Report from the Field: Baker's Crust

This weekend while in Richmond I got lunch Baker's Crust, which is apparently a restaurant similar to Panera with locations throughout southern Virginia.  Obviously a sandwich heavy restaurant is always a great place for a grilled cheese field report :-)  They had a lot of sandwiches that had both meat and cheese on them, but when I'm on the road I like to try and stick to the more traditional-- cheese as the main protein grilled cheeses.  Bearing this in mind I got the "Roasted Tomato and Mozzarella Panini" which came with basil pesto and spinach on sourdough bread.  Tomato/basil/mozzarella sandwiches can be pretty hit or miss, so I wasn't sure how good what I was getting would be (but I must say the sourdough got me excited considering how good the sourdough sandwiches have been so far).

As soon as the sandwich arrived I knew I had made a good choice:

It wasn't a big overpowering sandwich and the filling actually looked good and fresh and it came with a side of home made chips (which, as an aside, were kind of a disappointment).  Again I will say that even though I love the combination of mozzarella and basil pesto with some tomato thrown in, I know these creations can be very good and very bad depending on who's making it.  Luckily, this one hit the spot. 

The mozzarella wasn't too chewy, but had a little gooeyness to it thanks to being grilled beforehand.  It also came in slices that were big enough to not fall out of the sandwich with every bite.  The pesto was tasty and added some salt to the mix without overpowering everything else.  The tomatoes are usually my least favorite element in these types of sandwiches, but since they were roasted they weren't too watery and messy, instead they were still moist, but easier to eat than typical raw tomatoes.  Adding spinach was a new twist-- I didn't particularly like or dislike this decision.  It added some substance to the sandwich, but not much else.

Last, but not least, the sourdough was a great choice.  A lot of times sandwiches like this come on some sort of fancy focaccia bread, but in reality if the filling ingredients are good then you don't need a fancy bread to detract from their taste-- the sourdough provided just the right complimentary flavor.  All in all, a good choice :-)