A burger at Lola's Chicken Shack, a sandwich shop in Alameda, California.
out of 100 · very good
Very good, with one move worth +14.
A chicken bacon melt with layers outside the form; six of six roles, half the layers have no partner.
Holding the summit: a finished composition
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.
toasted bun, toasted: grilled chicken patty; fire roasted hatch chili; cheddar cheese; honey cured bacon; pico de gallo; crispy onions; cholula aioli.
Worth a look: named producer: NEW:Cholula Aioli; ingredient not in the pantry: Cholula Aioli.
Balance
| Axis | Value | Catalog percentile |
|---|---|---|
| salt | 2.0 | 87th |
| acid | 0.9 | 64th |
| fat | 2.2 | 53rd |
| sweet | 0.5 | 66th |
| umami | 2.2 | 82nd |
| heat | 0.4 | 83rd |
| bitter | 0.1 | 39th |
99 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| toasted bun (low tier)scored as Burger Bun | bread | sweet 2 soft springy | the frame |
| grilled chicken pattyscored as Chicken | protein | umami 3 fat 2 juicy chewy tender | 0 |
| fire roasted hatch chili | not scored | ||
| cheddar cheese | protein | fat 4 salt 3 umami 3 soft gooey melty | +11 |
| honey cured baconscored as Bacon | protein | fat 4 salt 3 umami 3 crispy chewy | +10 |
| pico de galloscored as Salsa | sauce | acid 3 salt 2 heat 2 juicy saucy | +10 |
| crispy onionsscored as Onion | texture | sweet 2 crunchy juicy fresh | +5 |
| cholula aioli | not scored |
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
- Cheddar Cheese + Bacon: bacon cheddar: smoke and sharp, burger law
- Cheddar Cheese + Onion: cheddar and onion, the ploughman's pair
How to raise it
Commodity bread (burger bun): nothing on the board changes that, and 90 is closed.
- Between you and 90: a finished composition (0.17 short).
All the sandwiches at Lola's Chicken Shack · The menu this was read from · Build your own in the Sandwich Builder