The layer of hot sausage is blanketed in mild, buttery cheese enhanced by the juicy tomato, sweetish gherkins with just a hint of spice, and pickled chilies that make up for the lack of aggression with a pungent brininess and heat
There’s a familiarity to the combination that is comforting, a universality. It comes as no surprise that these flavors compliment a patty of garlicky sausage, crosshatched with seared grill marks and oozing with melted cheese.
It’s far more interestingly seasoned than a Midwestern Sloppy Joe. with a whiplash of flavors between the cool herbs and warm spices that kept me interested without fatiguing my palate.
All else took a backseat to the floral coriander, the earthy turmeric and cumin, the warming garam masala, the lush chicken thighs, the bright lemon-spiked red onion and the bits of hot chili pepper tangled up in its matrix.
The idea of replacing a more boring green like lettuce in a sandwich with a collection of herbs is exciting! In such a lineup of big flavors, the nominal star of the show, the Kalbas, is almost an afterthought, but it works.
The rye crust was too thick, brittle when it should be strong enough to hold together yet hard and impenetrable when I wanted to bite through it, unleavened and dense, with the molasses flavor of dark rye.
It’s colorful and has an interesting variety of textures, the soft and moist outer layer of egg and crepe studded with toasty sesame seeds and little pungent bursts of scallion barely holding the crisp fried crackers and cabbage inside
Toasting does a really nice job of bringing the sandwich together, the cheese melting into the garlicky porkfat of the salami, mingling the brine of the pepperoncinis and the pungent mustard into the crumb of the bread.
The spice mix hit my sweet spot, hot enough that I felt it, that pain-high of a dish that’s good and hot, the clarity of thought that arises even as your nose runs and your eyes water up.
I will be taking my cue from Tarantino and talking thematically rather than chronologically. To paraphrase the wisdom of Grease, some of these items just go together, like shoo-bop sha wadda wadda yippity boom de boom.
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