Tag Archives: Sandwiches Made For Me

Kurobuta Pork Belly Banh Mi – Mendocino Farms, Los Angeles, CA

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This is either a pretty good sandwich or it’s a poor imitation of a bánh mì. I don’t think that’s what Mendocino Farms was going for, but as near as I can tell, that’s what they got.

You could disqualify this as a bánh mì strictly based on the fact that it doesn’t come on a baguette. Some might see that as needlessly pedantic, but you can’t expect to run around swapping in ciabatta bread and not have someone call you to account. Even ignoring the bread, though, this comes up short.

The flavor profile is off. Bánh mì come lots of different ways, but they all have a particular savory/vegetable/cilantro/heat balance to them. This sandwich doesn’t have that. The pork is incredibly rich and very, very juicy, which ends up dominating the rest of the sandwich. The sandwich is billed as having a “chili aioli,” and while I’d like to weigh that against buttery Vietnamese mayo, I couldn’t really make it out to be considered. The vegetables suffer the same fate.

But all of that that doesn’t necessarily make it a bad sandwich. The bánh mì depends heavily on balance, but not all sandwiches are so. It is the difference between an ensemble performance and a solo act, a simple difference of vision. If you take this as a pork belly sandwich, it’s delicious. The pork is front and center, and everything else plays quietly in the background, rounding out some bites but being pleasantly absent in others. It’s really high quality pork, rich and savory, and well worth its own sandwich. This is a sandwich well worth eating, but don’t mistake it for a bánh mì.

Welcome to the Jungle – Cheviot Farms, National Blvd, Los Angeles, CA

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I don’t remember a tremendous amount about this sandwich. I frequently take notes, but this time I happened not to, and in any event the fact that I can’t remember much about it says more than I might have written down. That’s turkey in there, and I want to say it’s peppered in some way. There’s mustard and mayo, and lettuce and tomato and avocado and sprouts. It wasn’t a bad sandwich, but it was forgettable. A sandwich called “Welcome to the Jungle” really ought to have a hell of an attitude, shouldn’t it? I mean, at the very least, shouldn’t it be interesting?

I feel like I should apologize for picking on Cheviot Farms here, because they’re hardly the only people serving forgettable sandwiches. That’s kind of the point, actually, that I’e had this sandwich 100 times at 100 different establishments, all of them more or less the same. Long-time readers will know how much I hate the mediocre; aim high and fail, aim high and succeed, aim low and succeed. All of those things are fine with me. But to just sort of aim at the middle and hey, that’s where you end up so that’s good enough, there’s no saving that. You’ve got sprouts, pile them on! Give me some earthy flavor. Give me a mustard of some color that doesn’t appear in an eight pack of crayons. You want to pepper the turkey, pepper it! Do something to make your sandwich stand out from every other sandwich.  And here I compound the sin by bothering to tell other people about it! I have pictures of 100 sandwiched about which I have absolutely nothing to say, and I try to spare the reader the tedium, but sometimes I cannot help myself. Enough. There is always another sandwich, a better one, and I hope to bring word of it soon.

The Oinkster – Colorado Blvd, Eagle Rock

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My initial experience with Eagle Rock standout The Oinkster was something of a disappointment, but also something of a fluke. My esteemed associate Bill has since returned more than once, highlighting some of the things on offer at what is, by nearly all accounts, an outstanding sandwich shop. I found myself there recently and was able to sample some of those things, and I came away as delighted as anyone. I’m not breaking any new ground in praising the Oinkster, but I do believe the sandwich shop is a special thing and it deserves to be recognized as such. I’ve discussed this before, how many places sell sandwiches but the Sandwich Shop is a different thing entirely, and a good one is to be treasured.

The above sandwich was their special of the moment, a pork patty grilled and put between bread with provolone, peppers and onions, and marinara. There’s not much to complain about there, the pork was moist and tasty, the flavor combination tried-and-true.

The Oinkster sells a burger called The Royale, and it’s piled high with chili, bacon and pastrami. So I’m not sure if I can call the above Oinkster Pastrami the intended ne plus ultra of the menu, it shares the shop’s name and is built to highlight the pastrami upon which they pride themselves, but it isn’t listed first on the menu and it doesn’t carry the same mien that featured sandwiches from other establishments do. None of that has any bearing on its quality, I suppose, and it’s quite good. It’s pastrami, cabbage, grilled onions and Gruyere cheese. That’s tasty, and it’s presented in reasonable proportion, but I think the cheese gets a bit lost. Regardless, it’s tasty as heck and a reasonable contender in a town where “best pastrami” is no small contest.

Truffle Grilled Cheese – Wally’s Cheese Box, Westwood Blvd, Westwood

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Wally’s cheese box is a small shop annexed from Wally’s Wine and Spirits, the selection of cheeses, artisan this and that, and other specialty ingredients having grown too large to be contained within the larger liquor store. I’ve had good experiences eating from places associated with liquor stores, so I was excited to give them a go. The truffle grilled cheese came recommended by the incredibly helpful staff, and who on earth would turn down truffles?

The truffle grilled cheese is what it says on the tin, a grilled cheese made from cheese that is flecked with black truffles. It’s delicious, but as you might expect I was left wanting more truffle. The flavor was there, but it’s already a timid friend and it had a lot of cheese to contend with. Warm, gooey, delicious cheese, but cheese capable of drowning out a truffle nonetheless. The brioche was buttery and crunchy, well grilled but not burnt. All together, that’s a tasty sandwich that’s also a fair deal, but it did leave me wondering what else might be possible. That’s two positives, to my eye. What more could we ask of sandwiches than to both be delicious and spur us on to greater heights?

Choripan – Grand Casino Bakery, Main St, Culver City

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Choripán is traditional South American street food, first recommended to me by respected associates, one of whom gives a good rundown of it and other associated foods here. It’s a simple sandwich – sausage, crusty roll, chimichurri sauce. Sometimes there’s mayonnaise, sometimes fried onions or peppers, or lettuce and tomato. Ordinarily my reaction to such things on the side is to point out that I ordered a sandwich and not a hobby kit, but given the varied nature of the sandwich I’m inclined to forgive it here.

Needless to say, it’s delicious. A dose of fresh, bright chimichurri will make just about anything sing, from sausage to steak to most any meat, and almost certainly something like tofu or even roasted cauliflower. The main trick seems to be knowing that there isn’t much else required, but all the same I think something like a kidney bean humus might make an interesting accompaniment here. The simple pairing of two delicious, quality ingredients is almost cheating, in a way, but given the delicious nature of the outcome I imagine we’re all only too happy to look the other way.

Curried Chicken – Food Lab, Santa Monica Blvd, West Hollywood

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I have discussed Food Lab before, and my experience there left plenty of motivation for a return visit. The menu contains a number of sandwiches that sound delicious, and on this day I elected for the curried chicken sandwich, with lingonberry chutney on raisin walnut bread. It comes as described, with a towering pile of what is effectively curried chicken salad. I’m not at all opposed to sandwiches that are mostly a big pile of one ingredient, but this particular sandwich functions less as a delight and more as an exhibit of the need for balance. The chutney was a sweet counterpart to the chicken where it was present, but with that much chicken there just wasn’t enough of it. Spreading it on the top and bottom would have been a good start. Needless to say, the lower notes of the bread are similarly lost to the chicken, which is too bad. Curried chicken, lingonberry chutney and raisin walnut bread is a fine lineup, but it makes a poor show when the chicken reads the lines for all three.

Albacore Sandwich – The Kitchen, Fountain Ave, Silver Lake, Los Angeles

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I have a special place in my heart for sandwiches built around a quality piece of tuna, and I have an extra special place for delicious sandwiches built around a quality pice of tuna. That’s the albacore sandwich at The Kitchen, a combination of tuna, Asian pear, pickled red onion, mixed greens & wasabi mayo on a well-toasted baguette. That’s a great combination. The sweetness of the pear balances the spice of the wasabi, and the greens bring earthy undertones. That the bite of the red onion is slightly tempered by the pickling is the real signal of quality here.

Tuna is a delicate meat, easily overwhelmed by assertive flavors. The pear and the greens are subtle and play well, while there was restraint in the wasabi that kept it from being too strong. Red onion could easily blast out the rest of the sandwich, but a bit of pickling keeps everything in harmony. The baguette was well toasted, you can see a bit of char on the underside in the photo. That kept things crunchy, and made the bread yield to a bite rather than require a clamp-and-tear maneuver

Simply put, this sandwich had the mark of proper execution from top to bottom, and that’s a wonderful thing. Many a well-conceived sandwich falls short by the time it makes it to the plate, and the times when that doesn’t happen are well worth celebrating.

SlawBeJo – Capriotti’s Sandwich Shop, Wilshire Blvd, Beverly Hills

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Capriotti’s is a small but growing sandwich chain. They fancy themselves towards the upscale end of things, and they make an effort to live up to that. The beef and turkey are roasted in-house, for example, although likely in the same sort of prepared-product-at-very-specific-company-standards sort of way that Subway bakes their own bread. I’m not 100% certain that’s the case, but the overall quality of the sandwich hints that it is.

The SlawBeJo is roast beef, coleslaw, provolone cheese, Russian dressing and mayo. The mayo jumps out at me. I respect mayo as a technical ingredient, one that brings a structural element to things. It’s there to prevent bread from getting soggy, not for the flavor. With both Russian dressing and coleslaw involved, there’s simply no need for additional mayo. That’s a conceptual error, though the mayonnaise boosters out there are well within their rights to champion their bland glop all they like.

Mayonnaise aside, this has the potential to be a pretty good sandwich. Contrast in textures, potential for a strong but balanced set of flavors, it’s all there. The problem with Capriotti’s isn’t their vision, it’s that their vision is stretched across nearly 100 establishments. The coleslaw is bland, begging for a bit of pepper. The Russian dressing is hardly present, likely the result of some cost-minded portion control. Flavor by way of committee ruined what could have been a very good sandwich, and there’s no excuse for that.

Brisket Sandwich – LA Buns & Company – Santa Monica Blvd, Los Angeles, CA

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LA Buns & Company is an establishment right on the main drag in West Hollywood, a large food stand vending hamburgers, hot dogs, tacos and all the rest of the food one finds oneself craving as night rolls into morning. That’s about when I found myself there, and I was entranced by the brisket sandwich. Tucked in the corner of the menu, there’s a note to the side that reads “Sensational!” That’s quite a boast, and brisket stands out on a menu of quick-cooking, greasy-spoon food.

The sandwich itself is the same sesame-seed roll that holds all the burgers, piled reasonably high with slices of brisket and sauerkraut. I think sauerkraut is an underutilized sandwich ingredient, and it was a welcome addition here. The brisket was tender but a touch dry, but it had a good flavor with a touch of spice and a touch of tomato. All together, though, I don’t think I would hail it as sensational, and that raises the question of how much to hold menu copy against a sandwich. Looking to a menu board for an unbiased recommendation is a fool’s errand, I suppose, but lord knows I’ve taken less reputable advice in search of a great sandwich.

Confit Onion & Feta Chicken Sandwich – Bloom Cafe, Pico Blvd, Los Angeles, CA

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Confit of onion is a classic technique wherein onions are simmered with white wine, stock and herbs until it reduces to a jam consistency. That’s what was involved here, along with chicken, feta cheese, red bell pepper and some greens. I like this sandwich in concept, but in eating it I couldn’t help but wonder why they didn’t just go with plain old caramelized onions. Onion confit can really be done up royal: homemade stock, anchovies, secret blends of spices, hours on the stove, you can really get into it and produce something special. But if you half-ass the thing you just end up with half-browned onions that are really kind of bland. That’s really too bad, because while the feta and the chicken are a great combination the sandwich was lacking the notes of sweetness needed for a decent harmony. I will say that it was nice of Bloom Cafe to provide the sandwich on regular old toast, and not slather things in mayonnaise where it wasn’t necessary. That indicates to me a strong conceptual awareness, something that makes the failure of execution in the onion confit all the more disappointing.