The Mighty Cone, South Congress, Austin, TX

Yeah, it’s food in a cone but at least part of it came between two pieces of bread so I’m counting it as a sandwich.  Also, there was ice cream reviewed on here recently, that is so cheating y’all.

Earlier in the day I’d probably had some kind of meat and cheese starter and later that evening I believe I had a dessert containing meat and cheese, we’re going to concentrate on the meat and cheese course though.  It looked like this.

It is called a Slider.  I don’t really know why, it looked like a burger to me.  A perfectly formed delicious small burger made of beef in a lightly toasted bun covered in lovely American magic melty cheese and containing some things I had yet to see that week in Texas.  I think they were vegetables.  I dug deep in my memory and recognised them as tomato, red onion and lettuce. 

I never thought I’d say this but the slider (burger) was perfectly cooked, they took a little while preparing it, longer than say, my local leisure centre (this is the only other place that has served me a meal in cones) but it was worth it.  It actually melted in my mouth and the secret Texan burger sauce had the right balance of spiciness and creaminess. The service itself actually only loses a point for me having to wait outside when it was windy.  This may seem a tad harsh but it would be unfair on indoor competition otherwise.  I’m nothing if not fair.  It blew over a couple’s food and everything.

I’ve not even mentioned the chilli fries yet.  Why don’t more establishments serve these?  They’re brilliant.  You know, chips, like dusted in chilli power.  Oh so simple and oh so beautiful. 

The only slightly confusing thing about this meal was that the small tub of salsa that came with it tasted slightly of tomato rather than fire.  Texans seem well up for eating hot salsa with everything at any time of day.  Even with the omelette type thing I had for breakfast the day before.  Madness.

The bonus part of this meal is that it clearly isn’t fried.  Look, it says on the van.  This means it’s healthy.  Probably.

Scores:

Price: 3

Taste: 4

Look: 3.5

Service: 3

Originality: 1.5 (it was a cheese burger in all but name)

 Total: 15

Matthew L Jarrett

AARON PANONES COLUMN

One of our favourite online magazines, SELECTISM has recently added a welcome addition 
to its impressive list of online bloggers. Aaron Panone is a mechanical designer with 
a background in electrical and mechanical engineering but like us here at the club he 
has a serious love of food. Here are some pictures of his latest posts. 
You can check the rest here.




 

	

The Lamb Public House, Newport

Traditionally the sandwich club reviews sandwiches by purchasing them and then eating them.  This makes the marking process at the end a lot easier.  I decided against this as it was a bit of a spur of the moment decision to review this sandwich based only on its majestic appearance.

I happened to be in The Lamb enjoying a social beverage when my eyes happened upon the sandwich below.

The eagle eyed amongst you may notice that the architect of this layered foodstuff has decided that the customers in his establishment really, really like onion.  Given that I like my onion in small pieces rather than a chuck the size of Gibraltar, I opted not to buy this sandwich so cannot review it in a fair and just way.  So I’ll just cheat/make it up.

Firstly though I need to point out that in the same pub was the following poster:

Obviously this gives the whole experience bonus points which will be reflected in my final score.  Any cat called John that has gone missing from his owner called John automatically gains anything style marks.  So, the points:

Price: 3

Taste: Probably 1

Look: 5 (bonus onion point)

Service: 3

Originality: 4

Total: 16

Matthew L Jarrett

Dragons Kitchen, Castle Arcade

‘I want you to hit me as hard as you can!’*

Great words from a great book/film (cue opinionated discussion on the merits of Fight Club).

We at The Sandwich Club don’t like to pick a fight, however on this occasion a few punches need to be thrown at Dragon’s Kitchen.

From the outside it all looks very well presented with a light airy feel, ample seating, an iPod dock regurgitating background muzak and a little kid’s library.

There’s a definite Welsh theme to this new establishment, daffodils adorn each table and the menu drops the odd welsh ‘twist’ to some otherwise familiar dishes (more later).

We are urged to take a seat and we take an available table upstairs. Unfortunately this is still cluttered with the previous customer’s empties and it takes a good few minutes for it to be tidied up. We’re then asked for drinks to tie us over whilst we choose our food.

Coffees arrive and they taste pretty good. We give our orders – Crayfish Tails with dressing** on granary bloomer, Perl Las cheese*** with grape chutney on rustic baguette and ‘Dragons Breathe’ spicy chicken on sun dried tomato and olive bread.

Then the wait…and the wait…and more wait…our coffees by this time are all gone and we are still waiting. A chap who seems to be in charge scurries over and reassures both the table next to us and ourselves that the food is on its way and won’t be long.

And we still wait. Surely not a good sign for anyone tempted by something from their mains menu. If it takes this long to prepare a fresh sandwich you may be waiting a while.

At this point I’ll skip to the food.

Crayfish Tails with dressing on granary bloomer

‘It was essentially a prawn cocktail between two floppy bits of bread’ Far too much butter and furthermore there could be  information provided with regard to what the dressing was.

Perl Las with grape chutney on rustic baguette

The bread was very nice, and the whole dish was well presented. Good coleslaw, side salad and vegetable crisps. However, the proportions of the filling were all wrong. Big lumps of butter, the odd bit of cheese**** and a slight spreading of chutney, in parts I was eating not much more than bread and butter.

‘Dragons Breathe’ spicy chicken on sun dried tomato and olive bread

In other words coronation chicken, which comes as a bit of a disappointment, given the name. The bread was fairly good, but again the filling was lacking.

All in all this was not a good experience and this is reflected in our scoring. I sincerely hope they are able to iron out these failings quickly as this has potential given its location.

The first rule of Sandwich Club is…

Rating:

Price: 1.5

Taste: 2

Look: 3

Service: 2

Originality: 2

Total: 10.5

*Tyler Durden, Fight Club

**non-specified

***I enquired to what type of cheese this was, what with not being a Welsh speaker, and the waiter had no clue as to what it was. I hope he had better luck with the French family sat opposite.

****it was a blue cheese (Perl Las means blue pearl)