You can pick up and eat a regular Mexican sandwich with your hands, but the ahogada version is smothered in sauce, and while that kicks up the flavor to the ceiling, you do have to eat it with fork and knife. This vegetarian one was stuffed with sauteed slices of red onion and portobello and shitake mushrooms, small pieces of squash in chile pasilla, fresh diced tomato, pickled cabbage, and grilled slices of panela cheese. The menu also said there would be tofu, but I didn't detect any; instead, there were sweet kernels of corn which I thought was a nice addition. There was plenty of panela cheese for protein, so I don't think tofu was necessary anyway. The inside of the top bun half was spread with jalapeño mayo and the bottom half with creamy refried beans. The red chili sauce poured over the sandwich was quite spicy, but you'll get no complaint from me there! This sandwich had sourness, spicy heat, savoriness (I detected some oregano), chewiness from the cheese, and lots of moisture from the sauce. The top photo shows the sandwich as served, and the bottom one exposes the filling after I moved the top. This extremely delectable sandwich was garnished with fresh radish slices.
Location: Low Desert, Smoke Tree Village, 1775 E Palm Canyon Drive, Ste 405, Palm Springs, California. Date: June 8, 2023.
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This specialty of Guadalajara was the real deal: the drowned sandwich was smothered in delicious tomato sauce, which had cumin, chile de arbol, and vinegar in it, and the birria was the traditional goat meat, not a beef substitute. The meat tasted like it had some sweet spice in it, but I often think this when tasting Mexican meat dishes even though it's not often the case. Apart from the goat meat, the sandwich came stuffed with tomato, lettuce, avocado, onion, and pickled jalapeňo slices. The sandwich was spicy, savory, there was tartness from the sauce, and because the bread was drowned, it was incredibly moist. This one ranks up there with the best Mexican style sandwiches I've had.
Location: El Taco Asado, 440 S El Cielo Road, Ste 19, Palm Springs, California. Date: May 29, 2023. Pimento loaf is a baked deli meat usually made with beef and pork and flavored with bell pepper and pickles. I was told that the one I had in my sandwich was made with veal. It had a mild flavor, I could taste the vegetables, and I opened up the sandwich because pimento loaf is a pretty meat to eat. I had it on German rye bread with just butter because I wanted the pimento loaf to shine. My sandwich was served with a pickle spear.
Location: George's Market, 1023 Calimesa Blvd, Calimesa, California. Date: April 29, 2023. This sandwich from the Prison Hill Brewing Company consisted of brisket, smoked over mesquite wood for sixteen hours, sliced thin, and “forcibly” placed inside a warm amoroso roll with sauteed poblano pepper, caramelized onion, sage mustard, and pepperjack cheese. For my side I ordered prison hill beans which were sweet and smoky. The amoroso roll was like a hoagie roll and not at all sweet. The sandwich was juicy, a little sour, spicy, and it came with crunchy house made potato chips and a pickle spear. The meat was melt in your mouth, but for me it was the poblano chile that took this sandwich to the noteworthy level.
Location: Prison Hill Brewing Company, 278 S Main Street, Yuma, Arizona. Date: April 11, 2022. This grilled panini sandwich is stuffed with roast beef, pulled pork, pepper jack cheese, both fresh and pickled jalapeño slices, and habanero and chipotle mayo sauce, on a grilled soft baguette. The bread was somewhat charred on the cut side before going into the panini press, which I thought was a nice touch. There was a little smokiness from the meat, and the fresh jalapeño slices added some crunch. This sandwich was not as spicy as the name might suggest, but this could have been due to the fact that the jalapeño slices were not that spicy (though they can vary in spiciness quite a bit). For my side I chose the soup of the day, which was tomato bisque. It was rather sweet, but that contrasted nicely with the spiciness of the sandwich, even though this flame thrower was fairly mild.
PS: The next morning I realized that the sandwich had been hotter than I'd thought! Location: Meester Zebra, 68703 Perez Road, Ste A1, Cathedral City, California. Date: March 12, 2022. This signature sandwich contains grilled chicken, marinated goat cheese, peppadew peppers, and lettuce. For choice of bread, I chose the rustique Italian roll (which I could really sink my teeth into). The chicken was moist and well seasoned and crusted with herbs (oregano for sure). The South African marinated peppers were spicy, tangy, and sweet, and they still had a touch of crispness. The creamy goat cheese bound it all together, but it was the tangy sweetness of the pickled pepper that really made this sandwich and kept me wanting to take another bite.
Location: Bouchee Café & Deli, 72785 Highway 111, B-1, Palm Desert, California. Date: February 26, 2022. This sandwich used to be called The Spank, but that probably wasn't politically correct, so the kids added bacon and renamed the sandwich Dirty Riverside (Riverside being the county we live in). It comes with plenty of thinly sliced hot roast beef, bacon, pepper jack cheese, avocado, mayo, mustard, lettuce, tomato, onion, and chipotle sauce on jalapeño focaccia bread. This sandwich was fresh, spicy, crunchy, hot, cold, soft, and juicy: it ticked all the boxes. I did wonder why they gave me so many paper napkins, thinking that they were wasting them, but oh no, this sandwich dripped, and in the end I used every last napkin they'd given me. The sandwich was served with a pickle spear that looked homemade.
Location: TKB (The Kids Business), 45334 Golf Center Parkway, Indio, California. Date: January 15, 2022. I was at TKB, The Kids' Business, with a Sexy Italian; that was the name of my sandwich. I believe that food can be sexy, in this case with the shape of the parmesan roll and the sensual ingredients used to fill it: ham, salami, provolone, mayo, mustard, pesto, lettuce, tomato, onion, pepperoncini, black olives, and Italian dressing. This business started with a mother who made cookies and her three kids who went door to door selling them. The kids are grown up and so is the business: it's a bakery, deli, and sandwich shop in a warehouse in Indio, and the kids give you a couple of mom's cookies with each order. In my case, they also included a slice of delicious apple cake. This place has been consistently voted one of the best restaurants in America on Yelp.
Location: TKB Bakery & Deli, 44911 Golf Center Parkway, Indio, California. Date: August 17, 2021. I had a choice of bread, so I chose sourdough, and a choice of cheese; I picked pepper jack for a little spice. The rest of the sandwich contained scrambled egg, tomato, avocado, dark greens, and a few thin red onion slices. The bread was crunchy, the cheese was melted, and the tomato was cooked and very juicy. The greens, however, were not at all wilted, the avocado wasn't smashed, and the scrambled eggs were still fluffy. I think I've taught myself something about panini sandwich construction today. I noticed that there was melted cheese on both slices of bread, with tomato slices in the middle. What I think they did was to grill the bread with the cheese and tomato only, and since melted cheese won't stick to juicy tomato slices, they were able to open the sandwich easily enough and fill it with the other ingredients. So far I've done my paninis Panamanian style where they grill everything together, but they don't use greens in theirs. For my breakfast coffee, I chose a Costa Rican pour over. They grind the beans fresh, put the coffee into a filter, and pour the hot water over it. The other pour over choices were Colombian and Papua New Guinea.
Location: Dos Palmas Cafe, 3562 Adams Avenue (Normal Heights), San Diego, California. Date: July 18, 2021. Gorditas are fat corn tortillas that are cut open and stuffed. They seem to be the Mexican version of the Venezuelan arepa. The ones I ordered were stuffed with pinto beans, shredded lettuce, crema (a kind of sour cream), and shredded white cheese. These are probably the normal ingredients that go with some kind of meat; in my case, it was chopped beef tongue. I've had beef tongue in many ways, but these were my first beef tongue gorditas. The corn dough was a little crispy, the tongue was soft, there was creaminess from the cream and cheese, and I added crunch with raw radish slices and spice with the red and green salsas. From the salsa bar, I also helped myself to pickled carrot slices and a slice of pickled jalapeño pepper. These exotic sandwiches were very filling; I ordered two of them and had a hard time finishing them even though they were very delicious. Next time I'll order just one, and there will definitely be a next time.
Location: El Tarasco, 34481 Date Palm Drive, Cathedral City, California. Date: July 10, 2021. |
AuthorChef Roland has been a legal resident of seven countries and has travelled in over thirty, documenting food along the way. He currently resides in the desert in Southern California. Categories
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