pluto's french dip

 

 pluto's, university & cowper, palo alto

Here's another restaurant that you can find in the Inner Sunset, actually just a block or two away from Yellow Submarine (which I wrote about yesterday, remember??). Although in this particular case, I was eating at the Pluto's in Palo Alto. I remember being pretty excited when Pluto's opened in downtown Palo Alto in the 90's. I liked the space theme, I thought the sandwiches were good, and I loved the curly fries. My views haven't changed much since then, although these days I can usually find a more interesting place to eat and so rarely go to Pluto's anymore. And that's really all you can say about the place. Passable, not that interesting. Pluto's!

Btw, I think it took me six months to actually write this.

roast beef and apple

  

Roast beef with apple, red onion, spinach and dijon mustard!!  UH, ROAST BEEF AND APPLE!!!  Why did no one think of this before?  Or did they?  Does this sandwich have a name?  It was super, super good.  I can't even describe what a weird and awesome flavor the combination of roast beef and apple has.  This sandwich RULED. BTW- I surprised Els for lunch this day, and this sandwich is what she had packed. Like, just a casual, everyday kinda lunch. I think she is kinda crazy.

burning betsy

pommard deli, middlefield & loma verde, palo alto

I learned something during my trip to the Bay Area- experimenting does not always pay off. Although I ate at some of my favorite sandwich shops, I made an effort to try new sandwiches that I wouldn't have normally ordered... and ended up not enjoying the new sandwiches as much as my favorites (surprise!). I mean, sure it's good to try something new once in a while, but it's also good to balance that out with some old favorites. By the time I got around to eating at Pommard, I was already feeling a little burned by the sandwich choices I'd been making. Still, this sandwich- the "Burning Betsy"- sounded great! Roast beef, pepper jack cheese, roasted red bell peppers and Pommard's honey mustard (the honey mustard, which I mused about on my last Pommard visit, turns out to be an in-house creation- bummer for me, because it's really good and I'd love to have a supply of some)! I was surprised, when I arrived home, to discover that the sandwich was so wet that the bottom slice of bread had become soggy. This, I soon realized, was because the roasted red bell pepper was the type that comes in a jar, and wasn't roasted at Pommard. The wetness was off-putting, and the peppers had a bit too strong of a flavor. It wasn't a huge deal, because there were a lot of other strong flavors in the sandwich, but in the end I felt like I could have done without the peppers altogether. Interestingly, when I arrived at Pommard on this visit, they had further remodeled, and continued to push the "pizza parlor" aspect of their business. I know that they were bought out by some kind of pizza-man in the last few years, but this continues to baffle me- Pommard does sandwiches so, so well, and I can't imagine ever going there to buy pizza. I hope that this schizophrenic business approach doesn't take away from their attention on their sandwiches.