Field Report: The American Grilled Cheese Kitchen

I'm back from my first San Francisco trip for the year and have a particularly tasty field report in store.  To start off, I can safely say that this is the best grilled cheese restaurant I've been to this far and you can take that to the bank.  Now let's discuss why.

I was in San Francisco for work and took the opportunity to do two of my favorite things: see a friend and eat a grilled cheese (or two).  I met up with my friend Maria and she escorted me to the restaurant of my choosing: The American Grilled Cheese Kitchen.  I lucked out that I had an early flight into the city because the restaurant is only open for breakfast and lunch (closing around 3:00 or 4:00 PM).  We made our way over to the area immediately surrounding AT&T Park, where the restaurant is located, and were greeted by a patio surrounded with spatulas!  It was promising already.

Much like most grilled cheese restaurants, the menu featured a select few sandwiches-- in this case 7.  Maria said the line is usually out the door, so we lucked out in that we didn't have to wait.  The only minor downside to no wait was that I didn't have enough time to fully contemplate which sandwich to order.  When pressured to order at the counter I caved and got the two that especially caught my eye: The Mousetrap (Tilamook sharp cheddar, creamy havarti, monterey jack on artisan sourdough) and The Mac Sandwich (Mac 'n' cheese stuffed into a grilled cheese).  But in all honesty, they all looked delicious!  I would happily go back to try the remaining varieties any day of the week. 

Maria also got The Mousetrap along with a bowl of tomato soup.  Another signature item of theirs are varieties of flavored lemonade.  The featured flavor that day was cranberry lemonade-- something that sounds great in theory, but that is extremely sour in actuality.  I had to tell Maria that I wasn't cringing at her, my face just involuntarily contorted in reaction to the sourness of the beverage.

My hostess with the mostess and her cranberry lemonade.

Anyway, after a short wait our sandwiches arrived and ecstasy ensued.  I started with The Mousetrap.  There was just SO MUCH CHEESE!!  And as all of the cheeses on the sandwich are among my favorites, that was definitely a good thing.  No one cheese stood out over the others, which meant that the flavors blended together to produce a general cheesy goodness.  The bread was thick and crusty which can often be a detractor in my book, but in this case it was a great way to balance out the intensity of the cheese.  The bread tasted like toast-- meaning it was perfectly charred without being too greasy or buttery.  All in all this was like a basic grilled cheese in that it was just bread and cheese, but I would definitely call this a Grilled Cheese Super Deluxe! 

SO MUCH CHEESEEEEE!!!!

Maria's Mousetrap with tomato soup.

Next up was The Mac Sandwich.  You may recall that I've tried a mac and cheese grilled cheese back at Cheesie's Pub and Grub in Chicago.  It was so delicious then that I didn't think it was possible to improve upon it.  I was wrong!  This was even more AMAZINGGG!!!  The sandwich at Cheesie's had that bright orange style mac and cheese that we all know and love, but this variety had what was clearly homemade mac and cheese, which I found superior.  There was also a little kiss of garlic flavor that just made the sandwich.  You could tell that there was a little sharpness and bite to the mac and cheese, but it was just indescribably perfect.  The inside was nice and soft/mushy, thanks to the macaroni, which made the sandwich smooth and delicious.  I give this a RESOUNDING A+! 

As you can see, I really did mean that this was the best grilled cheese restaurant that I've been to so far.  I would go back here in a heartbeat and am jealous of all San Francisco residents who can visit whenever they want.  I guess now I've just got incentive to go out to San Francisco on the early flights so I can snag lunch as soon as I arrive!  I'm headed back to San Francisco again next week, but then am in town for the foreseeable future, so standard grilled cheesing will recommence upon my return.

Belated Christmas Treat: Brie and Fig

We all know that I'm a fan of holiday tributes in grilled cheese form (most notably, and singularly thus far, The Pilgrim).  But it's not fair to let one holiday sandwich steal the spotlight, especially from the best holiday of all-- Christmas!  Now, I realize I am writing this post a solid 3 weeks after Christmas took place, but let's ignore that fact and let our minds wander back as we pull up a seat next to the proverbial yule log...

The tricky thing about conceptualizing a Christmas grilled cheese is that I couldn't easily think of savory ingredients that are Christmas specific and would prove to be tasty on a grilled cheese.  Candy canes?  No.  Gingerbread?  Hmm... actually a gingerbread and cream cheese grilled cheese would have been interesting, but maybe next year.  Pine needles?  Absolutely not. 

Luckily a classic Christmas carol came to my aid-- who can forget the time honored classic We Wish You a Merry Christmas?  It starts out happily enough, but almost immediately Mr. Crosby and company are demanding figgy pudding and threatening to not leave until their demand is met.  I don't know about you, but the thought of a hungry pack of singers refusing to leave my doorstep until I provided them with congealed fig (or whatever figgy pudding is) is both disturbing and intriguing.  What makes figgy pudding so tasty that these people go from house to house begging after it?

Well, since I have no idea what's in figgy pudding my only guess is that the figs are what make it so tasty, and just like that my Christmas ingredient dilemma was solved-- fig it is!  I'm a big appetizer fan (yes, I'm that girl who will sometimes order the appetizer sampler as my meal), so naturally when I think fig I think of baked brie en croute.  It's a simple enough recipe-- put some brie and some jam in some puff pastry and voila!  So it's easy enough to de-construct the recipe and turn it into a sandwich (trust me, any time it's a BGC original recipe it will be simple if only due to my complete lack of general cooking knowledge and skill).

So, for the sake of keeping it simple my ingredients were as follows:

Milky brie, Italian pane bread and roasted figs.  Ignore the fact that the brie wrapper has clearly been tampered with-- I was hungry!

Really the only variable I had to deal with was how to handle the figs.  Upon first sight and touch, I realized that figs are not something I'll ever want to eat on their own.

They're slightly larger than a walnut and are very squishy and slimy.  Henceforth when singing "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" I will now demand chocolate pudding instead of figgy pudding, but I digress.  I wasn't entirely sure what the best way to prepare the figs for the sandwich would be, so I decided to just start slicing them and see where that got me.

This is where it got me.  Strips of fig were good enough for me.  The only kind of gross element were all those seeds!  They sort of congealed together to be part of the fig, but would come off and be all grainy if you scraped them away.  No. Thank. You.  Oh well!  I'm sure the whole will be better than the sum of its parts.

Next came a hearty slathering of brie onto a piece of the bread.  I didn't do any sort of precise measuring in terms of quantity, but you can rest assured that the cheese spread was at least a half inch thick.  I followed this up with a few strips of fig.  The sweet smell of the figs was strong, so I didn't want to add to much and have the mild brie completely overtaken.

This is what I ended up with.  I think it's pretty adequate in terms of coverage (but I think the figs look sort of like anchovies, am I right?)

I want to pause and take a moment for a quick tribute to how beautifully delicious brie really is.  Let's all take a second to enjoy this photo:

Oh yummy!  It's a wonder I had any cheese left to actually put on the sandwiches!

Alrighty, so you know the rest of the story-- butter on each side, cook while covered in a non-stick pan until both sides are evenly browned and the sandwiches look a little something like this:

Feasting my eyes on this culinary delight I knew Christmas had come early :-P (Cheesy, I know.  Apologies).

Taste Review:

As you can see from the fact that it is literally dripping out of the sandwich in the above photo, the brie is VERY runny!  Even though this particular brie was described as milky, I would say it's actually creamy like butter-- rich and creamy enough to be just right.  The fig has more of a cinnamon-y taste, but isn't overly powerful, more of a nice compliment to the decadent cheese.

This photo looks sort of gross, but it captures the essence of the gooiness pretty well.

The most noticeable difference between a traditional brie en croute appetizer and this sandwich is the addition of the grilled bread.  The light char on actual pieces of bread are what really cement this as a sandwich and not just an appetizer.  It really tastes like a grilled cheese, not just cheese and cracker; but the essence of the original dish is still there-- this is just a much heartier version of the beloved brie en croute.  All in all this was a winner!  Perhaps I could even serve mini versions as an appetizer one day when I magically become coordinated enough to start hosting dinner parties!

For some reason my usual "Final Results" table isn't working, so I'll just give you the skinny in a more straightforward style:

Brie and Fig on Italian Pane

Aroma: 2
Gooey-ness: 6
Appearance: Nearly bite-sized sandwiches with cheese oozing out of every side.
Overall Grade: B+

I've got a lot of business travel coming up, so posts will continue to be sporadic for a bit.  I know, I know, it makes me sad too, but I gots to earn the dough to make the bread that I then put cheese on and grill and write about :-)  OK-- yes, lame.  I'll stop typing now.

I'm Back!

Phew!  Apologies for the extended absence, but (as I'm sure everyone knows) things get crazy around the end of the year!  I've still got one sandwich report waiting, but won't be able to write it up until I find my notes (perhaps buried under a pile of Christmas gifts).  In the mean time I'm dropping a quick post about New Year's Eve!  Some friends and I all rented a lake house together and we took turns making meals for everyone.  When it was my turn, guess what I made?  You're right!  Chicken pot pie!  Juuuuust kidding :-)  We all know I can only cook one thing (albeit in multiple iterations), so we decided to re-visit two of our greatest hits: The Pilgrim and The California Grill.  Here are some pics from our massive grilled cheese adventure (I believe we made about 35-40 sandwiches).



Removing the rind from the gouda wasn't easy.

Sous Chef continues to work on the gouda.

It was a tall order, so we had to call in further reinforcements.

Prepping the first round of sandwiches.

Hard at work, but not too hard to pose for a picture :-)

Pilgrims ready for the pan.

In the throes of sandwich making.



Reminding Sous Chef of how to make a California Grill.

Just about ready!

Satisfied customers... I hope.

 

We took a poll at the end and the overwhelming winner was The Pilgrim, but I think both sandwiches fared pretty well.  One person told me that they were good compliments for each other because the coolness of the California Grill balanced out the spicy dijon taste of the Pilgrim.  But, my favorite praise of the night was "I don't like half of the ingredients in this sandwich, and yet I still think it's delicious!"  Can't ask for a better review than that :-)