A sandwich at Buffalo Bill's Brewery, a restaurant in Hayward, California.
out of 100 · excellent
Excellent, with one move worth +9.
A pastrami on rye with layers outside the form; four of six roles.
Holding the summit: a finished composition
More heat 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.
odessa rye, served cold: pastrami brisket; sauerkraut; swiss cheese; homemade horseradish (house-made); mayonnaise; brown mustard.
Worth a look: house-made: Horseradish.
Balance
| Axis | Value | Catalog percentile |
|---|---|---|
| salt | 1.9 | 84th |
| acid | 1.8 | 90th |
| fat | 1.8 | 37th |
| sweet | 0.0 | n/a |
| umami | 1.4 | 47th |
| heat | 1.0 | 90th |
| bitter | 0.5 | 89th |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| odessa ryescored as Rye Bread | bread | bitter 2 soft crusty | the frame |
| pastrami brisketscored as Pastrami | protein | salt 4 umami 4 fat 3 soft silky tender | +20 |
| sauerkraut | acid | acid 4 salt 2 pickled wet | +4 |
| swiss cheese | protein | fat 3 umami 3 salt 2 soft melty | +5 |
| homemade horseradish (house-made)scored as Horseradish | sauce | heat 4 acid 2 creamy saucy | −6 |
| mayonnaise | sauce | fat 5 acid 2 creamy saucy | −3 |
| brown mustardscored as Mustard | sauce | acid 3 salt 2 heat 2 saucy smooth | +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
- 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
- Pastrami + Horseradish: horseradish on hot pastrami, the deli's other sharp
- Pastrami + Mustard: deli law: sharp mustard against cured beef
- Sauerkraut + Swiss Cheese: melted swiss rounds the kraut's sour
How to raise it
- Between you and 90: a finished composition (0.04 short).
All the sandwiches at Buffalo Bill's Brewery · The menu this was read from · Build your own in the Sandwich Builder