I love the Google

While doing some terribly important research (sandwiches and travel, of course) on the internet, I came upon an astounding discovery. I was searching on the Roadfood website for places to eat in San Francisco and Portland, since Beth and I were heading there over Thanksgiving. To my pleasant surprise, the featured Roadfood of the day was a Fried Egg Sandwich! Cool! The reviewer described a fancy egg sandwich from a fancy sandwich place called 'wichcraft in New York City. Since I am a slave to sandwich night research, I had to check out their site. Lo and behold, they have a store in San Francisco!

We had lunch there on Monday--the fried egg (toasted ciabatta, over hard eggs, vinaigrette dressed frisee, bacon, gorgonzola cheese) as well as the roasted turkey (toasted ciabatta, real turkey, avocado, bacon, onion relish). Both were pretty phenomenal. As a bonus, they came with delicious Tim's potato chips. The only improvement on the fried egg would have been an over medium yolk, like the Roadfood site described. Are Californians afraid of undercooked yolks? The turkey sandwich was pretty much perfect. Check out their menu for some more awesome sandwich ideas. I wish they would open in downtown St. Paul, how cool would that be?

What's on YOUR fried egg sandwich?

First of all, that question is one of the greatest conversation starters of all time. Seriously. Try it. No one gives the same answer. It's amazing.

Karen and I have been collecting fried egg sandwich ideas from everyone we talk to. The variety is staggering.

To start with there's the wide spectrum of yolk hardness from over easy to fried hard to broken.

Here are the bread choices we have collected:
white toast, wheat toast, ciabatta, English muffin, Italian bread, bagel, croissant, biscuit, brioche, rye, cracked wheat

And the cheese:
provolone, cheddar, gruyere, gorgonzola, brie, swiss, American

And the meat:
bacon, Canadian bacon

Veggies:
arugula, tomato, bell peppers, onions, mushrooms, caramelized onions, parsley, fresh herbs

Condiments:
ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, butter, harissa, tabasco sauce, horseradish, truffle oil, Hollandaise, Bearnaise

Holy Sandwich Batman! How will we choose?

Next up: Sandwich Night goes on the road

Karen is hosting the next sandwich night on December 3 at her sweet new pad. Email me for directions.

The sandwich will be.........

Fried Egg!

Oh the possibilities...what's essential for your favorite fried egg sandwich?

Ooh la la!

Last night was French Dip and they were delicieux.

I made my regular roast beef--take a rump roast, trim off most of the fat, cut slits in it and stuff garlic cloves in the holes, then cover the whole thing with lemon pepper. I roast that on a rack in a pan for 1-2 hours, depending on the size and shape of the meat. This method, guaranteed to make a tasty roast, unfortunately turns the pan juices to carbon. So this time, I transferred the roast to a dish when it was done and collected all the juices that came out while it was resting.
Then on to the dip part of the French Dip--to make au jus, I read a bunch of recipes on line and settled on a mixture of styles. I minced an onion and 4 gloves of garlic and sauteed them in butter. Then I added a little dried thyme and rosemary. I added a healthy slug of red wine, the collected juices, and a quart of Swanson's beef broth. I let it simmer for about an hour while I sliced the meat. Yay meat slicer!
To serve, I put the sliced meat in a pan with some of the jus to heat up. Then I put some jus in a frying pan so we could dip the bread in it during the assembly. The rest of the jus went in a saucepan, to serve out into ramekins for dipping.
The sandwiches went together beautifully. Pieces of baguette, sliced lengthwise, then dipped cut side down in jus. Then meat, horseradish and cheese (provolone or Swiss) if desired. I made two smaller sandwiches--one with and one without cheese. It's hard to pick which was better.
And what do you serve with French Dip? French fries, of course! And Peru!


We hosted some sandwich night newbies--Beth's coworker Jennifer and her two kids, Anja and Ben. Anja loves to bite things--including sandwiches larger than her head! Jennifer's husband Steve couldn't make it--he became the second recipient ever of a Sandwich Night to-go order. I'm told was gratefully received.



Karen and Kate came, too. Kate said she had been craving the French Dip ever since it was a poll option a few weeks ago. I hope you're happy now, Kate. We also had a double feature viewing of Heroes and last week's America's Next Top Model. And Kate brought apple cake. Truly an epic night.

Banner Sandwich Day

Today was quite the sandwich-o-rama.
First Tony (my pest control guy and frequent SIHL commentor) took me the the famous Gopher Bar for Coneys. These are REAL chili dogs!

They use hot dog rolls, rather than buns, and they grill them so the outside is greasy and crispy and fantastic. The dog is just a normal dog and the chili is quite simple. They spread mustard on top of that, then smother the thing in chopped onions and shredded cheese. I'm not a huge fan of raw onions, but in this application, they rocked. Dare I say, gestalt!

Plus, I admired the sheet of wax paper and the fork the server dropped off before the coneys came up. Just right for catching all the inevitable drippings. I'm not even going to start on the ambiance of the place. Just go there--it's an original.

For dinner tonight I made roasted vegetable sandwiches. I roasted portobello mushrooms, red peppers, zucchini, and red onions. Then I stacked them on olive oil rosemary bread with some goat cheese. I put them in the oven to melt the cheese and settled in with my honey to watch Kitchen Nightmares. Why? Because they were at a restaurant less than a mile away from where I grew up. And because it was the most profanity filled episode ever filmed. A 47 minute long bleep fest. For the record, the sandwiches were awesome and we're never going to eat at that jerk's restaurant.

Next Sandwich Night!

Monday, November 12.
French Dip.
Be there.