A sandwich at Saul's Restaurant & Delicatessen, a deli in Berkeley, California.
out of 100 · outstanding
Outstanding, and the road to 90 is open.
Reads as a fully realized reuben, four of six roles on the board.
More salt than 90% of the catalog.
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.
grilled rye, toasted: pastrami; kraut; swiss; russian.
Balance
| Axis | Value | Catalog percentile |
|---|---|---|
| salt | 2.2 | 90th |
| acid | 1.5 | 90th |
| fat | 2.2 | 51st |
| sweet | 0.4 | 51st |
| umami | 1.8 | 64th |
| heat | 0.4 | 82nd |
| bitter | 0.2 | 68th |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| grilled ryescored as Rye Bread | bread | bitter 2 soft crusty | the frame |
| pastrami | protein | salt 4 umami 4 fat 3 soft silky tender | +7 |
| krautscored as Sauerkraut | acid | acid 4 salt 2 pickled wet | +13 |
| swissscored as Swiss Cheese | protein | fat 3 umami 3 salt 2 soft melty | +4 |
| russianscored as Russian Dressing (Thousand Island) | sauce | fat 4 salt 2 acid 2 sweet 2 creamy saucy | +7 |
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
- Rye Bread + Pastrami: pastrami on rye, the new york standard
- Pastrami + Sauerkraut: peppery beef, sour kraut: the reuben axis
- Pastrami + Swiss Cheese: melted swiss rounds peppered beef
- Sauerkraut + Swiss Cheese: melted swiss rounds the kraut's sour
- Sauerkraut + Russian Dressing (Thousand Island): russian dressing was built for kraut
How to raise it
- Outstanding, not legendary: nothing on this sandwich is house-made, named or exceptional.
All the sandwiches at Saul's Restaurant & Delicatessen · The menu this was read from · Build your own in the Sandwich Builder