Field Report: Spacebar

It's time for a long overdue field report right here in my own backyard.  Although I have tried The Big Cheese Truck, this was my first visit to a local restaurant that specializes in grilled cheese.  Spacebar is a new kid on the block where local grilled cheeses are concerned, but the key is that they are (as far as I've found) the only local restaurant that has dedicated their menu to the greatest sandwiches of our time: grilled cheeses (some of their melts border on non-grilled-cheese territory, but their intent is still clear).  Located just down Lee Highway from my apartment, Spacebar sits in the heart of Falls Church, so on our way to a concert at the nearby State Theater we decided to check it out.

The parking lot is pretty tiny, which is not ideal for a restaurant that's about 6 miles from the closest metro station, but we snagged a space and headed in.  It's clear that Spacebar's ideal vibe is a night spot that serves a variety of craft beers and grilled cheese sandwiches, so it wasn't that crowded when we came in around 7:00 PM, but presumably business picks up later in the evening.  We ordered at the bar, seated ourselves in a booth, and enjoyed a beer apiece while we waited.  In no time our sandwiches and side of tater tots arrived (Spacebar is owned by the same people who run Galaxy Hut, another local favorite known for its sides of tots).

After much deliberation during the ordering process I had selected Gouda and Havarti on multi grain.  The first thing I noticed about the sandwich was how gooey it was.  Cheese was oozing onto the plate as soon as it arrived.  As we all know, I LOVE CHEESE, and as far as I'm concerned, the more the better.  I was excited and dove right in.  The gooeyness was, of course, the first thing I noticed.  That along with a perfectly charred bread instantly put a smile on my face.  The super gooey texture of the Gouda blends well with the Havarti flavor, so the sandwich has a perfect balance between charred bread and gooey cheese.  Just looking at it right now makes my stomach growl again.  The only minor issue I encountered was that the crust seems dry because the cheese doesn't tend to ooze out of there as much as it does out of the center.  I solved this problem by eating the crust first (dipped in ketchup) and saving the cheesiest bites for last (I always save the very best bite for last, and you know you do too).

Colin had selected pastrami and Swiss with sauerkraut on rye.  He didn't have as much to say as I do because he was busy scarfing his down (I took that to be a good sign).  Since I'm not a mind reader I can't give you his bite by bite analysis, but he remarked on the sandwich's nice even melt.  His was gooey as well despite the abundance of non-gooey fillings like pastrami and sauerkraut.  He noted that for both of us the presentation is understated (a lonely sandwich on a white plate), but that the taste is excellent and more than makes up for what presentation may lack.

In summary, our visit showed us that Spacebar does well with both simple and complex sandwiches and we agreed that the trip was a success and that Spacebar will now be added to our regular restaurant rotation.  Plus, you gotta love the tots!

Classic (and Easy) Reuben

Yesterday was not the greatest of days, and I was debating not actually doing a grilled cheese last night, but then I remembered two things:
1) I cannot let my loyal readers down
2) What better way to cheer myself (and others) up than with a delicious sandwich?

That decided, it was time to dive into making a classic Reuben.  Due to the fact that the sandwich contains beef (which I do not eat) I recruited extra tasters this week-- mom and dad.  All of the ingredients were pretty standard and easy to find, so I was quickly ready to go.  A few notes, though, I decided to use light mayonnaise instead of regular since that's what we happened to have.  Also, the recipe calls for rye bread, but unfortunately I could not find the usual fresh baked and dense rye that I've come to know and love.  Instead, I had to go with standard bagged rye bread (but still without caraway seeds-- those are gross).

Step one was mixing up the sauce that would be spread on the sandwich.  I believe real Rubens tend to use Russian dressing, so I suppose I was making a close approximation to that by mixing 1/4 cup mayonnaise with 1/4 cup chili sauce and 1 teaspoon of sweet pickle relish.  I had never used chili sauce before and wasn't quite sure what it was, but it basically looked like cocktail sauce but was a little less spicy.

The sandwich called for two types of cheese: Gruyere and Emmentaler.  Interestingly enough, these are the same two cheeses that I used the other week when I made myself some fondue :-)  It was tasty in that context, so I was feeling good about the results we would get here.  I combined 4 coarsely grated ounces of each in a bowl and set aside for later.

I prepped four slices of bread (buttered on one side, of course) and then added the dressing, spreading it evenly among the four slices.

Next came the meat-- three out of the four sandwiches got corned beef and the fourth (mine) got turkey.  Let me take this opportunity to insert an editorial comment on how gross corned beef looks.  It reminds me of jerky that hasn't dried all the way yet, or some sort of leathery meat.  Suffice it to say, I was glad I wasn't eating it. 

On top of the meat I evenly distributed a 14.5 ounce can of drained sauerkraut.  By evenly distributed I mean added it fully to the beef sandwiches and to half of my sandwich.  Let me take this opportunity to insert another editorial comment, this time on how gross sauerkraut smells.  I immediately yelled out to my would be tasters "What IS sauerkraut anyway?"  Fermented cabbage was their answer-- that says it all.  Cabbage = gross.  Fermented = grosser.  Fortunately, my tasters all seemed to be sauerkraut fans (and I hazard a guess that there are millions more worldwide who also love this food, so perhaps I am the anomaly).

Next came the cheese.  GGC warns that adding the cheese will make the sandwich seem very full, and to not worry if a few shreds of cheese are left behind.  I was actually disappointed by the amount of cheese that each sandwich got.  Compared to the amount of sauerkraut and meat it seemed relatively insignificant, so I took it upon myself to add some of the leftover cheese that I hadn't used.

Once the sandwiches were topped with the second piece of buttered bread they were ready for the pan.  As is always the case with very full sandwiches, flipping was tricky.  This was exacerbated by the fact that the sauerkraut tended to fly out of the sandwich every time it flipped.

They browned up pretty quickly, but it was hard to tell if the cheese had actually melted.  The sauerkraut looks a lot like shredded cheese, so just looking inside the sandwich you see a lot of stringy-ness, but aren't too sure how much of it is cheese and how much of it is sauerkraut.  I decided to just cook the sandwiches until the outside was sufficiently brown and assume that the inside was cooked as well.  With that, we were ready to roll!

Taste Review:

Upon picking up the sandwich the first thing you notice is that it is a bit soggy.  The sauerkraut and dressing prevented the sandwich from getting too too crispy during the cooking process, which was fine, but not a quality I've come to expect in my grilled cheeses.  I would have preferred for the sandwich to be firmer, and if I had used my traditional heartier rye bread that probably would have solved the problem.

There wasn't a strong aroma, but once you took a bite it was definitely very chewy with a savory taste.  More specifically, it tasted both salty and sour (as would be expected from a sandwich topped with sauerkraut).  The butter on the outside of the sandwich helped to contrast the sourness by adding a bit of richness to the bread, so that was nice.

The disappointment here was that the cheese didn't really take center stage like it should on a grilled cheese (perhaps because a Reuben wouldn't fall into the traditional grilled cheese category).  I think the minimal amount of cheese on the sandwich combined with the strong flavors of the meat and sauerkraut meant that the cheese flavor got sort of drowned out.  I was still unable to distinguish between what was sauerkraut and what was actually cheese.


 

FINAL RESULTS:

Sandwich:	Classic (and Easy) Reuben
Gooey-ness:	3
Aroma:	1.5
Appearance:	Looks and tastes like a sandwich you would get at a real deli.
Taste:	B+

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!

Despite some of our more critical comments, we liked the sandwich overall. As usual, with a few tweaks it could be an A!  But as it stood, the sandwich looked and tasted appealing-- if we were served this sandwich at a real deli, we wouldn't be disappointed.

Next Week: I'm out of town for a meeting, so will try to squeeze in a field report, but no promises.  Otherwise we'll be back on track for Wednesday, June 8!

Havarti and Dilled Cucumbers on Rye

The first time I tasted Havarti cheese, it was as part of the beloved "Hail Caesar" sandwich that I used to get about twice weekly from the Safeway sandwich shop (well, maybe Mom got it for me and I ate it, but you know, same diff).  It was a delicious cheese topping to a delicious sandwich and I loved it instantly.  Obviously this love left me quite excited to try this week's sandwich: Havarti and dilled cucumbers on rye bread.  As usual, a brief shopping trip (and a call to my shopping resource) yielded me all the necessary ingredients and I was ready to begin.

The first step was preparing the cucumbers.  First you peel two medium sized cucumbers and then slice them into rounds that are about 1/4" to 1/2" thick.  Once the slices are ready, set them aside to prepare a sweet vinaigrette to soak them in.

The vinaigrette consists of 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar, 1/4 cup water, 2 Tbsp. sugar, 1 tsp. salt and 1/2 tsp. dried dill weed.  I combined these ingredients in a medium sized mixing bowl (until the salt and sugar had dissolved) and added in the cucumber slices, stirring them up to help evenly coat them in the vinaigrette.  The cucumbers must soak for at least 15 minutes (basically long enough for the cucumbers to start soaking up the flavor).  Apparently you can even prepare the cucumbers the day before and refrigerate them as long as you bring them to room temperature before actually using them in the sandwich.

While these were soaking I went ahead and grated the cheese.  The recipe calls for 6 ounces of Havarti cheese (without dill, since we'll be adding dill via the cucumber/vinaigrette combo) and I had a chunk that was about 10.5 ounces.  I do like cheese, so I decided if I used about 2/3 of the block this would be about 7 ounces, which is more than is called for (only needs 6 ounces), but not so much that it would be out of control.  Colin and I then disposed of the remnants at which point he declared: "This is my favorite cheese so far.  I want that on the record."  Well, here it is.

From there it was just a matter of waiting for the cucumbers to finish soaking.  Once they were done I commenced making the actual sandwiches.  The first step was to evenly distribute the cucumbers over two slices of bread (well, the recipe calls for 4 slices of bread at this stage, but again I'm using the larger loaf of rye where one slice really equals two slices of normal sized bread).  I used a slotted spoon but transferred the cucumbers quickly, so a majority of the vinaigrette ran off, but some still sloshed over onto the bread.

After the cucumbers, naturally, came the cheese!  The texture of the Havarti reminds me of when we worked with the jack cheese-- both are soft enough that they sort of stick to themselves and make it easier to pile the cheese up on the sandwich. 

Once all the cheese was added I couldn't help but notice how HUGE these sandwiches were!  Not only was the bread huge (as expected), but the sandwiches were incredibly thick!  This would undoubtedly prove a challenge when it came time to flip the sandwiches.

In went the first sandwich and, once again, it was so big it wouldn't fit under my little red frying pan to cook/melt, but I covered as much as I could. 

As expected, flipping proved particularly difficult.  I had to go with a typical two spatula attack, but even that couldn't stop me from spilling some cucumbers and cheese on my first flip. 

Things got better as I went along, but I'd say a cucumber or two went astray pretty much every time I flipped the sandwich.  At one point so many dislodged that I had to perform open sandwich surgery to restore them to their proper locale. 

One unexpected upside to the messy flipping was that when some of the cheese spilled out it fried onto the outside of the bread, which I have concluded is my new favorite development in the world of grilled cheese making.  These crispy bits of fried cheese are DELICIOUS!  They make me want to just put cheese straight into a frying pan just to have tasty little fried cheese nibblets!

Anyway, once the first sandwich was done frying I transferred it to my not so tried, but already proven to be true sandwich warming pan to continue simmering while I cooked the second sandwich.  Again, the flipping proved difficult, but I persevered and both sandwiches were ready for consumption before I knew it!  Now, on to the taste review!

Taste Review:
In case it's not apparent from this much shorter description, the preparation for this sandwich was very quick and straightforward.  This is a sandwich that would be easy to whip up anytime assuming you had the ingredients on hand.  That's one plus point on its scorecard, but let's talk taste.  My first reaction upon biting into the sandwich was that the cucumbers add a lot of heft to the sandwich, but sort of make it runny (the cucumbers are watery and tend to slip and slide in and out of the sandwich). 

The cheese tasted creamy (as expected for Havarti), but it wasn't too rich-- I think this may be because the vinegar and sweetness of the vinaigrette cut any excess richness the cheese might have had.   I had been skeptical about adding cucumbers to a sandwich since I always think of them as a sort of "throw away" vegetable-- one that has no real taste and is more there just as filler.  In this case, the cucumbers were a filler, but also had their own sweet and delicious flavor thanks to their vinaigrette bath.  The cool feel of the cucumbers wrapped in gooey cheese was just the right combination.  This cool element makes me think this would be an ideal sandwich for summertime.

Yummm!

As for Colin's trusty ketchup testing-- it doesn't need ketchup, but he tried some anyway.  The ketchup actually made Colin wonder if the sandwich would be even better using tomatoes soaked in the vinaigrette rather than cucumbers.  An interesting thought for sure, but I must say I do like the classic cucumber/dill/Havarti combination.

FINAL RESULTS:

Sandwich:	Havarti and Dilled Cucumbers on Rye
Gooey-ness:	5.5 (cucumbers falling everywhere)!
Aroma:	2.5
Appearance:	Looks very full and chunky, but the inside is melty and delicious!
Taste:	A

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!


MUUUUCH better than last week!  It's good to be back on track :-)

*Addendum to Colin's favorite cheese comment: This is his favorite cheese so far to eat by itself.  His favorite cheeses on sandwiches are still jack and American.

NEXT WEEK: An exciting adventure with a BOO G8R original!!

Dutch Grilled Cheese

This week's sandwich is definitely our most adventurous yet-- not just because it involves more elements than we have used so far, but also because it incorporates ingredients and flavors that I haven't had much experience with in general.  Reading through the recipe I knew I recognized Gouda cheese, but couldn't remember exactly what it tasted like.  In addition to that I vaguely remembered having a distaste for rye bread, but couldn't quite recall why.  And I certainly had no idea what cumin tasted like.  Apparently the recipe's combination of Gouda and cumin is intended to mimic a Dutch cheese called Leyden cheese which (according to Wikipedia) is a yellow cumin spiced cheese made in the Netherlands from semi-skimmed cow's milk.  Logical all around considering Gouda is a yellow cheese made in the Netherlands and we are literally adding cumin to it.

While searching for my ingredients I had a hard time deciding exactly what to do where bread was concerned as the recipe called for rye bread with caraway seeds but, as I mentioned, I don't like rye.  I called my trusty shopping resource (Mom) to get her opinion on what I should do.  She said that rye is a pretty strong flavor and that if I remember disliking it that it's probably too strong for my taste.  However, while browsing around I found some rye bread that didn't have caraway seeds in it and I decided that this would be a good compromise since the bread is still made with the same basic grain, but doesn't have too strong of a taste for me to still enjoy it.  The bread itself is VERY dense, which I think is part of what makes it so unique. 

 Moving over to the spice aisle I saw that a container of cumin seeds cost ~$6, so I called my shopping resource back to see if she had any I could use.  I was in luck, but it was powdered cumin instead of cumin seeds-- as it saved me a good chunk of change I decided the substitution was acceptable.

The first step after accumulating the ingredients was thinly slicing a medium sized red onion and caramelizing the slivers.  Within seconds of cutting into the onion my eyes were welling up, so I could already tell this was going to be the highest score for pungency we've had yet. 

I've tried caramelizing onions before but was never successful (and now I know why).  You need to put about 1 tablespoon of butter in your non-stick pan and slowly cook the onions on a low heat until they turn a soft deep brown.  I hadn't used any sort of lubricant before, which caused the onions to burn before they were cooked appropriately.  Apparently, even if the butter proves insufficient and the onions do start to burn you can add a tablespoon or two of water and be back on track.  All in all this took about 30 minutes of cooking low and slow, but they looked delicious by the end!

Before

After

While I was cooking the onions I also grated the Gouda.  The cheese came with a thick red rind on it and per GGC's instructions, the rind was to be removed before grating.  I was surprised by how yellow the cheese looked!  And by how soft it was.  It was similar in consistency to American cheese in that it's firm enough to be solid, but is soft and crumbles easily when you try to grate it.

So now the cheese was grated and the onions were cooked.  I then moved the onions over to a separate plate and wiped out the pan with a paper towel (but didn't wash or rinse the pan).  According to the recipe I was supposed to then put 3/4 teaspoon of cumin seeds in the pan to warm them and bring out their flavor and then crush them with a mortar and pestle.  Welllll as mentioned, I didn't want to fork over the dough for the seeds and (surprise, surprise) my mortar and pestle were at the shop getting polished (is that an action that can be performed on a mortar and pestle?  I assume yes since it's made of marble).  Anyway, that is neither here nor there-- what matters is that I had to improvise a bit.  I decided to just put 1 tsp of cumin into the pan to see what happens.

As soon as I peeled the seal back from the cumin I was overwhelmed by the smell.  Said smell is best described as... Indian food?  Sweat?  Indian food that is sweating.  Regardless, this was not going to help the sandwich ingredients to be any less pungent.  Oh well, into the pan it went!  Whereas the scent of the red onions had lessened as I cooked them, the cumin only got stronger to the point that I ultimately got it off the heat to try to stop the smell.  I briefly debated not even adding it to the cheese since I didn't like the smell at all, but I figured I had already deviated enough from the recipe and didn't want to further interfere, so I went ahead and mixed it in.

Next step (as usual) was evenly distributing the cheese on top of two slices of rye bread (that have been buttered on one side) and topping them with the caramelized onions.  Then you add the second slice of buttered bread on top to complete the sandwich.  Now we're ready for grilling!

This was the biggest sandwich yet in that it occupied most of the pan and couldn't be completely covered by my standard smaller frying pan.  When it came time to flip it I needed two spatulas to lift it one of which began to buckle under the weight!  I think this has to do with the fact that the amount of cheese and filling we usually use for two sandwiches was on just one and the bread was particularly dense.

From there it was just a matter of the standard grilling on each side.  The Gouda melts very quickly-- probably because it is so soft and well grated, but also because this recipe called for cooking on medium high heat instead of medium low (most likely because of the bread's density). 

This was my first use of my sandwich warmer secondary pan idea and it worked really well!  When both sandwiches were done they were still warm and gooey and ready to be eaten.

Taste Review: Our initial reaction was very bland-- that the sandwich pretty much tasted like any other sandwich and that the pungent smell that had been there in the ingredients was gone.  The main thing that stood out at first was how GOOEY the sandwich was!  Not only were there strings of cheese connecting my mouth to the sandwich after every bite, but I would have to literally wrap them around the sandwich in order to get them to cut.  The caramelized onions made the sandwich taste sweet, which was muted by the flatter taste of the rye bread.  Overall I liked that taste since I have a big sweet tooth. 

Sadly, as we kept eating things started to go downhill.  As soon as we got a whiff of the cumin the pungent aroma was back and not in a good way.  Colin thought the onions were too sweet and didn't find the sandwich satisfying.  I agreed that the more I ate the less interested in the sandwich I was (the opposite of how I think you should feel-- when you're eating something good you never want it to end)!  The texture was the best part in that it was a substantial sandwich with lots of gooey cheese, but the taste and excitement just weren't there.  Per usual, Colin thought that ketchup made it taste better since it cut the sweetness of the onions.  All in all, this one was a disappointment.  Neither of us ended up finishing our sandwiches:

FINAL RESULTS:

Sandwich:	Dutch Grilled Cheese
Gooey-ness:	5
Aroma:	4
Appearance:	Very large, gooey, pungent but sweet.
Taste:	D+

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!

* Editor's note: 2 hours later we could still taste it... and it's still was not good.  But, if you like the flavor of cumin, caramelized onions and Gouda, then you'd LOVE this sandwich.

Up next week: Continued adventures with rye bread!