A sandwich at Lola's Chicken Shack, a sandwich shop in Alameda, California.
out of 100 · outstanding
Outstanding, with one move worth +9.
Reads as a fully realized 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; cheddar cheese; honey mustard (low tier); red onion; lettuce; tomato.
Balance
| Axis | Value | Catalog percentile |
|---|---|---|
| salt | 1.7 | 79th |
| acid | 0.8 | 60th |
| fat | 1.9 | 39th |
| sweet | 0.7 | 81st |
| umami | 2.1 | 80th |
| heat | 0.2 | 69th |
| bitter | 0.1 | 51st |
95 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 | −1 |
| bacon | protein | fat 4 salt 3 umami 3 crispy chewy | +1 |
| cheddar cheese | protein | fat 4 salt 3 umami 3 soft gooey melty | −2 |
| honey mustard (low tier) | sauce | sweet 3 salt 2 acid 2 saucy smooth | +3 |
| red onionscored as Onion | texture | sweet 2 crunchy juicy fresh | +1 |
| lettuce | texture | crunchy juicy fresh | 0 |
| tomato | texture | acid 3 umami 3 sweet 2 juicy soft fresh | +8 |
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 + Honey Mustard: honey mustard is chicken's dipping sauce
- Bacon + Cheddar Cheese: bacon cheddar: smoke and sharp, burger law
- Bacon + Honey Mustard: sweet mustard against smoke
- Bacon + Lettuce: cool crunch against hot smoke
- Bacon + Tomato: smoke against sweet acid, the blt core
- Cheddar Cheese + Honey Mustard: ploughman's law: sharp cheese, sharp mustard
- Cheddar Cheese + Onion: cheddar and onion, the ploughman's pair
- Cheddar Cheese + Tomato: grilled cheese and tomato, the lunch pair
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