With the year drawing to a close, On Sandwiches is featuring a few sandwiches from years past. Kale’s run as an ingredient of choice continues, and there are quite a few ways to feature it in a sandwich. With hash browns and a fried egg, perhaps, or dispense with the idea of health entirely and serve it up with some chorizo. That and two more recipes are here.
Category Archives: Sandwich Reviews
From the Archives: Bourbon Apple Pork Loin
With the year winding down, On Sandwiches is featuring a select few sandwiches from years past. In this case, the bourbon apple pork loin sandwich. Sauteed apples, pork loin and black bean hummus on some hearty wheat bread, and I assure it was as good as it sounds. Read up about it and a less successful cousin here.
From the Archives: Brussels Sprouts Sandwich
With the year drawing to a close, On Sandwiches would like to take a moment to feature a sandwich or two from the past year. In this case, the Brussels sprouts sandwich that was no small success:
Friends, I was struck dumb. It’s a feeling familiar to many enthusiasts, but I took a bite of this sandwich and then stopped, staring down at my hand. It was transcendent.
The whole story is here.
Anchovy Grilled Cheese – Made at Home
I still had some smoked cheddar on hand after last week’s efforts, and what better to do with some leftover cheese than to place it between bread and grill it? A word, then, on some of the hows and whys of grilled cheese. Firstly, it’s going to be unbelievably rich. You’re filling it with cheese and frying it in butter (you are using butter, aren’t you?), that’s fat on top of fat. You need to cut that richness with something, preferably something spicy or sharp. Plenty of places think the answer to the cheese is meat, often something quite fatty, but that’s a mistake, it’s just more richness on top of same. (This is why short rib grilled cheese is usually disappointing, and kimchi grilled cheese is never less than wonderful.) In the above case, I went with a tin of anchovies. Salty little devils, there was no question they could stand up to the cheese. I happened to have some scallions that were on their way out, and in they went as well. They brought a brighter sharpness to things, although something along the line of red onion might have been better, just because it’s more assertive. Lastly, a note on technique: Keep the heat gentle, somewhere just a touch over medium. It doesn’t take much to melt the cheese and crisp the bread, so don’t use much.
Meat, Greens and Cheese – Made at Home
With an event to attend over the holiday, I happened to make up a batch of an associate’s smokey chipotle bacon pimento cheese, a dip based around smoked cheddar with two extra hits of smoke from the chipotle peppers and the bacon. It’s as good as its reputation suggests, and as I do with most delicious things my mind turned to how it might best fit in a sandwich. Another associate suggested some peppery greens, and from there I was off.
The cheese has a strong flavor, and I didn’t think just greens was going to be enough, so I included a decent (but not excessive) amount of sliced London broil (from the deli counter, not homemade.) That brought a flavor that was substantial enough to not be overwhelmed, but not so substantial that it would drown out anything else. The greens in question were sauteed dandelion greens, as I thought those might have the best chance of standing up to the cheese. A little hot dog cart style onion sauce added a note of sweetness, and the whole thing went between two slices of sourdough.
Because there’s no good reason to make one sandwich when two will do, I also put together a number with the same basic outline, but a few differences: the flavor on the meat went up, from London broil to pastrami. Accordingly, the flavor on the greens went down, from dandelion greens to broccoli rabe.
Overall, I think the dandelion greens are the winner here. Originally my associate had suggested arugula, and I think that level of pepper would also work, but I prefer the more assertive dandelions. It manages to push back against the richness of the cheese in a way that turned out to be crucial. The pastrami, while flavorful, just seemed to obscure the overall dynamic. Sandwiches, after all, are about harmony as much as they’re about anything else, and the pastrami just didn’t play right. Still, all in all a decent sandwich and one that was quite good is a fine result from a little leftover dip.
Burgerim – Santa Monica Blvd, West Hollywood
I’ve spoken before about how I don’t respect the hamburger, and part of the reason that’s the case is that I feel it brings out a rather senseless enthusiasm in people. They end up piling anything they can think of on top of a hamburger patty, or adding several more patties, or some other such thing that lacks any kind of balance, harmony, or restraint. So imagine my delight to find Burgerim, an establishment that celebrates hamburgers not by what might go on top, but what might go in. The primary choice to be made at Burgerim is what manner of patty you want, and it’s not a short list: beef (standard, kobe-style and merguez), chicken, turkey, ahi tuna, veggie and lamb are all options. There are a variety of sauces that pair with the patties: pesto, harissa and garlic aioli are just a few. I went with the kobe-style beef with pesto and the merguez with harissa, and both were delightful. Perhaps equally importantly, both were moderately sized and easily taken in hand. If an overstuffed, towering burger can be taken as a sign of insecurity, Burgerim has nothing but confidence in their product.
The Red Baron – Vine Street Deli, Vine St, Los Angeles
I tend to come at sandwiches from something of a traditionalist perspective. The standing archetypes of the world of sandwiches are what they are for a reason, and if you’re going to play around with them you should have a very good reason for doing so. The reuben is a good example, as it seems particularly prone to “takes” and “re-imaginings” and “total nonsense.” Picture, if you will, a standard reuben with a healthy dose of avocado along for the ride. The above sandwich is a far cry from such ghastly examples, and it is to Vine Street Deli’s credit that it is so. Their Red Baron is hot pastrami and red cabbage sauerkraut on pumpernickel, with the standard swiss cheese and Russian dressing. There are two reasons this sandwich works: The first is that they didn’t push it too far. The ingredients are straight 1-to-1 swaps with standard reuben ingredients, and not particularly imaginative ones at that. One might criticize them for sticking so close to the tried-and-true, but when the tried-and-true is so good you won’t find me among the critics. The second reason relates to what I said above, about the necessity of a good reason for futzing around with the thing in the first place. I don’t know if the hot pastrami was the driving force behind this sandwich coming together, but it more than justifies the effort. It’s peppery and immensely flavorful, walked back just enough by the cheese, dressing and slaw. The result is an exceptionally well balanced sandwich and a nice change of pace for any reuben enthusiast.
Franklin Phenomenon – Locali, Franklin Ave, Los Angeles
The Franklin Phenomenon is a very good sandwich, but in addition to being fine on in its own right, it also stands as a good lesson. With turkey, monterey jack cheese, spinach, tomato, red onion with a chipotle mayo on pretzel bread, it’s hardly anything fancy. But between the use of spinach (rather than just lettuce) and pretzel bread (over something a little more typical) it’s clear that there’s a bit of extra effort involved. It doesn’t take much, which makes it all the more tragic when you find yourself in an establishment that isn’t going to bother. Luckily that’s not the case at Locali, and as a result you have a well-balanced, simple, tasty sandwich.
Tuna Conserva – Fundamental LA, Westwood Blvd, Westwood
I’ve talked about the tragedy inherent in tuna fish before, but the short of it is that one day (possibly not far off soon) it will all be gone, and when it is gone it will be to our deep shame that most of the tuna we ate was dry and flavorless. Fundamental LA is a regular feature here at On Sandwiches, and I figured if I could trust anyone to do justice to tuna fish, it was them. The tuna conserva sandwich was billed as evoo, herbs, shallot, olives, tomato, avocado and lettuce on 12 grain. It was all of those things, but given their relative strengths I can’t help but feel olives should be written in bold, or perhaps twice. The olives really outshined everything else here, large, firm and briny. That would be fine on some sort of olive sandwich, but I came for the tuna. It was totally lost and it occurred to me that the sandwich could have been pulled chicken just as easily as tuna fish. Compounding all of this was that this is tuna conserva, a fancy sort of preservation involving poaching that carries an implicit promise of higher quality. Tuna salad is one thing, but if you aspire to tuna conserva the least you could do is leave the olives at home. I’ll doubtlessly be back at Fundamental LA, it’s still clear they’re aiming high and they have a number of other delicious sandwiches, but this one is a miss, and all the more tragic it’s a miss with tuna fish.
Manly Burger – Umami Burger
I don’t respect hamburgers. I like them, they can be tasty as all get-out. That’s almost their handicap; a decent burger is tasty enough as it is, leading far too many establishments to simply coast in with minimal effort. Those that do apply themselves frequently end up featuring something like this:
The humble pastrami burger isn’t enough, so throw a hot dog on it. It’s a barely-restrained mess, and that’s coming from a roadside stand. Taken in any gastropub or New American establishment the patty would be two or three times that size, much to the detriment of anyone trying to pick it up and eat it. But that’s not what you see at the top of this post, and I’d like to take a moment to sing the praises of the sensible hamburger. The Manly Burger from Umami Burger, aside from an unfortunate name, is a burger with beer-cheddar cheese, smoked salt-onion strings and bacon lardons. Sandwiches tend to come down to balance and harmony, and if you can’t have both, having a whole ton of just one sometimes makes things work. There’s very little balance here, it’s a rich medley of salt, fat, salt and more fat. There’s plenty of harmony though, and this was a surprisingly good hamburger. I’ve had Umami Burger before and declined to feature it here, finding the truffle-oiled offerings to fall short of the hype. The Manly Burger is genuinely good, though, doubling down on a very particular flavor profile to excellent results.
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