A sandwich at Lola's Chicken Shack, a sandwich shop in Alameda, California.
out of 100 · outstanding
Outstanding. Small moves left on the board.
Reads as a chicken bacon melt, six of six roles on the board.
−5 a wet layer on soft bread
Each bar is one pillar of the score, 0 to 100. The tick marks what a sandwich at the summit needs; an amber bar is the one holding this sandwich back.
choice of bread, served cold: classic tenders; bacon; avocado; goat cheese; bbq sauce; red onion; lettuce; tomato.
Balance
| Axis | Value | Catalog percentile |
|---|---|---|
| salt | 1.3 | 64th |
| acid | 1.0 | 68th |
| fat | 2.2 | 53rd |
| sweet | 0.8 | 82nd |
| umami | 1.8 | 63rd |
| heat | 0.0 | 47th |
| bitter | 0.1 | 47th |
98 Balance, out of 100
The seven flavor axes of the whole sandwich, each summed across its layers. The shaded ring is the catalog's middle 80%; the small number under each axis is where this sandwich falls in the catalog. A shape that sits inside the ring is in the range most sandwiches live in; a spike past it is where this one stands apart.
What each layer brings
| Layer | Role | Flavor and texture | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| choice of bread | bread | soft | the frame |
| classic tendersscored as Chicken | protein | umami 3 fat 2 juicy chewy tender | 0 |
| bacon | protein | fat 4 salt 3 umami 3 crispy chewy | +6 |
| avocado | fat | fat 4 creamy soft fresh | +2 |
| goat cheesescored as Goat Cheese (chèvre) | protein | fat 4 acid 3 salt 2 umami 2 creamy soft | +2 |
| bbq sauce | sauce | sweet 4 salt 2 acid 2 silky saucy | 0 |
| red onionscored as Onion | texture | sweet 2 crunchy juicy fresh | 0 |
| lettuce | texture | crunchy juicy fresh | 0 |
| tomato | texture | acid 3 umami 3 sweet 2 juicy soft fresh | +2 |
Points: what the Sandwich Score would lose if that one layer were left out, everything else the same. A negative number means the sandwich scores higher without it. Flavor runs 0 to 5 on each axis.
Pairings
- Chicken + Bacon: chicken club logic: smoke on a lean bird
- Chicken + Avocado: california logic: green fat on a lean bird
- Chicken + BBQ Sauce: bbq chicken: sweet smoke glaze on a mild bird
- Bacon + Avocado: smoke and salt lift buttery avocado
- Bacon + BBQ Sauce: smoke on smoke: bacon under bbq sauce
- Bacon + Lettuce: cool crunch against hot smoke
- Bacon + Tomato: smoke against sweet acid, the blt core
- BBQ Sauce + Onion: onion sharpens sweet bbq sauce
How to raise it
- Clear the board: a wet layer on soft bread (-5).
All the sandwiches at Lola's Chicken Shack · The menu this was read from · Build your own in the Sandwich Builder