A sandwich at Susie Q's Pizza, a restaurant in Hayward, California.
out of 100 · outstanding
Outstanding. Small moves left on the board.
Leans toward a pastrami on rye, six of six roles on the board.
Holding the summit: a finished composition
More acid 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.
hoagie roll (inferred from the kind of place), toasted: pastrami; swiss cheese; lettuce; tomato; pickles; mustard.
Balance
| Axis | Value | Catalog percentile |
|---|---|---|
| salt | 2.4 | 90th |
| acid | 1.9 | 90th |
| fat | 1.2 | 17th |
| sweet | 0.3 | 41st |
| umami | 1.8 | 63rd |
| heat | 0.6 | 88th |
| bitter | 0.2 | 69th |
100 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| hoagie roll (inferred from the kind of place) | bread | soft crusty | the frame |
| pastrami | protein | salt 4 umami 4 fat 3 soft silky tender | +20 |
| swiss cheese | protein | fat 3 umami 3 salt 2 soft melty | +12 |
| lettuce | texture | crunchy juicy fresh | +13 |
| tomato | texture | acid 3 umami 3 sweet 2 juicy soft fresh | +8 |
| picklesscored as Pickle (cucumber) | acid | acid 5 salt 4 crunchy juicy pickled | −5 |
| mustard | sauce | acid 3 salt 2 heat 2 saucy smooth | +16 |
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
- Pastrami + Swiss Cheese: melted swiss rounds peppered beef
- Pastrami + Mustard: deli law: sharp mustard against cured beef
How to raise it
- Between you and 90: a finished composition (0.01 short).
All the sandwiches at Susie Q's Pizza · The menu this was read from · Build your own in the Sandwich Builder