Ever gone out to eat, and the meal is “so-so”, and there is nothing you can put your finger on, but for some reason your clubhouse sandwich and fries, just aren’t the same?

You’re looking at the sandwich, and it “looks right”, but there is something in the taste from your plate, that just kind of doesn’t make things taste fresh or spectacular?

There are all kinds of little things that a lazy chef or short order cook will do, that translates into your plate not making your taste buds happy. I’ll talk about one meal, and we’ll see how many ways you can ruin it.

First of all, let’s quickly talk about what makes a clubhouse sandwich and fries:

Bread, lettuce, bacon, tomato, chicken (or turkey), cheese, mayo, margarine, french fries.

Simple right? Put it all together, and you have a club house and fries.

WRONG.

1) Bread — Before you toast the bread, was it fresh? Often it sits stale in a refrigerator or a counter and starts to form little white stale circles after awhile. No there is no mold on the bread, but the composition of the bread has changed, thereby changing the flavor slightly. Toast the bread, and what’s that? The toaster was set too high, or you didn’t watch it in time? Ok, scrape off the burnt parts.. the customer will never know. The problem with scraping off burnt parts, is that little flecks of the burnt bread will still be on the top layer. Thinly enough that the eye can’t see them, but the mouth and tongue zero in on them. The cook may say “hey, the sandwich looks ok” — yes, but what about the taste you idiot? If you burnt your own bread, I hardly doubt you’d eat it. You’d throw it away and make your own fresh toast again. Why doesn’t the customer, who is paying a premium for his meal get the same treatment?

2) Margarine and Mayo. Caking on the margarine, vs thinly spreading it evenly can leave gobs of margarine in your mouth, which takes away flavors from the rest of the sandwich. Just because the cook is in a hurry to get your darned sandwich outta the kitchen doesn’t mean he or she has to send substandard product out. Take the extra 1/2 second to spread the bread with margarine and mayo evenly. Almost like you are making a sandwich out of love for your spouse. Again, customers are not cows at a trough. The way something tastes is very evident. Want them to crave your clubhouse sandwich and come back for more another time? THEN MAKE IT PROPERLY, with care and attention!

3) Lettuce. Very few customers will open and dissect their sandwich and examine each individual component. So that piece of lettuce that was browning near the stem, or the unwashed lettuce with a couple of tiny bugs on it… Yes, they will end up eating it, but the flavor will be sour, taste a little off… and they won’t be able to say “hmm. that lettuce didn’t taste right”.. instead, they will say, “I don’t know what it is about this sandwich, but it doesn’t taste very good”. Each component regardless of how unimportant you may think it is.. adds to the overall taste of the entire thing. Start with fresh clean lettuce, and you instantly change a mediocre sloppy clubhouse into something to be craved and desired next time this customer thinks about coming back to your establishment.

3) Tomatoes. Many short order cooks will pre-slice tomatoes to save them time in the kitchen. These tomatos will be held in a refrigerated state. Do you realize that a tomato is a living organism? This is why a tomato will still ripen even after it is pulled from the vine. So.. when you preslice tomatoes and hold them in the refrigerator, you’ve basically killed the tomato, disrupted its organic architecture, and it begins to rot at a very slow pace. But any type of rot translates into poor taste. I’ve seen tomato slices pulled from a refrigerator that no longer have their crispness. Look at the membranes, they turn translucent and spiney. Put this partially rotting slice of tomato in your mouth, and the flavor is very pungent, over-ripe tasting, and gross. The cook saved 2 seconds by not having to give you a fresh slice, because thats how long it takes to cut a slice from a large tomato. Idiots, I have no idea why a couple extra seconds is worth ruining a sandwich.

4) Bacon. Is it fresh, or was it cooked 4 days ago? Was the bacon deep fried, or fried on a grill top? Deep fried bacon may look cooked evenly, but you’re getting extra layers of grease from the deep fryer with all other kinds of flavors that do not belong to the taste of bacon. Why not just take a teaspoon of deep fryer oil and drizzle it over the sandwich? It’s the same thing. Just because the bacon looks as being cooked — YOU’RE ADDING FLAVOR that doesn’t belong, and will ruin a sandwich.

5) Cheese. Is it processed, was it pulled out of a wrapper? Do you know how many additives and preservatives are added to pre-sliced pre-wrapped cheese? Don’t believe it? Try and melt a piece of individually wrapped processed cheese and see what happens to it. Why not have a nice brick of cheddar cheese and cut a fresh slice off it? You’d like that flavor, so don’t you think your customer would like that too?

6) Fries. Are they fresh or frozen? Every eat fresh cut NY Fries? They made a huge franchise chain out of that simple concept. No, instead, everyone wants to buy the precut precooked frozen fries because they keep longer and cook faster. But what about flavor?

If you notice how many times I use the word flavor? Flavor is EVERYTHING!

So the clubhouse & fries gets served to your customers, and if you’ve made ANY of these common mistakes in the kitchen, the customer eats the meal and when a friend or family member at the table says “so, how was yours?” ”

Ummm it wasn’t all that great. I don’t think I’d order it again” you say.

STOP BEING LAZY IN RESTAURANT KITCHENS. TAKE PRIDE IN YOUR WORK, AND MAKE THE SANDWICH AS IF IT WAS YOUR OWN!

Nothing worse than paying a premium price for a clubhouse and fries, and the chef or short order cook takes shortcuts and doesn’t pay attention to that extra tender loving care to produce an outstanding product.

By the way.. add a little salt and pepper to that freshly sliced tomato. A hint of those will make the whole sandwich come together quite nicely. Many people won’t dissect their sandwich to do it themselves. As a chef, a little spice is very nice.

Comments anyone?