Hawaiian Grilled Cheese

Aloha!  Can anyone tell me what's better than going to Hawaii?  That's right-- bringing Hawaii to you!  Sadly there is no way to do that, but I figured I could try via a Hawaiian Grilled Cheese.  This is listed in the dessert section of GGC and looked sweet as sweet can be (seriously, you put sugar on it).  Ingredients are as follows:

1 loaf of Hawaiian sweet bread, 8 ounces of fromage blanc, 1/2 cup diced pineapple, 1/4 cup sweetened coconut, and 2 Tbsp. sugar (not pictured because it was in a styrofoam cup that I stole from my office-- no sense in buying a whole huge bag of sugar when I only needed 2 Tbsp.).  You'll note there's also some ham in the frame-- this is because I wanted to expand on the recipe and try something similar to a Hawaiian pizza (aka ham and pineapple).  I figured that could be my entree and the one without ham could be dessert!

Step one was spreading the coconut on a baking sheet and putting it in a 300 degree oven for 6-7 minutes.

It came out smelling yummy and looking like this:

While that was cooking I had been working on starting the rest of the filling.  Since I had a can of pineapple chunks lying around I wanted to make use of them, but the recipe calls for minced pineapple-- so I chopped the chunks up, but noticed that this caused a lot of the juice to run out, so I'd sort of try to scoop the juice into the bowl with the minced pineapple to preserve it.  Turns out this might not have been the best idea (I'll explain in a second). 

Once the pineapple was minced I added the fromage blanc to it.  I had never tasted fromage blanc before, and for those of you who haven't either I would best describe it as a sort of cross between Greek yogurt and sour cream.  So I stirred that in with the pineapple, the 2 Tbsp. of sugar and the toasted coconut.

Next I cut up four large slices of the Hawaiian bread (that I then cut in half to make manageable sized sandwiches) and buttered one side of each.  I was first introduced to Hawaiian bread when they used it for communion at church and man is it delicious!  It tastes just like dense angel food cake (needless to say, I was snacking on the excess).

The obvious next step was applying the pineapple mixture evenly to the slices of bread.  This is when I realized that my addition of the pineapple juice may not have been the best idea.  The mixture was really runny, almost like a thick soup consistency.  This didn't leave me feeling good about the prospect of it actually staying on the sandwich as I cooked it.  Oh well, I trust GGC to not lead me astray.

Next it was time for my rebellious deviation from the recipe-- I added the sliced brown sugar ham to two of the sandwiches.

I still wasn't confident that this would be enough to counteract the sweetness (I had sampled the mixture and it was pure sugar).  Lucky for me, I still had a smidgen of jack cheese left over from the spicy double jack sandwich, so I grated the cheese up and added it to one of the ham sandwiches.

Oh Snap!  Getting Crazy!

The instructions advised (after adding the second slice of bread) that I cut off the edges of the bread to make a tight seal around the sandwich.  They had suggested this for the hazelnut goat cheese grilled cheese and not following that suggestion was a mistake then, so I decided to give it a try this time.  However, after two cuts I realized this was just going to make more of a mess than it would save.

Notice the bread does not look pinched together at all.

Oh well, onwards and upwards!  Into the pan they went.  Since these were relatively small it was easy to fit two in the pan at one time.  GGC noted that Hawaiian bread is very soft, so it both tears and burns easily.  With this in mind I had the heat set to low and carefully tried to cook them.  I think my non-stick pan might be losing its thunder, though, because bits of the bread did keep sticking to the pan.  I opted to add a dash of non-stick cooking spray for the second round and that helped immensely.

First pass at cooking was NOT a pretty sight.

I ended up with the following results:

Does anyone else feel like the ham sandwich is sticking its tongue out at you?  Just me?  OK then...

They weren't quite as toasted as I usually like my sandwiches (I let my fear of burning them/the difficulty in flipping them scare me into not cooking them for long enough), but resolved this when making the second batch by cooking them on a slightly higher heat.  Here's one of those:

Taste Review:

I started off with the "entree" aka sandwich with ham.  It was literally hard to hold it because the bread is so soft (and prone to holes).  Immediately upon tasting it I was grateful for the ham-- the sandwich is so sweet that there has to be something to balance out that sugar and the ham was definitely trying.  I didn't notice the jack cheese (which is surprising because usually it's a good sharp contrast), but I'm sure it must have been helping because things were SO SWEET that anything even slightly balancing it out would make a difference.  The obvious need for the ham made me curious as to what the non-ham sandwich would taste like, so I switched over and tried some of that one.

fromage blanc is just there to provide a base to which the sweets can be added.  I went ahead and finished this one so I could move back to the better tasting ham.

Coming back to the first sandwich only reaffirmed how crucial the ham is to counteract the sugar.  Again I wished that I had charred this sandwich more, but live and learn!  However, even with the ham I still might call this a dessert grilled cheese.  The ham was trying to mute the sweetness, but the sugar was just so strong it was hard to overpower. 

A potential tweak to the recipe to tame the sweetness would be to not add sugar.  I'm not sure why sugar was deemed necessary when everything else was so sweet!  And if that isn't enough de-sweetening for you, changing out the type of bread might help too.  I would like to see this to move closer to literally being a ham and pineapple grilled cheese (similar to a ham and pineapple pizza).

FINAL RESULTS:

Sandwich:	Hawaiian Grilled Cheese	Hawaiian Grilled Cheese with Ham
Gooey-ness:	5 (runny, not gooey)	4.5 (less runny b/c of ham, but still runny)
Aroma:	2	2
Appearance:	Both sandwiches looked yellow and mushy/goopy, one of them just happened to have some ham hanging out as well.
Taste:	B-	B

Too sweet for me (which is saying a lot because I have the biggest sweet tooth known to man), but could be improved upon by toning down some of the sweeter ingredients and playing up some savory ingredients.

Gooey Scale	Aroma Scale
1 = still cold/hard	1 = can’t smell a thing
2 = slightly melted but still firm	2 = tender waft
3 = melted evenly	3 = makes your stomach growl
4 = melted and slightly runny (starting to get those cheese strings between your sandwich and your mouth when you take a bite)	4 = strong scent
5 = runny	5 = overpoweringly pungent
6 = sloppy mess!

Next Week: Back to the savory side with a super cheesy creation!

Buffalo Chicken Sandwich

I sure hope you like blue cheese!  If so, you're in for a treat!  If not, stop reading now.

This week it was time to further push the envelope by exploring a sandwich I had made a point of avoiding thus far.  Whenever I talk to people about my grilled cheesing, questions usually come up surrounding what actually constitutes a proper "grilled cheese."  The main sticking point in this discussion is usually whether a sandwich that includes meat qualifies as a grilled cheese.  That's why I was so hesitant to drive into the buffalo chicken sandwich-- a sandwich that doesn't even have a cheese's name in the title!  Clearly the central focus here is the chicken... so, is this REALLY a grilled cheese?  Stay tuned for a more thoughtful debate later.  For now, let's get down to cooking.

There were a lot of ingredients for this one, but they were very easy to assemble.

There are three main components to the sandwich:
* The cheese spread: 1/4 cup mayonnaise, 1/4 cup sour cream, 5 ounces creamy blue cheese, 1 diced rib of celery, 2 tablespoons of diced chives and 2 tablespoons of lemon juice.
* The chicken: 2 boneless/skinless chicken breasts (sliced into strips lengthwise) and olive oil (for cooking)
* The buffalo sauce: 1/2 stick butter, 1.5 tablespoons hot sauce and 1.5 teaspoons vinegar

As far as bread goes, GGC recommends focaccia bread, but says you can substitute in soft rolls or sourdough (I chose the latter as Wegman's didn't have regular focaccia bread).

Step one was mixing up the spread.  Apparently this can be done 2 days in advance.  Oh well!  No time like the present. 

I tossed all the ingredients into a bowl and stirred them up (with some slight modifications). 

I think now is the time for me to air my true feelings on blue cheese.  Anytime it's possible for me to point out the fact that there is mold in my food and the logical response is "it's supposed to be there," I view it as a red flag.  I know, I know, technically ALL cheese is moldy... but this is different.  Oddly enough I enjoy Gorgonzola, but blue is just taking it a little too far.  Moral of the story, this was probably the only recipe where I wasn't trying to find excuses to add more cheese just for the heck of it-- quite the opposite, actually.  (Also, for those of you not committing my personal culinary tastes to memory: I don't like celery, so less than a full rib of celery was fine by me).

Next step was to slice the chicken in half lengthwise and pound the strips to 1/4" inch thick.  Not having a mallet (aside from an actual hammer) I opted for an aluminum can-- I think I heard somewhere that can serve as a meat mallet in a pinch (is a meat mallet even an actual thing?  Sounds inappropriate...).  Well, after about a minute of aggravated assault on the chicken I realized that the chicken was none the worse for the wear whereas the aluminum can now had a huge dent in the side. 

Hmm... time for plan B!  Slice the chicken as thinly as I can and move on.

Around this time, sous chef emerged from his nap and, upon spotting the Sriracha bottle, sprung into action to aid in mixing up the buffalo sauce.  We put the butter, hot sauce and vinegar into the saucepan and let it melt/mix together.

Meanwhile, I grilled up the chicken strips in 2 tablespoons of olive oil until they looked cooked through and slightly brown on the outside.

Once these were cool enough to handle we coated each piece in the buffalo sauce (confession, I accidentally added 1.5 tablespoons of vinegar, not teaspoons-- the result was sauce that was much too thin). 

While sous chef worked on this I moved forward with spreading the blue cheese mixture on the un-olive oiled side of six slices of sourdough (six because these pieces were smaller than normal bread). 

I topped these with chicken and then added the second slice of bread so they were ready to grill.

This was another instance where GGC suggests just wiping out the bottom of the skillet between cooking the chicken and cooking the sandwiches, but the coating that was left in the skillet from this approach served as too much of a buffer between the sandwich and the non-stick pan (thus negating the non-stick qualities).  As such, I added some spritzes of my non-stick cooking spray to make sure I got the job done.

Since the blue cheese spread was the cheese for the sandwich and it was already spreadable, it didn't take long for the cheese to "melt" and the bread to toast, so these actually cooked up very quickly.

Taste Review:

You may notice from the photo that there isn't a whole lot of that trademark bright orange buffalo sauce that you usually get with a buffalo chicken sandwich.  That's because the blue cheese is clearly taking center stage here (albeit forcibly).  The first thing you notice is the pungent blue cheese smell-- it's hard to ignore in any context and now that it's melted on top of the sandwich it's virtually impossible.

Once you got past the aroma and took a bite it became clear that the lack of buffalo sauce was working against this sandwich.  I partially blame myself and my incorrect dispensing of the vinegar into the buffalo sauce, but the bulk of the blame lies with the blue cheese.  For once I agreed with Colin-- this one needed to be spicier.  One possible way to combat the lack of sufficient spice would be to use thinner strips of chicken, or even minced chicken, so that more surface area would be exposed to the sauce bath (therefore transferring more of the sauce to the sandwich). 

Colin suggested a modification involving turning this more into a buffalo chicken melt by retaining the buffalo chicken, but adding jack cheese and ranch sauce.  This would provide a flavor contrast to the spicy chicken that isn't in the form of runny blue cheese.  Basically, we found this sandwich boring and think it would be more fun if it was slightly spiced up with some out-of-the-norm ingredients.  This sandwich was trying to make the cheese the main focus, and it succeeded!  It's just too bad it was a cheese we didn't like.  That's why if we tried something with some jack cheese and ranch it might make more of a well-rounded sandwich-like offering; but that brings us back to the eternal question:

What makes a true grilled cheese?

Well, I think we've made some progress towards a quality definition.  Before starting the blog I deemed a grilled cheese any sandwich that is grilled and contains only cheese, but upon scanning GGC for the first time I realized I needed to expand the definition to also include meat.  But what separates that from just being a panini?  Well, let me tell you. 

The cheese must stand alone.

That's right!  The lyrics to "The Farmer in the Dell" finally make sense!  They were talking about grilled cheeses!  OK, probably not, but stay with me.  I've previously established that, when thinking about grilled cheeses with meat on them, the cheese needs to feature prominently.  And while that is still true, I'm finding there's more to it.  There has to be a sort of purity factor where the cheese stands out because it is a star-- you should be able to taste the cheese independent of the other ingredients, even if it's simultaneously complimenting them.  In short, the cheese must be able to stand alone.

But bringing it back to this week's sandwich, the cheese certainly stood alone here!  It just wasn't a cheese we liked.  So, to bring it full circle: I sure hope you like blue cheese, otherwise this is not the sandwich for you.

FINAL RESULTS:

Sandwich:	Buffalo Chicken Sandwich
Gooey-ness:	5 (but it was runny, not gooey)
Aroma:	5
Appearance:	Doesn't look as orangey/red as the "Buffalo" in the name would lead you to believe.
Taste:	C

Gooey Scale	Aroma Scale
1 = still cold/hard	1 = can’t smell a thing
2 = slightly melted but still firm	2 = tender waft
3 = melted evenly	3 = makes your stomach growl
4 = melted and slightly runny (starting to get those cheese strings between your sandwich and your mouth when you take a bite)	4 = strong scent
5 = runny	5 = overpoweringly pungent
6 = sloppy mess!

Next Week: You can rest assure that we won't keep on chugging right through to the next recipe: "Roast Beef with Cheddar and Blue Cheese Butter."  In fact, I might end up skipping that one altogether (I don't eat beef and I don't like blue cheese).  Hmm... it's been awhile since we've had a sweet grilled cheese, maybe we'll bring a new one into the mix.

California Grill

I don't mean to give away the finale up front, but let's just say this sandwich is the first one to officially give our sole A+ winner (the Original American Grilled Cheese with yellow American) a run for its money... but will it tie the coveted A+ rating?  Stay tuned to find out!

OK, so seeing as how I just returned from California (and because my field trip there left much to be desired) I figured now was as good a time as any to try the California Grill.  I still had some sourdough bread left from my Wizard of Oz grilled cheeses, so I just needed a few additional items to get started:

One avocado, 1/2 cup high quality salsa, 8 ounces of monterey jack cheese (decreased to 6 ounces since I only had enough bread to make 3 sandwiches, not 4).

My first order of business was asking sous chef to look up a video on how to peel an avocado.  After watching said video he was feeling confident and told me to step aside while he went to work.

Once we had the avocado open we realized there were two problems-- one, the pit was so hard there was no way to remove it (we tried, but were only successful in slicing off small bits of the pit and flinging them about the kitchen) and two, there was no way to remove the skin.  Looks like I had just chosen an un-ripe avocado (I had no idea what to be looking for in terms of color/feel and my sister's text regarding avocado selection tips arrived just as I had left the store).  So back to the grocery store we went, returning home with a ripe avocado.

This made all the difference in the world!  It was peeled and ready in no time.  Once we had the just the filling to work with we went ahead and sliced it into slices that are small/flat enough to fit easily on a sandwich.

That was basically all the prep work that was required-- on to assembling the sandwich.  First came 1/2 cup of salsa evenly distributed between the three slices of bread (buttered on one side, of course).  A note about the salsa-- if it's watery it's advisable to drain off as much water as you can so as to retain the crunchiness of the bread once the sandwich is cooked.

Oooh, pretty!

Next came 6 ounces of grated Monterey Jack.

And finally, the avocado slices.

Lookin' good!  I cooked those puppies right up but soon realized I hadn't buttered the bread sufficiently because it charred very easily.  Oh well!  That's what I get for trying not to be a total fatty.

Alright, on to the good stuff...

Taste Review:

I INSTANTANEOUSLY noticed how smooth the avocado makes the sandwich.  It was perfectly creamy with just a mild flavor-- enough to notice it's subtly there, but not so much that it tries to compete with the other flavors.  Ever quotable, Colin noted "Food isn't always all about the taste."  Agreed.  Texture plays a big role here.

The jack cheese has a little punch to balance out the mildness of the avocado and the salsa adds the perfect amount of acidity without taking over.  It was just a perfect balance of textures/ingredients/flavors.  Sometimes I would get a bite that was heavier on salsa and that would definitely kick up the spice, but in a fun way not in a "too hot in the hot tub" kind of way (see, I told you I use that reference a lot)! 

When I first looked at the recipe I was surprised that sourdough was the bread of choice for this-- I picture Californians as all healthy and into something like 9 grain bread or some such.  But then I remembered this:

Boudin's Bakery in San Francisco is actually the birthplace of sourdough bread!  So for that reason the use of sourdough was a good call (well for that reason and because it was delicious).

Some bites that were jam packed with salsa and avocado got a little messy, but that was part of the fun of it :-)  I think it's good that you can flavor this to your personal taste by using any number of salsas (from mild to super spicy).  As usual, Colin and I disagreed on the appropriate level of spiciness-- I felt like the medium salsa (that we used) gave it enough of a kick without overpowering it, but Colin disagreed.  He would like his food spicier.  In fact, he doused it pretty heavily in Sriracha sauce (wait, what happened to food not always being all about the taste?).  He loves that stuff.  A lot.

Farewell, tastebuds!

Anywho, this one was a resounding success!  I was bummed that this was the week that I only had enough bread to make 3 sandwiches because both of us could definitely have enjoyed more (and will definitely be making this again sometime)!  In fact, this is kind of similar to Colin's jalapeno popper from a few weeks back; so it's a sandwich we were shooting for but hadn't quite perfected-- glad we've found this recipe to help us attain perfection.

FINAL RESULTS:

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Sandwich:	California Grill
Gooey-ness:	3.5
Aroma:	2
Appearance:	Beautiful color combination with bright green, white and red!
Taste:	A+

That's right, folks!  We have a second A+ worthy sandwich!  I debated just giving it an A, but I realized I can't downgrade sandwiches for the sake of preserving the elite status of others.  This is a true winner and deserves to be rated as such.

Next Week: Well, let's not worry about that-- for now we will revel in the glory that is our second A+ sandwich!  Sing it with me: "I wish they all could be California griiiiiillllllsss" ;-)

Field Report: The Melt

This past week I was in San Francisco for a work trip and, of course, for a field report!  In the week leading up to my trip three different people suggested that I visit "The Melt," the newest kid on the grilled cheese block.  The Melt had been receiving a lot of PR attention because Jonathan Kaplan, the founder of this soon-to-be restaurant chain, is the creator of the Flip Cam; a device that he then sold to Cisco (which they subsequently discontinued).  You can read all the fascinating details of his rise to grilled cheese glory here, or you can just read my key takeaways outlined below (my editorial remarks are in red):

• Kaplan left his post at Cisco working on the Flip Cam to start his chain of grilled cheese restaurants after researching whether grilled cheese would thrive as the centerpiece of a restaurant chain (answer: well, DUH!)
• Kaplan has developed a fancy pants sandwich cooker with the help of Electrolux (it involves two induction burners, a microwave and non-stick pads) which will apparently allow the bread to toast and the cheese to melt without squishing the sandwich like a panini press.  I'm quite skeptical about this one-- I mean, one of the key steps in grilled cheese making (according to GGC and now me) is pressing the sandwich down to make sure the ingredients are all getting melted completely inside/to the bread.
• Not surprisingly, this isn't the only technologically advanced feature of the restaurant-- apparently there's some way to tie in ordering via your smart phone and using some sort of code to retrieve your order when you arrive.  Kaplan genuinely believes that this will enhance the overall customer experience and won't just be technology for technology's sake.  Mmm hmm... we'll just have to see about that.

Let's set the scene: it's Tuesday, September 6 and I have just stepped off of my 5 hour flight to San Francisco.  After dropping my stuff off in my hotel room I make a bee line for The Melt.  Luckily for me, it's a mere two blocks from my hotel and it was a beautiful day!  Off I went.

Before I get too into the nitty gritty of my visit let me put out there that I am trying to ignore the fact that the name of this restaurant is a BLATANT rip off of Cleveland's beloved "Melt Bar and Grilled."  In my mind that is the original grilled cheese restaurant and it will be hard for anyone to live up to those standards (especially when they so clearly beg the comparison with similar names).  Unfortunately, I visited Melt before I started my blog so was unable to regale my readers with the scrumptious details of that visit, but maybe one day I'll find my way back.  Seriously, it was so tasty it might warrant a return trip... to Cleveland... I'll let that sink in for a second.

Anywho, after only one wrong turn I was ready for deliciousness!  I hopped in line and immediately thought to myself "Oh man!  The hype must be true, this line is out the door!"  I then glanced across the street and noticed that the line at Chipotle was ALSO out the door... and was, in fact, longer.  Oh well!

Although the line seemed long, it was partially because the order counter was right in front of the door, so I was at the front in no time.  My wait time did, however, allow me to contemplate which of the 5 sandwiches warranted a taste.  Red flag #1-- you are a grilled cheese restaurant and you only have 5 types of sandwiches?  Odd, but not necessarily a major negative-- perhaps they focus on quality over quantity.  The descriptions were very basic, so at $6 each, they better be good!

In the end I decided the Jalapeno Jack on Sourdough and the Fontina & Provolone on Garlic Bread were the ways to go.  I chose the former because it reminded me of the delectable spicy double jack we made last week and the latter because it sounded like the most creative of their options (thanks to the use of garlic bread).

Once you place your order you are henceforth identified by your initials-- they will go on to put your initials and some basic info about what you've ordered up on this fancy computer screen so that you can track the progress of your order (it says "working" next to your initials when your food is, allegedly, being made).  I saw two flaws in this plan-- 1) several people can have the same initials (I saw a minor altercation erupt over the ownership of "JD's" order) and 2) there appears to be no apparatus in the cooking area for the sandwich makers to actually input the status of your order.  As far as I could tell they just got the order tickets and went to work-- "working" would occasionally pop up next to my initials, but there didn't seem to be a method to the madness as several people after me would arbitrarily move to the top of the queue even if "working" had only appeared by their initials once while it had already flashed 3 or 4 times next to mine.  But I digress.

Let's talk about the overall look/feel of the restaurant before I get into the tasting.  The decor is very minimalist-- maybe 4 high tables and chairs and two counters for in-restaurant dining as well as one or two tables out on the sidewalk. 

I also got a futuristic feel thanks to the digital order status board and the soda fountains that seem straight out of Back to the Future 2. 

The jury was still out on whether either of these things actually improved the diner's experience or were just "technology for technology's sake."  Speaking of which, these special Electrolux cookers just looked like overly-complex pannini presses.

So once you place your order a ticket is printed and the numerous workers behind the counter set to work on your order.  As far as I can tell they have metal bins of pre-made sandwiches of every kind that they then just grill in their Electrolux machines.  Maybe it was the fact that they only had 3 of these machines, but orders seemed to take FOREVER.  Not to belittle my own love, but how hard is it to put some cheese between bread and cook it?  I'm hoping that once the initial excitement wears off and they have less of a mad rush at any given time that the wait times will go down.  Sometimes they would put a sandwich in, cook it, take it out, cook another sandwich, put the first sandwich back in, let the sandwiches sit there for a minute, etc.  I didn't get what was going on.  To me-- you only offer 5 things, how hard can it be to cook them in a timely manner?  (Well, to be fair, they also serve soup, but that appeared to be just ladled out from different pots right before the order was served, so that wasn't really a limiting factor).

Anyway, in a decidedly un-technological twist, one of the workers called out "JP" when my order was ready (what, no personalized text from my sandwich telling me it couldn't wait to meet me? and here I thought they prided themselves on their use of technology).  Both sandwiches were served up on their own metal tray each garnished with pickle slices-- I use the term garnish loosely as these were clearly just tossed on there at the last second to take up some of the empty space on the otherwise too large for one sandwich tray.  My first order of business: consolidate.  Why did I get two trays when both could have easily fit on one?  I don't think that wasted tray liner is in keeping with their eco-friendly mission.

Alright, you've put up with my babbling long enough, let's talk taste!

Jalapeno Jack (left):
The first thing I noticed when I took a bite was that one side of the bread was good and crispy crunchy while the other was not quite done (you could tell it had been cooked, but it was as if you put your toaster on toasting level 1 while the other slice was more like a 4 or 5).  This immediately called into question the use of the fancy dancy Electrolux grillers.  I thought the whole point of these was to allow for consistently cooked sandwiches.  Looks like there's still some fine tuning to be done.

I liked that the sandwich had actual jalapeno bits in it-- it combined well with the gooey cheese but was still spicy.  As expected, it reminded me of the spicy double jack, but was actually less spicy than that one was.  I guess when marketing to the masses you have to go with a relatively safe level of spicy. 

Fontina and Provolone (right):
I ran into a similar problem with the bread here-- it was also a little undercooked so I was missing that true crispy crunch that makes grilled cheeses so delightful!  The sandwich itself reminded me of white pizza thanks to the strong garlic flavor that combines with the cheeses.  The cheese was actually very stringy, which was good considering they use slices instead of grating (a typically surefire method for uneven melting).  Perhaps this is one of the merits of the Electrolux?  The ability to melt the cheese while not burning (or fully cooking for that matter) the bread.  What was made up for by evenly melted slices of cheese was offset by the lack of sufficient cheese near the crust.  I like using grated cheese because then I can be sure that the cheese is spread evenly right up to the edge of the sandwich-- but here it was definitely too concentrated to just the middle (surprise surprise, one of my criticisms is that there's not enough cheese).

On a general note, the sandwiches themselves were kind of small, so I was glad I had two to fill me up (but I have to wonder, were they really worth $6?).  Even though at some other locations I've been paying slightly more, they've made it worth my while by jam packing the inside with plentiful ingredients and creative flavors (I'm looking at you, Ms. Cheezious), but I'm not sure I'm really getting my money's worth here-- I could've made both of these sandwiches at home for a fraction of the cost. 

All in all it's a not so favorable review for The Melt.  Hopefully they'll further hone their craft before continuing with expansion, otherwise I think they'll get beaten out in certain cities by local favorites (i.e. Melt in Cleveland, Ms. Cheezious in Miami, Cheesy's in Chicago, etc.).  There's a distinct possibility that they'll turn into the McDonalds of grilled cheeses, so they need to step up their game if they want to hang with the competition.