grilled ham and cheese from tartine

tartine, 18th & guererro, san francisco

"Jambon Royale & Gruyere: Niman Ranch cured and smoked ham with Dijon on country bread"

 

I started writing a review of this waaaaaaay long ago, but never posted it.  Which is good, because my first review sucked.  This sandwich speaks for itself- tartine bread, hella good ham and cheese, and AWESOME spicy mustard.  And spicy pickled carrots on the side.  This thing is like fifteen bucks, but I'm telling you, ITS WORTH IT.  That is how good this sandwich is.  I might only get to eat it whenever I have a birthday or cure AIDS or whatever, but I'm impatiently waiting for an excuse to pay top dime for one of these again.

Father's Office.

Father's Office, Culver City, Los Angeles, CA

Hooooly crap! This might be the best burger I've ever had! It really was that good...

Now let me be clear: this isn't a traditional burger. What I consider to be a traditional burger is one with lettuce, tomato, pickles, maybe thousand islands sauce... you know, and all the other usual ingredients. The Office Burger they sell here is more of a gourmet burger. The regular fries are a-ma-zing! And apparently their sweet potato fries are even better...

here are the ingredients for the burger:

The Office Burger (Dry Aged Beef) caramelized onion, applewood bacon compote, gruyere, matag blue cheese and arugula.

The gruyere cheese was perfectly mild and tasty, though i didn't really get too much of a blue cheese flavor. I'm pretty sure it was obscured by the strong flavor of the caramelized onions and deliciously sweet applewood bacon compote. The applewood bacon compote was basically like a BBQ sauce that tasted completely organic and just sweet enough. The arugula was kind of a odd surprise at first, me being used to watery ice-berg lettuce and all, but not in a bad way. It was super fresh just like everything else.

And of course with all burgers (and possibly all sandwiches for that matter) the most important thing was the quality of the meat (for all you meat-eaters out there). This patty was pretty mind-blowingly good. I asked for mine medium rare, and they delivered it just right. Juicy, flavorful, completely fresh and organic without a hint of artificial flavor. Ridiculously good.

and the fries:

Basket of Frites "A La Cart" garlic parsley aioli

Just delicious little thin fries with a hint of garlic and bits of parsley. Very excellent tartar-like dipping sauce as well. Apparently you have to bring your own ketchup if that's what you want on your fries, but I didn't really mind the fact that they don't have it.

Basically, this is just a frickin' awesome burger. The ONLY negative I'd have to give it is the price: 12.50 for the burger and 2.50 for the fries. But to it's credit, there are a ton of places that charge that much and deliver considerably less. I would absolutely say that it's worth it, maybe just not all the time if your as impoverished as I am. But seriously though, this burger is 12 dollars good. It really is.

croque monsieur

tartine, 18th & guererro, san francisco

I admit I was a little bit confused when Els told me she had brought "croque monsieur" home from Tartine.  Monsieur who?? I'm as open-minded as the next guy, but not that open-minded, you know?  But as I was much relieved to learn, a croque monsieur is a grilled ham and cheese- but with a silly french name (it means "mister crunchy"!!!).  I was also glad to learn that croque monsieurs are AWESOME.  First off, if you've never been to Tartine, I gotta warn you that it is straight up for rich-ass yuppies and their bizarrely fashionable offspring, so you have to be prepared to pay out the ass for your food.  That being said, if you are willing to spend yr hard earned pennies, you will get some CRAZY delicious food.  This sandwich was like a loaf of french bread sliced lengthwise, drenched in butter and topped with really good ham and cheese and tomato and who knows what else because I basically demolished this thing.  It could easily be split between two people, but Els was kind enough to let me have Mister Crunchy here all to myself.