A sandwich at The Sandwich Spot Menlo College, a sandwich shop in Atherton, California.
out of 100 · excellent
Excellent, with one move worth +9.
A chicken bacon melt with layers outside the form; six of six roles.
Holding the summit: a focused, restrained build
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, toasted: marinated chicken; bacon; black honey; jack cheese; lava spicy sauce; mayo; mustard; secret sauce; lettuce; tomato; pickles; onions; peppers.
Worth a look: ingredient not in the pantry: Black Honey, Lava Sauce, Secret Sauce.
Balance
| Axis | Value | Catalog percentile |
|---|---|---|
| salt | 1.7 | 80th |
| acid | 1.5 | 87th |
| fat | 1.8 | 36th |
| sweet | 0.3 | 43rd |
| umami | 1.5 | 49th |
| heat | 0.4 | 80th |
| bitter | 0.2 | 69th |
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 |
| marinated chickenscored as Chicken | protein | umami 3 fat 2 juicy chewy tender | −1 |
| bacon | protein | fat 4 salt 3 umami 3 crispy chewy | +5 |
| black honey | not scored | ||
| jack cheesescored as Monterey Jack | protein | fat 3 salt 2 umami 2 soft creamy melty | −9 |
| lava spicy sauce | not scored | ||
| mayoscored as Mayonnaise | sauce | fat 5 acid 2 creamy saucy | −8 |
| mustard | sauce | acid 3 salt 2 heat 2 saucy smooth | −9 |
| secret sauce | not scored | ||
| lettuce | texture | crunchy juicy fresh | +7 |
| tomato | texture | acid 3 umami 3 sweet 2 juicy soft fresh | +10 |
| picklesscored as Pickle (cucumber) | acid | acid 5 salt 4 crunchy juicy pickled | −8 |
| onionsscored as Onion | texture | sweet 2 crunchy juicy fresh | −4 |
| peppersscored as Pepper (bell/hot) | texture | heat 3 crunchy juicy | −5 |
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 + Pickle (cucumber): fried chicken's pickle law holds cold too
- Bacon + Lettuce: cool crunch against hot smoke
- Bacon + Tomato: smoke against sweet acid, the blt core
- Mayonnaise + Tomato: summer tomato sandwich: acid on rich
- Onion + Pepper (bell/hot): peppers and onions, the griddle pair
How to raise it
- Between you and 90: a focused, restrained build (0.07 short).
All the sandwiches at The Sandwich Spot Menlo College · The menu this was read from · Build your own in the Sandwich Builder