sadly, of all of the sandwiches. The Eddie Cantor’s Delight, for example, is an ostentatious number that would be a towering failure if they even bothered to stand it up. Stages Deli, another venerable institution prone to missing the mark, at least made a display of their sandwich. Compounding the sin that is serving a sandwich with a fork, the Cantor’s Delight comes lying prone, having already surrendered to its faults. It’s not that you can’t pick it up, turn it right side up and go at it, it’s that they’re telling you you need to. The combination of pastrami, corned beef, turkey, ham and swiss cheese isn’t a terrible idea, and they’re even basically in proper proportion, but the sheer size of it renders the whole thing nearly useless. There’s no way to attack it that gets everything at once, and so you’re really left eating a couple of different sandwiches, a bite from one then a bite from the other. There’s a time and a place for that, but it isn’t when you’ve ordered a single sandwich. Eddie Cantor surely made quite a mark in the world of music, and it’s a good thing he did. His contributions to the world of sandwiches aren’t worth two dimes, be they marching or not.

Shrimp Po’ Boy — The Smith House, Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles

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Some time ago, I ordered a “Shrimp Po’ Girl” from an establishment in Santa Cruz. The sandwich was a veritable monstrosity, featuring such an abundance of shrimp that the enterprise was a sort of riddle of consumption. I gave the shrimp sandwich another shot at the upscale bar and grill The Smith House in a strange area of Los Angeles referred to as “Century City.” The presentation of this shrimp po’boy was a far cry from my previous experience, and indeed it was perhaps a third of the amount of shrimp for right around the same price, if not more (forgive me, but this was some time ago, and the specifics escape me).

And therein lay the problem with this sandwich experience, if indeed there was one. The shrimp and the sauce both had ample flavor, and the bread was the perfect complement. It was an enjoyable sandwich experience, but I was left wanting more. The coverage of shrimp throughout the sandwich was a bit lacking, as there were entire bites devoid of the main ingredient, leaving me chewing a fine lettuce-sauce-and-bread combination, but falling short of the potential. I am happy to chalk this up to a careless line cook, but should I order it a second time and again find a severe lack of the selling point…well then, shame on me.

French Bull – Bagel Maven, 7th Ave, New York, NY

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I’m always given a bit of pause when going for a sandwich at an establishment named for some other food. Plenty of such establishments offer fine sandwiches, but it’s always cause for the tiniest bit of suspicion. I should have trusted my instincts. The French Bull at Bagel Maven is roast beef, brie and watercress on ciabatta bread. Mayonnaise and horseradish round things out. That’s well and good in concept, but in execution there was much too much cheese. Believe it or not, what you see above is merely half of what was intended for the sandwich, and I actually broke with my own policy and offered instruction to the man assembling things. Watching it being made, I saw the pictured amount of cheese added and then saw the sandwich maker reach for anther handful. I found myself unable to hold my tongue. “That’s enough cheese,” I called, and the woman behind me wondered aloud just how much he had intended to add. That will forever remain a mystery, but I do know that so long as I was shouting instructions I should have called for some subtraction. The beef and the cheese are there in almost equal parts, which is hopelessly out of balance. The horseradish was completely lost, something that happens a lot more frequently than I would prefer. In more fitting proportions I think this would have been a fine sandwich, but as I received it it was no good. Balance is delicate, tremendously delicate, and it’s all too easy for one element to derail a sandwich. Any serious sandwich enthusiast knows this, which makes it all the more a shame that so many establishments seem so set on reminding us.