A sandwich at Helacio's Deli & Cafe, a deli in Berkeley, California.
out of 100 · legendary
Legendary. Every gate clear, the board clean.
Reads as a fully realized turkey sandwich, six of six roles, most layers have a partner.
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.
dutch crunch roll, served cold: turkey; bacon; avocado; provolone cheese; spinach; tomatoes; pickle red onions; chipotle aioli.
Balance
| Axis | Value | Catalog percentile |
|---|---|---|
| salt | 1.2 | 61st |
| acid | 0.8 | 62nd |
| fat | 2.3 | 57th |
| sweet | 0.3 | 37th |
| umami | 1.5 | 49th |
| heat | 0.2 | 71st |
| bitter | 0.1 | 43rd |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| dutch crunch roll | bread | soft crackly crusty | the frame |
| turkey | protein | umami 2 soft juicy tender | +3 |
| bacon | protein | fat 4 salt 3 umami 3 crispy chewy | +11 |
| avocado | fat | fat 4 creamy soft fresh | +2 |
| provolone cheesescored as Provolone | protein | fat 3 umami 3 salt 2 soft melty | −2 |
| spinach | bulk | soft fresh leafy | +2 |
| tomatoesscored as Tomato | texture | acid 3 umami 3 sweet 2 juicy soft fresh | +6 |
| pickle red onionsscored as Pickled Onion | acid | acid 4 pickled wet crunchy | +13 |
| chipotle aioliscored as Chipotle Mayo | sauce | fat 5 heat 2 creamy saucy | +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
- Turkey + Bacon: lean bird borrows the pig's smoke
- Turkey + Avocado: california club logic: green fat on lean bird
- Turkey + Tomato: lean bird and summer tomato, the deli standard
- Turkey + Chipotle Mayo: turkey and mayo, the deli default
- Bacon + Avocado: smoke and salt lift buttery avocado
- Bacon + Spinach: spinach and bacon, the warm salad
- Bacon + Tomato: smoke against sweet acid, the blt core
- Bacon + Chipotle Mayo: smoke on smoke, chipotle and bacon
- Avocado + Chipotle Mayo: smoky heat over green fat
- Tomato + Chipotle Mayo: summer tomato sandwich: acid on rich
All the sandwiches at Helacio's Deli & Cafe · The menu this was read from · Build your own in the Sandwich Builder