cheese sauce – Michael Eats

Tasty Dipped Sandwiches at Hot Dip

Published on June 27, 2021 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 1186 Queen Street West, Toronto
Website: https://www.instagram.com/hotdiptoronto/

Hot Dip is a new sandwich shop on Queen Street that specializes in meaty sandwiches you can dip into things, and yeah, gimme that. That’s a genius idea.

They actually only have four sandwiches on the menu (at the moment, at least), which I appreciate. I always freeze like a deer in headlights when I see a menu with dozens of things on it — I know that everything on this huge menu cannot possibly be great, so just tell me what the good stuff is and what I can ignore.

Focusing on only a few things solves this problem entirely.

I ordered the Hot Dip (because you should always get the menu item that shares a name with the restaurant) which is a roast beef sandwich with horseradish mayo topped with crispy onions and served on a pretzel roll. The dip, in this case, is sharp cheddar.

It’s a very good sandwich. The thinly-sliced roast beef is super tender with a nice beefy flavour, and there’s a generous amount of it — the menu says eight ounces (i.e. half a pound, i.e. a lot of beef), and based on how substantial the sandwich is, I have no reason to believe they’re skimping on the meat.

The pretzel roll is just as good as the beef. Sometimes pretzel bread can be a bit on the dense side, but this struck a great balance between softness and heft, with a lightly crispy exterior.

As for the dip, weirdly enough it’s the weakest part of the sandwich. Despite being called “sharp cheddar” it has a thoroughly mild flavour — it basically has the taste and texture of watered-down Cheez Whiz. It mostly just adds moisture to the sandwich, but between the fresh bread and the tender meat, it doesn’t particularly need it.

My other big issue: it’s an incredibly heavy sandwich, and it really needs something acidic to cut through the overwhelming richness. I guess the horseradish mayo is supposed to fill this role? But it’s completely overwhelmed by all the beef; you can barely even tell that it’s there. It’s certainly not a deal-killer (it’s still very tasty), but it makes the sandwich feel a bit one-note rich, which is a shame.

A Sandwich with Issues at Parka Food Co.

Published on December 4, 2019 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 424 Queen Street West, Toronto
Website: https://www.parkafoodco.com/

I don’t know what it is about “plant-based” restaurants serving sandwiches with overly dense buns, but I had that issue at Planta, I had it at Fresh, and now it’s happened again at Parka Food Co.

Is it the plant-based thing? The lack of dairy? Or is it a coincidence I’m reading too much into? I don’t know.

(Also, whichever marketer came up with the term “plant-based” to make veganism sound more hip and healthy: kudos to you. You have succeeded beyond your wildest dreams.)

I tried the broccoli sandwich at Parka Food Co., which comes with “lightly battered broccoli, cashew cheese sauce, dill pickles, sauteed onions, roasted garlic, lettuce, parka aioli,” and it was mostly decent enough — but then there was that bun.

It’s all about Newton’s third law of motion: for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. The bun is so firm and dense that the force of you holding it and biting into it has nowhere to go but down into the components of the sandwich. A normal bun would absorb some of that force, but not this one.

Instead, everything gets squished out within a couple of bites. I had to eat the sandwich with a fork and knife. It’s not a big deal, but I kinda wanted to eat my sandwich like a sandwich.

Aside from that, it wasn’t bad. The broccoli has a nice crispy, battered exterior, and the inside is perfectly cooked — it’s tender but not mushy, with a satisfying bite.

The cashew “cheese” sauce is basically just a thick, gooey paste, without a whole lot of cheese-like properties. But it’s fine on the sandwich.

And the sweet aioli and the pickles do a nice job of cutting through the richness of the fried broccoli and the “cheese.” It’s a pretty good sandwich… or at least it would be if you could eat it like a sandwich.

Bacon Jalapeno Chicken Sandwich at Wendy’s

Published on July 2, 2019 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 1520 Aimco Boulevard, Mississauga
Website: https://www.wendys.com/en-ca/home

The Bacon Jalapeno Chicken Sandwich from Wendy’s has pretty much everything I like in a fast food sandwich; it’s got gooey cheese (with both a melty cheese slice and cheese sauce), bacon, jalapenos, crispy fried onions, pickled jalapeno slices, and a smoky japaleno sauce.

So yeah, it’s good. They’d have to work pretty hard to mess it up.

The worst part about this chicken sandwich is, funnily enough, the chicken. The sandwich features their Spicy Chicken patty, and they keep it in one of those warming drawers (AKA the fast food ruiner).

So it’s dry, of course. It’s also a little bit too salty, and thoroughly infused with a vaguely unpleasant processed flavour.

The toppings are so abundant, however, that it’s barely even an issue. I only had one or two bites that weren’t crammed with stuff.

You’ve got the richness from the cheeses, crispiness from the fried onions, zestiness from the sauce, a nice meaty bite from the bacon, and a good amount of acidity from the jalapenos to help cut through the sandwich’s richness. It’s quite tasty.

It also has a decent kick to it — it’s nothing too aggressive, but for something from a fast food joint, it’s not bad.

Nachos at Cineplex

Published on December 28, 2018 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 110 Courtneypark Drive East, Mississauga
Website: https://www.cineplex.com/Theatres/FoodAndDrink

Yes, I’m reviewing movie theatre nachos. Big whoop, wanna fight about it?

I actually used to really like the nachos at Cineplex! They’re junk, but tasty junk. Or at least, they were.

I haven’t had them in ages, but I feel like they used to be way better. Maybe I’m crazy.

The nacho cheese sauce used to be salty goo that had almost no resemblance to anything even close to real cheese — and yet there was something oddly satisfying about it.

I’ll admit that it’s quite possible I’m just getting snobbier, but the nachos lacked the junky joys of their previous self.

It probably doesn’t help that the cheese comes in pre-filled containers that are too small to dip chips into.

Seriously, who designed this?? Why not make the cups slightly shorter and wider? It’s a definite “you had one job” situation.

Even outside of the hilariously ill-conceived containers, the cheese itself seemed less salty, and like it was actually trying to resemble real cheese. But it did this extremely poorly, so you wind up with something with a neither-here-nor-there flavour that’s bland and unsatisfying.

The chips themselves are exactly as I remember them, at least. They’re not great (and they always taste vaguely stale), but they’re crunchy and satisfying.

The jalapenos are the clear highlight. I love pickled jalapenos, but when you buy them at the supermarket, they’re inevitably mushy, with a disappointingly mild level of spice. These ones have a great crunch and a decent amount of heat. They take something that would otherwise be mostly inedible and make it tolerable.