Jersey Mike’s Subs
5025 E. 82nd Street
Indianapolis, Indiana 46250
http://www.jerseymikes.com/

Every few months, I go on a kick where all I want to eat are sandwiches consisting of deli meats.  Clubs, turkey sandwiches, etc.  It’s usually one particular sandwich that pushes me over the edge and as I’ve mentioned before, it was the Mile High Club Sandwich that got me on this kick.  The thing about deli meat sandwiches though is that I don’t always want that big glob of bread sitting in my stomach, so I’ve started looking around for places that have wraps as an option as opposed to just sub rolls and much to my joy and surprise, Jersey Mike’s is one of those places (Blimpie does it too).  I love Jersey Mike’s, so I ventured over there recently and decided to get a wrap and see how well they did theirs.  I feel kinda foolish reviewing a sandwich that you basically build yourself, but whatever.

What I Got:  Club Supreme Wrap; ~$7.00 for a regular.

Jersey Mike’s has special “wrap only” type menu items, but they also allow you to turn any regular sub into a wrap.  I didn’t want any of the “wrap only” sandwiches, so I decided to fulfill my Club sandwich kick by turning the Club Supreme into a wrap.  The Club Supreme contains Roast Beef, Turkey, Bacon, Swiss Cheese and Mayonnaise, all done Mike’s Way (Oregano, Vinegar, Oil, Lettuce, Onion, Tomato).  I had them remove the mayonnaise and add pickles, banana peppers, honey mustard and Hot Cherry Pepper Relish.  They also give you the option to have the wrap be a regular flour tortilla or a tomato basil tortilla (they heat them on the grill in order to soften them up before loading them with ingredients) and I chose the tomato basil tortilla.  One thing I can tell you is that if you look closely enough at the picture above, you will see one thing missing:  THE BACON.  Dammit, they screwed up my order!

Anyway, as for the rest of the non-screwed up ingredients, they were delicious.  The meats, cheeses and veggies were plentiful and made this wrap quite a load.  One thing of note is that wraps don’t do a very good job of holding vinegar and oil because this thing was a mess since the liquids were running everywhere.  The pepper relish, an obvious copy of Lenny’s pepper relish, also added a nice spicy little kick to the “cooling” lunch meat and veggies, as did the banana peppers.  While I didn’t taste anything exceptional in the tomato basil tortilla, it definitely did taste different than your standard tortilla that you would get at the store, so in that fact alone, I guess it’s a success.  There’s not much else to say here as everything else is pretty much as you would have expected it to be.

Would I Buy It Again?  Yes, no question about it.  I already loved Jersey Mike’s to begin with because of their huge portions and quality taste, but now that I can partially eliminate the bread gut bomb that I usually get when I get there by substituting a tortilla shell, I love this place even more now that I’ll feel “lighter” (LOL) after eating one of their menu offerings.  Missing bacon or not, this Club Supreme is a winner.

-IndianapolisEater

Red Robin
13215 Harrell Parkway
Noblesville, IN 46060
http://www.redrobin.com/

Since I’ve decided to give my cholesterol medication the fight of its life, I have a “Red Royalty” card at Red Robin. Yes, I love burgers and if you’re going chain, I don’t think you can beat Red Robin. If I was listing my top 10 chain burgers, I think Red Robin would have at least three of them, if not five or more.

So when I got an email saying that Red Royalty members could currently order a burger that isn’t on the menu but will soon be available on a limited-time basis, I was sold. I was so pumped, you would’ve thought I was a White Sox fan and someone told me we were gonna jump the 80-year-old first-base coach.

What I Got: Big Melt Bacon Burger; $9.99.

This isn’t the first time Red Robin has run this out. The description I tracked down via an internet cache (seriously, I’m doing this detective work for free?) is as follows: loaded with applewood smoked bacon, melty cheddar and swiss cheese on top of sauteed mushrooms, onions and barbeque sauce. Served on a toasted onion bun with fresh lettuce and ranch dressing.

You can tell I’m an amateur because I just dove in right away. I didn’t inspect to see if all the ingredients were the same this time around, but I can tell you there are now fried onion strings on there. The cheese, meat and produce were as stated, and there was definitely some barbeque sauce, but not a lot. As for the ranch, I didn’t really get it. I should have at least looked, so I apologize for that (again, note the cholesterol issue and my affinity for burgers…I wasn’t patient). If they stuck with it this time around, it was so mild it was lost in the shuffle.

The reason I ran to Red Robin the day after I got the email is because everything listed is something I love on a burger. The only worry, albeit incredibly slight, was that there would be too much going it. That worry soaked away on my first bite, just as I let the medley soak over me.

Absolutely everything worked and there was just the right amount of cheese melted along with the BBQ sauce. There were a decent amount of onions and mushrooms under the cheese without it being too much. This was a home run.

Would I Buy It Again? Yes (an emphatic one). In fact, I’m already mapping out when I can do it again, probably within the next few days. It’s now one of my favorite chain burgers, and that’s saying something. It’s probably not for everyone, because that’s a lot of toppings — but if you like all that, this is an absolute can’t-miss.

-Show

In my recent visit to McDonald’s, I took a look at one of their Real Fruit Smoothies.  In addition to my smoothie, I also added in a meal. I didn’t want a burger and I was already feeling snooty since I ordered a smoothie at McDonald’s (LOL), so I decided to order a sandwich from their Premium Chicken line.

What I Got:  Premium Grilled Chicken Club Sandwich Combo $6.15 (large sized for 80 cents more)

The Premium Grilled Chicken Club Sandwich is made up of a grilled and seasoned chicken breast filet, hickory smoked bacon, lettuce, tomato, melted swiss cheese, and mayonnaise, all served on a honey wheat roll that was shaped somewhat like a mini sub sandwich.

When you order grilled chicken instead of fried chicken at a lot of fast food establishments, they will dry it out.  Thankfully, McDonald’s did not do this.  The breast’s flavor was tender and delicious and also had a mild peppery bite to it as well, so that was wonderful.  The bacon was soft and chewy and since I prefer my bacon that way, I really enjoyed that.  If you prefer crispy bacon over chewy bacon, you may not like this.  When they combined these two meat ingredients with the melted swiss cheese (it was extremely warm, gooey and awesome), it was a truly winning flavor combination.

The rest of the sandwich consisted of the bread, produce and mayonnaise.  The bread was fine and you could taste the honey flavoring, but it was a little hard for my liking.  The lettuce seemed slightly aged, but the tomato was fine, so the produce didn’t really add or subtract from the sandwich in any way.

The sandwich did have one negative though and that was the mayonnaise.  I don’t mind mayonnaise and I usually order my sandwiches without it for dietary reasons, but in this instance I decided to leave it on the sandwich and that was a mistake as there was WAY TOO MUCH on there and I actually had to open up the sandwich and scrape it off.  It seemed like they put an entire tablespoon on there.  Gross.

Would I Buy It Again?  Absolutely. I don’t ordinarily go to McDonald’s for anything other than breakfast, ice cream or coffee, but this sandwich may have converted me back to ordering other things off the menu.  The only problem I had with sandwich was with the mayonnaise, so next time I will make sure to ask them to take it off.

Quick rant here:  McDonald’s fries have the reputation of being some of, if not the best, fries in the fast food business and I just don’t get it.  I think they are vastly overrated and I personally consider them to be mediocre at best.  Whenever I order them, they are never crispy, they are always too greasy and their flavor is exceptionally bland.  I always have to use a ton of salt just to give them some flavor and I almost never do that with fries when I order them at other fast food joints.  Oh well, despite their blandness, at least they are better than Burger King’s (LOL, I had to work a Burger King fries blast into this post somehow).

-IndianapolisEater