Tag Archives: Reviews by Pete

Short Rib Grilled Cheese – TLT Food, Westwood Blvd, Westwood

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TLTshortribgrilledcheeseI have no idea what happened here. The short rib grilled cheese was listed on the specials board at TLT Food, and having so enjoyed the last sandwich I got there this one sounded delightful. Braised short rib, caramelized red onion, lime-sambal sauce and a blend of cheese all between two pieces of sourdough that were crusted with cotija. That still sounds delightful, and I guess with all those ingredients there’s no room left on the sign for “WARNING: THIS ISN’T ACTUALLY A SANDWICH YOU CAN PICK UP AND EAT WITH YOUR HANDS.”

It just seems so senseless. Surely at some point during the assembly of this sandwich there was a point at which it did not yet have a top. Would that not have been the time to insert the sauce? What purpose does it serve, there on top? It makes the sandwich significantly less pleasant to eat, for one, and it places the sauce farther away from the tongue. It could be an aesthetic choice, I suppose, but surely whoever made this realizes that after properly appreciating one’s sandwich, one tends to consume it?

The sandwich was good, but it could have been so much better if I hadn’t had to grasp it by the edges, or if the sauce were let to mingle with the rest of the ingredients. It could have been good, but tragically the whole experience was laid low by one asinine decision, and that’s a fate no sandwich deserves.

On the Importance of Effort – General Sandwich Discussion

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poblanofrescocornerbakeryThe above sandwich is the Poblano Fresco from The Corner Bakery. Chicken, roasted red peppers, avocado, white cheddar and a jicama slaw, with chipotle lime mayo on a Poblano Cheese Bread. The below is the Chicken Torta from Fundamental LA. Chicken, tomatillo salsa, guacamole, cotija cheese, crema, jalapeño peppers and iceberg on a bolillo roll. Neither of these sandwiches are particularly great, but only one is forgivable.

fundamentalLAchickentortaRegular readers will know that I’ve made this point before, but not so explicitly and in a single post. Put simply, it is perfectly acceptable to aim high and fail, but it is far from OK to aim for the middle. The top sandwich isn’t bad, exactly, it’s just boring. The chicken is bland, the bread more cheese than chili, and really the whole thing stinks of resting solely on the slaw. “Jimicia!” goes the thought process. “That’ll impress the rubes.” The slaw itself is also bland, and while chipotles and limes are both fine ingredients, it surely says something about vision if the only way someone thought they could be brought to a sandwich was to ensconce them in mayonnaise.

The bottom sandwich has shredded chicken that was re-grilled to give it a bit of a crust, but it didn’t hold together tremendously well and when combined with a slightly-too-soft roll the whole thing fell apart in the eating. The flavors were good but not quite up to what I’ve come to expect from Fundamental LA. Further, when you’re putting forth something like tomatillo salsa, the competition in Los Angeles is so strong that it’s tough to get away with anything less than great.

One thing this is not about is that one of these sandwiches is from a hip restaurant and the other is from a 150-location strong chain. The processed food industry is as advanced as any other these days, and any manner of product can be distributed in a stable form, at scale. Slow cooked chicken, for example, cojita cheese or crema, none of this is out of The Counter’s reach. They simply don’t think it’s worth the effort, or they honestly think that the top sandwich is a better concept than the bottom. That’s why it’s unforgivable. Because it’s lazy, because it presents nothing you have not seen before and it expects you to be grateful for that. There are a lot of ways to make a good sandwich, but there isn’t a single one that ends up insulting the person eating it.

Turnip Sandwiches – Made at Home

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turnipsandwich1Turnips! When’s the last time you saw someone go wild over a turnip? It’s been some time, I’d wager. One of the less popular root vegetables, people have been growing them for something like the last 3500 years, and within that stretch someone’s been jazzed about them about 15 times. Usually you see the opposite sort of reaction, and indeed a short time ago a pair of respected associates were on Twitter disparaging turnips. I’ve never been a big fan of the turnip, but it happened to strike me that maybe they might make some fine sandwiches, and so I set to work. Roasting the turnips seemed the natural move to me, as it leaves you with a better flavor than boiling them, and removes the work of changing water mid-cooking.

The turnip is a starch, of course, and that makes it a tricky thing to work with. There are some good sandwiches with fried potatoes in them, but in general adding such a thing throws off the starch-something else-starch balance that is the sandwich. So I figured if I was going to work with turnips, I had to include some rather large flavors to prevent a bland, starchy experience. That meant some smoked herring fillets, which have a heavy smoke, distinctly fishy flavor. So now I had the turnips, which bring a woody, earthy flavor, and smoky fish. I thought something sweet might play well in there, as smoke and sugar tend to pair exceedingly well, in barbecue and elsewhere. Caramelized onions are my go-to move for sweet on a sandwich, but I thought I might take it a step further for this occasion and I cooked up a batch of onion jam. Recipes vary, but in this case it was mostly a few pounds of onions cooked down in a couple cups of red wine and a honey gastrique. So the turnips, fish, and onion jam went down on some pretzel bread with a bit of horseradish mustard, and that was that.

I liked this sandwich quite a bit, but I’m not so sure that was about the turnips. The onion jam was delicious, I like canned fish, and pretzel bread is always a nice change of pace. This was quite good, and the turnips were a part of that, but they were hardly the star.

turnipsandwich3 My second attempt aimed for more simple ends. A New York strip steak, thinly sliced, salted and peppered and thrown in a skillet for just about a minute, went over some roasted turnips and under some provolone. Melted under the broiler, the whole thing came together as a fairly standard cheesesteak sandwich, except it also included turnips. I can see some cheesesteak aficionado not caring for what I did here, but I was quite pleased with it. The steak and the cheese are each assertive enough in flavor, but neither so much that they might drown out the turnips. Instead, the turnips give an extra dimension to what can easily be a fairly flat sandwich, and I thought it was quite welcome. turnipsandwich2Finally, I wanted something without meat. I’m celebrating a root vegetable, it would be downright negligent of me not to include something my herbivore associates can enjoy. I’ve still left the vegans in the cold, but this one is easily adaptable to their needs. For the third sandwich, I cut some heirloom tomatoes into slices about as wide as I had the turnips and gave them the same treatment, a stretch in the oven to boost up their sugars and break them down a bit. I’ve had my own issues with tomatoes before, but going heirloom helps make the most of things. Roast tomatoes and turnips isn’t quite enough for a sandwich, so I roasted some garlic as well and combined it with some minced scallion into a compound butter, which was spread on both sides of the sandwich. This one was a bit of a mess to eat, as the tomatoes had little structure left, but that didn’t prevent it from being all sorts of tasty. The garlic, tomatoes and turnips all have their own sweetness, with varying levels of subtlety, and it was a delight to have them working together. This was rich, vibrant, and the turnips helped establish the sandwich as substantial.

If you’ve got no love for the turnip, I can’t imagine the above would sway you. But if you’re just not sure what you might do with them or why they might be enjoyable, I hope I’ve laid out some things that you might find intriguing. Turnips! If they were good enough for 1500 BC, they’re good enough for you.

The Troll – The Original Rinaldi’s, N Sepulveda Ave, Manhattan Beach

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originalrinaldisHow aptly named. I enter an establishment, order a sandwich, and I’m served some sort of bread pontoon boat ferrying around a pile of ingredients. The troll. I try to be charitable in my definition of a sandwich. Two pieces of bread, something between then, stacked and intended to be eaten on a horizontal axis. I see this as a definition as expansive as possible without being meaningless, but the boosters of lobster-rolls-as-sandwiches and other similar nonsense have seen it as pedantic, or restricting. But I didn’t settle on this definition just for the sport of it, I settled on it because it’s what fits my idea of what sandwiches are, in their ideal form. The horizontal nature of it is crucial, and the above calamity illustrates why.

The idea behind a sandwich is to bring many things together. This is why we do not set out on a plate a bit of bread, a bit of ham and a bit of cheese and take turns eating each. We put them together because they taste exceptionally good together, and they become more than the sum of their parts. But the togetherness of them, the this-thing-plus-that-thing, in every bite, that’s why horizontal matters. I can close the above not-sandwich. I did close the above not-sandwich, I folded it up and I ate it. It was tasty. Ground turkey, eggplant parm, marinara sauce and mozzarella cheese, it’s a good lineup and the ground turkey is a nice textural contrast. But it didn’t fold cleanly in half, lining up ingredients with the cheese in the middle. It collapsed on itself, leaving a sort of gradient of ingredients not stacked but laid side by side, with bites to one side favoring cheese, to the other turkey, and somewhere in the middle the eggplant. This is no sandwich at all, but instead a slapdash collection, robbing me of the togetherness that defines the sandwich experience.

This happens far more often than I’d like, where someone doesn’t slice the roll all the way through and doesn’t stack so much as stuff, leaving an assemblage that runs contrary to the very point of sandwiches. For the sake of discussion, I try to forgive this, sometimes opening a sandwich and rearranging, sometimes just shrugging because it’s almost good enough. (The Mousa is a recent example of something that could be better.) But this need not be, friends. This need not be. I do not ask that everyone’s sandwich be exotic, complicated, or anything other than what they want it to be. I simply ask that it be assembled with care and with an eye towards the ideal sandwich experience. And that, friends, means stacking.

PBAT – TLT Foods, Westwood Blvd, Los Angeles

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PBAT-TLTI have earlier indicated that pork belly is far from my favorite, and that remains true. But as establishments continue to hold it in a place of prominence, I’ll keep eating it. Part of that is as a service to my dear readers, but part of it is because I never give up on an ingredient, and know that the world of sandwiches holds a great many surprises. Take the above. It was plagued by none of the overly-fatty, gristle-ridden issues that normally turn me off pork belly. The pork belly in this sandwich was firm but not tough, well seared but far from burnt, and altogether pretty good. Still wouldn’t be my first choice, but it worked well here. And that’s good, because if it had fallen short there wasn’t much that could have come to the rescue. The rest of the sandwich was arugula, tomato, red onion and aioli on a Parmesan crusted roll. The arugula was plentiful, similar to but not quite as extreme as what they’ve got at Clementine, but that would hardly be enough to carry the sandwich. Luckily it didn’t have to, as the pork belly was quite good and made for a fine sandwich.

Stall 239 – Vermont Ave, Los Angeles

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Stall 239 is a hole in the wall on Vermont, named after the number of the address. Street food is how it’s billed, and given that there isn’t a place to sit down I suppose that’s accurate. There are some classic deli sandwiches on the menu, but what caught my eye was the ‘specialty menu,’ with several interesting numbers listed. The Angry Bird caught my eye and is what you see above, a Taiwanese style fried chicken breast topped with a spicy coleslaw and served on a Hawaiian roll. I’ve seen some conflicting recipies on exactly what makes fried chicken Taiwanese style, but in this instance there was a distinct sweetness to it. That would be a nice contrast for a spicy coleslaw, but truth be told I found the coleslaw to be a bit bland. There’s a strong concept here, but the execution was lacking. Always tragic, that.

stall239-2I also went in for the Kalbi Smash, a combination of marinated Korean short ribs, grilled mushrooms, garlic, fried kimchi and mashed potatoes on ciabatta. I can’t really give this sandwich a fair shake, as the mashed potatoes weren’t ready when I stopped by and so I had the sandwich outside of its intended form. As it stands, though, it was quite good. I would note that that is Dutch crunch bread, and not ciabatta, but given how rare dutch crunch tends to be I’m not complaining. This one hit a good range of notes, sweet, savory, spicy, all playing well together. I’m curious about how it works with the straight starch of mashed potatoes included, so it seems that a return trip to Stall 239 is in order.

Roast Pork – Cafe Tropical, Sunset Blvd, Silver Lake

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cafetropicalMustard! Isn’t it wonderful, friends? This is a roast pork sandwich, consisting of roast pork and Swiss cheese. That’s not quite enough, unless you’re dealing with the absolute best in pork, and what are the odds that any given establishment you happen to find yourself in is offering the best possible roast pork? Not very good, by my estimation. But mustard! A healthy application of mustard brings a savory spiciness that brings a drab sandwich all the way up to perfectly acceptable. Let me be clear: I am not praising the sandwich, which absent the influence of mustard I found to be rather unimpressive. Rather, I wish to hail the transformative power of mustard. And this was yellow mustard, the absolute least of all mustards! So many different types, each wonderful in their own way, and each capable of doing so much for a sandwich. In the quest for the rarefied air of the sandwich world, it’s easy to lose sight of the everyday pleasures, the sorts of things that are constantly at work in making the average sandwich so darned enjoyable. Take a minute sometime to appreciate mustard. It’s given you so much, a small thank you isn’t much to ask.

Additionally, don’t miss Jon Bois’ paean to mustard.

The Brooklyner – The Curious Palate, Venice Blvd, Mar Vista

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brooklynerThe Curious Palate is one of those cafe style establishments that is, for lack of a better term, fancy. That’s a fine thing for a place to be, and certainly it would be nice if some of the standard chipotle-chicken-turkey-pesto places aimed a bit higher. But fancy places do come with a bit of a disadvantage, namely that the sandwiches are difficult to recreate at home. Take Mendocino Farms’ turkey confit, for example. You could make turkey confit at home, but it’s a long way to go for a sandwich. (I have no problem going to such lengths and would recommend it to all of you, but I recognize that each individual must make their own investment.) The Curious Palate has a number of sandwiches that would be a lot of work to put together in your own kitchen, but they also have several more straightforward numbers, and that’s not something that can be said about every fancy establishment. So kudos to them on that, for whatever it’s worth.

The Brooklyner is smoked salmon, goat cheese, a roasted tomato aioli, red onion, fresh sliced tomato and pickles on an extremely hearty, crusty sourdough. The salmon’s flavor is strong and distinct, the cheese is tangy and offsets the light smoke, and the pickles cut through the cheese. The tomatoes were fresh and firm, thankfully, and the tomato aioli gave their flavor a bit of depth and roundness. In short, it’s a fine lineup. And what’s more, tomato aioli aside, it’s something that wouldn’t be more trouble than a quick run to the grocers.

Turkey Confit with Yellow Rooster Sauce – Mendocino Farms, Los Angeles, CA

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turkeyconfitAlthough previous trips to Mendocino Farms (here and here) have been a tad disappointing, going back was never a question. It’s clear they put a lot of thought into the sandwiches and aim high, and even though I found previous efforts to miss the mark I knew that something would strike me. And something did! The turkey confit is part of the rotating, seasonal section of the menu, and it is a delight. A combination of pulled turkey leg confit with something they describe as yellow rooster sauce, with sesame ginger green papaya slaw, pickled red onions, their breadcrumb-esque krispies on a roll with a deep wheat flavor. Turkey, so often presented in bland, lunch meat form, is juicy and moist. The rooster sauce brings a level of heat neither insignificant nor overwhelming, and the slaw and the onions bring a tangy sweetness that works well inside the heat. The krispies were used in a much more sparing manner than in the not so fried chicken sandwich, and as a result they provided a nice textural contrast and were more than welcome. This is a very good sandwich, and it’s nice to know that Mendocino Farms has some real winners in its lineup.

The Rossini – Burger Bar, Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas

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I have spoken of the Rossini before. Not just spoken; I have praised, and done so at length. In my previous review I talked about Rossini himself, about why one might name a $60 hamburger after him, about what that says about him or about us. Having now had the hamburger a second time, all of that still stands. Perhaps even more emphatically. But this time I just want to talk about the burger.

Heading to Las Vegas recently, I knew I would return to the Burger Bar and eat the Rossini. That was never in question, but I did have my doubts if it was going to be as good as I hoped. I remembered it being very, very good, and given that memories often shine solely through the polish of nostalgia, I wondered if I might end up disappointed.

As it turned out, I had nothing to fear. Sweet mercy, is this ever a good hamburger. I took my time eating it, trying to stay mindful of every second, to engage it in communion. I spent time just smelling it, as I find that people do not smell their food as often as they could. It looks odd, but a meal only has so many bites, it has a nearly infinite number of molecules. Next time you’re really enjoying something, stop and smell it. I did, and it made no small difference. And oh, what scent there was to savor! The burger remains as simple as ever: wagyu beef, seared foie gras, and black truffles, served with a brown sauce. Each of those things are delicious in their own right, and what struck me most about the burger was how well they all come together. There are countless flavor profiles that work well together, but very few actually meld, presenting one unified flavor of an almost indescribable depth. There is not a tremendous range to it, there are few sweet notes and nothing really of spice, it is just richness. It is savory, incredible richness, and it is astoundingly good.

My associates each sampled the burger, so that I might confirm that this is not just me. Several of them agreed with me on how delicious it was but speculated they would be unable to consume an entire burger. That’s almost surprising to me, because if you look at the photo you’ll note that there really isn’t much foie gras and there aren’t many bits of truffle. This makes the Rossini stand out among upscale hamburgers, especially those in Las Vegas. It’s not a towering achievement, but it isn’t a modest one either. It’s a confident one, a hamburger aware of how strong its strengths are, knowing that it need not pile up what it contributes. It is at once expansive but not unrestrained, and this is a difficult balance for any sandwich to achieve, let alone one playing with foie gras and truffles and brown sauce.

The pictures I have taken do not do it justice, both in this post and certainly in the previous one. That is a testament to both my meager skill and the perma-dusk that grips every casino, and I hope you will not let that dissuade you from trying the burger, should you ever have the chance. It is a wonderful, wonderful hamburger, and I can’t recommend it enough.