Location: 2473 Dundas Street West, Toronto
Website: https://www.phancybodega.com/
French onion soup? Yeah, that’s delicious. Grilled cheese? Obviously great. So if you’re going to cram the two together, clearly I need to try that.
They have a bunch of tasty looking hoagies and grilled cheese sandwiches at Phancy’s (I’ve heard the Buffalo chicken is particularly good), but once I saw the French onion soup sandwich, it had to happen.
The French onion grilled cheese, per Phancy’s menu: “Truffle french onion mayo, provolone, caramelized french onions on butter toasted pullman loaf.”
It’s a quality sandwich. How could it not be? It’s got a whole bunch of caramelized onions and gooey cheese, so of course it tastes good.
The fluffy, slightly sweet brioche-like bread isn’t a perfect match for the sandwich, however. It has a hard time holding together under the deluge of greasy toppings, and its sweetness is probably overkill.
Something like sourdough would bring bit more heft, not to mention a zingy counterpoint to the very sweet caramelized onions (the sandwich is really crying out for something acidic to cut through the extreme richness, though I suppose that would muddle the French onion soup theme).
Still, it’s a very tasty sandwich, though I should note that this was maybe the greasiest, heaviest grilled cheese sandwich I’ve ever eaten. It was like taking a wrecking ball to my guts.
Don’t make any big plans after eating this thing, is what I’m saying.
Michael Eats 