I'm back, ladies and gentlemen, and so is Ike's! After a brief blogging hiatus to tie the knot with my sandwich-loving mate, I availed myself of the newly reopened Ike's Place, serving lunch Monday through Friday at Lime, the nightclubby Castro brunch spot. Though I heard that some customers had to wait a while to get phone orders filled, I had no trouble: we called at 12:30 to pick up sammies at 1 p.m. and enjoyed them in the Jetsons-like space of Lime. Emphasis on "enjoyed" — hello old friend!
Ike's sandwiches make great hangover food, so how appropriate that the recently shuttered sandwich shop is now operating out of a bar. C.W. Nevius reports that Ike is reopening today for lunch in the popular Castro bar and brunch spot Lime, known for its topless bartenders and bottomless mimosas.
Until Ike finds a new place, Ike's @ Lime will be serving lunch Monday through Saturday, via phone orders only. I think this calls for a postwedding sandwich on Monday. After all, shouldn't the wedding of sandwich lovers be sandwiched by sandwiches?
Most regional sandwiches involve a trademark local food: lobster rolls in Maine, oyster po'boys in New Orleans, or pork in Indiana. But the chow mein sandwich is a little different — OK, a lot different.
Drive-ins, diners, and cafes around Fall River, Mass., and some parts of Rhode Island offer a local favorite known as the chow mein sandwich. Made with crunchy noodles, brown gravy, and vegetables piled onto a hamburger bun, the creation traces its local lineage to the Oriental Chow Mein Company noodle factory in Fall River, founded in 1936.
The sandwich was a staple on Fall River's school lunch menus as recently as the 1990s, and today you can sop up your chow mein sauce with hamburger buns at joints throughout the region, including Mee-Sum in Fall River and Evelyn's Drive-In.
Now, Food Gal has also spotted chow mein sandwiches at Clover Bakery in San Jose. This Japanese bakery peddles in creatively stuffed buns filled with chow mein (pictured above) and spaghetti, as well as white bread sandwiches involving potato salad or strawberries and cream. Though I'll admit they look and sound strange, I'd still be up for sampling one if I'm ever down in SJ. Would you dig in?
Source: Food Gal
As a wedding sendoff, my fellow editors organized a sandwich excursion today to The Sentinel. Awww, thanks guys! I got the smoked trout with fennel and tarragon. The sweet baked bread was a perfect foil to the bold fish and the aromatic fennel.
I've already considered the Pop Tart ice cream sandwich, and now we have this experiment from Slate's Gastro Lab. In the video, two tinkerers try out several innovative uses of Pop Tarts, including a BLT made with Brown Sugar Cinnamon Pop Tarts in place of bread. In college, low-fat Brown Suga Cinnamon Pop Tarts were my idea of a health food, so I must confess: I'd eat the crap out of this sandwich. What do you think about Pop Tarts as bread?
Today I picked up an eggplant, tomato, goat cheese, and basil sandwich at Golden West, the new lunch spot from the Canteen and Sentinel chef, Dennis Leary. Like
The Sentinel, the homemade bread is divine, perfect as a sweet complement to the goat cheese. But also like The Sentinel, it was a mess to eat. Maybe that is why they gave me a fork!
I bristle at paying more than $10 for a sandwich (though I will, if it's worth it), so a $100 sandwich isn't on my sand wish list. Every few years, it seems, some chef dreams up a buzzworthy sandwich or burger stuffed with luxury ingredients and promoted by its high price tag. This week, it's cheese sandwich that costs $176.
Created by Chef Martin Blunos for England's Frome cheese show, the double-decker sandwich features bespoke white truffle cheese (price: 92 pounds), quail egg, heirloom black tomato, "epicure apple," figs, a few veggie flourishes and — get this — a sprinkling of gold dust.
While I'd like to try the bespoke cheese, tomatoes, figs, and apples seems like an odd combo to me, and why ruin a good sandwich with sourdough? (Sorry, not a sourdough fan; leave your angry remarks in the comments.)
For other notoriously expensive sandwiches throughout history, keep reading.
I first read about the Broken Record on The Hamblogger, which inspired a long trek out to Crocker Amazon in search of the heralded bacon and beef burger. But the Broken Record is so much more than a purveyor of beef patties embedded with diced bacon — though that alone would be enough. It's really like a reverse epicurean mullet: dive bar in the front, duck confit salad in the back. The watering hole raises the bar on bar food. Click through to see how.
UPDATE: As of last night, Ike's Place is closed, for real this time. Apparently the late-night farewell had folks waiting in line until the wee hours. I wish Ike the best in finding a new location in San Francisco soon!
I really didn't think this would happen, but apparently the NIMBYs of this city are uglier and more self-involved than I could even imagine. As of today, Ike's Place is being evicted from its cozy nook in the Castro.
By 5 p.m., San Francisco's favorite sandwich shop will be forced to shut its doors, after grumpy neighbors complained that it was basically too popular. I just cannot understand why we would want to chase out a successfully, locally owned business that's guilty of nothing but bringing people to the neighborhood and, I guess, smelling like food — 'cause, you know, that's so rare for a restaurant. Ugh. I really don't really know what else to say. I just hope Ike's can find a new home where they are appreciated. A moment of silence for Ike's Place. UPDATE: A Between the Bread tipster who just stopped by Ike's says the business has at least one more day, because the court mistakenly evicted Ike, not Ike's Place LLC. Does anyone know if this is true?
On a recent road trip, Between the Bread reader Tiffany took in a sandwich from Big Town Hero in Ashland, OR, which is apparently a regional chain and a delicious one at that. Says Tiff, "Turkey, cucumber, lettuce, cream cheese. Very English. Super yum." Turkey, cukes, and cream cheese is one of my favorite combos.
Got your own sandwiches to share? Email a photo and a description of your sandwich to nancy@betweenthebreadblog.com.
Latest Comments