I still have yet to try the best tortas in town, at either Tortas Los Picudos or La Torta Gorda, depending on who you ask. I hope to check at least one of them off my sand wish list soon, but until then, I tend to my torta cravings elsewhere, including my new neighborhood taqueria, El Rancho Grande.
Our neighborhood needed a good Mexican place, and while El Rancho Grande isn't particularly noteworthy, it's also not bad — and it's right there. Plus, they have tortas! I ordered the barbecued chicken torta to go, which was a little too barbecuey for my taste, but I tend to prefer less sauce.
Avocado, refried beans, and creamy cheese joined the chicken on a fluffy, toasted roll. Unlike other tortas I've tried, this sandwich wasn't enormous but a perfectly satisfying size.
On a recent Sunday night after a very long Saturday night, we picked up food at our neighborhood burger joint and popped Zombieland into the DVD player. Really a great night, actually.
I'd been to Acme Burgerhaus once before and got a good impression on my first visit, with a delightful turkey, mushroom, and Swiss burger.
This time I opted for the chicken "burger." I'd really call it a chicken sandwich, since the meat isn't ground into a patty but sliced off the breast and grilled. Not that I'm complaining, because it was delicious. Andrew got a real burger — bacon cheese, to be exact. For my full review, read more
In Louisiana, lagniappe is "a little something extra" — the 13th donut in a baker's dozen or the "soup meat" leftover from making vegetable soup. When we made gumbo a few weeks ago, we made a roux using vegetable oil with bacon fat. The lagniappe in this case? Leftover bacon. Of course, it made its way onto sandwiches.
To make the lagniappe-laden burgers, I combined two of my favorite Trader Joe's items: the roasted chicken patties and the honey wheat hamburger buns. We cooked the chicken in the broiler, then added the cooked bacon and cheese and put them back under the heat for a few minutes. Avocado provided the perfect finish; it's really pretty hard to go wrong with this combo. Check out more photos.
This was one of those fridge-clean-out sandwiches that came together so brilliantly I wanted to make it again immediately. I started with some ingredients I needed to use up ASAP: precooked chicken patties from Trader Joe's, a bag of mixed Southern-style greens, and a yellow onion.
Then, to make things a little more interesting, enter a jar of roasted piquillo peppers and sliced white cheddar cheese. To balance out all that bite, I settled on cranberry-walnut bread from Acme, while sauteed onions also added sweetness.
In New York City, I'm told, banh mi are so 2008, perhaps because the New York Times discovered them? But San Francisco's two-block Vietnamese sandwich mecca, in Little Saigon, is still very much worth a trip. Particularly Saigon Sandwiches, which despite being profiled in Esquire and Yelped silly remains a reliably cheap and unbelievably delicious hole in the wall.
The $3 sandwiches come with a limited number of filling options; the chicken, pork, and pork meatball are too divine for me to ever order the tofu. My favorite is the chicken, pictured here. Check out the mouth-watering details and an indulgent number of pics.
I have sampled many sandwiches at Ike's Place — most recently the Sometimes I'm a Vegetarian (mushrooms, marinated artichokes, pesto, and swiss — yum!) and the MILF (chicken, ranch, Frank's Red Hot sauce, and jalapeño poppers!). But my no-fail favorite is the We're Just Friends.
This comparatively simple sandwich succeeds mostly because of the succulent, orange-glazed shredded chicken, its sweetness situated next to pepperjack cheese and just-right avocado. I get it with everything, which includes lettuce, tomato, pickles, onions, banana peppers, and Ike's famous "dirty sauce." See some more photos, and find out how We're Just Friends got its name.
On the way back from seeing Animal Collective in Big Sur, we planned a stop in Burlingame to eat at the much-lauded Bonne Sante, recommended by local sandwich lover Mandy. The pitstop did not disappoint: huge, Italian-influenced subs stuffed with a rainbow of surprising ingredients. I wish I'd written down the names of the sandwiches we enjoyed, but I remember the gist. Mine had a thick, moist, herbed chicken breast with green pepper and some sort of berry jam/relish, which was a little too sweet but perfect by the time I had the second half for dinner. Andrew's was a spicy deal featuring chicken fingers and all sorts of other yummy flavors. The bread (French and Dutch Crunch) was fluffy like clouds and the veggies crisp and succulent. But really, these photos speak for themselves.
I love my neighborhood, but I dearly miss living in the sandwich mecca that is the Lower Haight. Until recently, the 'wich options in the Western Addition have been pretty woeful, which is why I was so excited to welcome B's BBQ and Grill. After a somewhat underwhelming meal when it first opened, we returned to our new neighborhood barbecue joint the other night and got sandwiches to go.
I opted for the smoked chicken sandwich on wheat bread, which came with lettuce, tomato, onion, and spicy barbecue sauce. It's like a messy BBQ sandwich conceived at a deli counter, but it actually works, and I always like getting some veggies, no matter how minimal. The moist, thin-sliced chicken tastes straight out a smokehouse. On the side, I got sweet baked beans, which remind me of picnics in Pensacola. They were simple but classic.
Andrew got the pulled pork, which was served on "ciabatta" that was really just a French roll. He voted against the lettuce and tomato, which I think was the right choice, and piled on a side of spicy slaw instead. The pork was a little ketchupier than I like it — I like the one I made better — but it was moist and juicy against the crusty bread.
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