#38 Italian Copa, Peppers, Egg & Cheese

In general, Tat's breakfast sandwiches are extraordinarily tasty, under appreciated, and a great value. I'm getting towards the end of my journey through the menu, but I've got a handful of breakfast sandwiches that I'm really excited about to eat left.

They misspell it on the menu, but the coppa and peppers breakfast sandwich is great. Coppa, also known as Capicolla, is one of the holy trinity of cured meats that you'll find on a classic Italian sub sandwich. Normally if you get the good stuff it's sliced paper thin and is super flavorful. Tat's is sliced a bit thicker, and is more pink than red, a bit strange, but tasty in this context. The peppers are as good as you'd expect, the same as you should be getting on your steak. The eggs are intermittently overcooked, as was the case today. Regardless, it's a hell of a breakfast sandwich, with three caveats.

1. I got American, where I normally get provolone. It ended up looking more like a Velveeta shmeer than the gooey melted mess I was hoping for.

2. This one's on me, I shouldn't have gotten this to go. I only waited five minutes to eat it, but that was long enough that most of the cheese set up and went from melty to ... not.

3. This is the gift I wish I could give to every bad burrito and sandwich maker in the whole wide world: spread that shit out. A little bit of the sandwich, shown above, looks great because some of the cheese has dripped down in front of it obscuring the bad construction. The rest looks like this:

All egg on the left, all peppers in the middle, and all cheese and coppa on the right. People don't eat sandwiches seam-up, they eat them crust-up. If Sandwich 101 is "put some shit between bread" then Sandwich 102 is "make every bite uniform." In this case, the main reason the cheese got nasty was that it was half situated outside of the roll, so the hot elements of the sandwich didn't keep it warm enough to stay liquid.

The folks at Tat's are awesome and I'm a huge fan, but occasionally you get a sloppily made sandwich. Won't stop me from ordering it again, although in the future I'll learn my lesson and not get American on to-go sandwiches, that one is on me.

#37 Chicken CheeseSteak

This is the last of the steaks on the Tat's menu. I'm trying to push through because I desperately wanted another Hoagie Steak. Honestly, the Chicken Steak was the least appealing of them, and one I've never had before, here or anywhere else.

I got mine with onions and fried peppers, I mixed up my usual Provolone today and went American. It was a pretty great choice, and I remembered why American was my old go-to for regular Cheese Steaks at other places. It's not as flavorful as Provolone, but it melts amazingly and has an even better flavor and consistency than the often cloying whiz option.

I ate in this time, I'd sworn to myself that I'd only ever eat at Tat's whenever I get a steak. It's a sandwich that just doesn't travel well, and Tat's is good enough that you should just give it its due and grab a table. It came out and, this picture just doesn't do the enormity of the 8" any justice. It's enormous. It takes up almost the entire basket. It was steaming and the smell was ridiculous, I couldn't help myself and just dove in. It was hot off the griddle and was way too hot for my sad little mouth. I burned my tongue. And then, overwhelmed by the sheer magic of the sandwich, I took another bite... and another... and another. I ended up with a few gnarly burns on my tongue and lips. I've never been driven to such masochism by a sandwich before. It was painful but entirely worth it.

The entire point behind this stupid blog is to eat some sandwiches on the enormous Tat's menu that I would have otherwise skipped. This sandwich certainly qualifies, and it's one of the clear diamonds in the rough, a magic combination of juicy chicken, beautiful melted cheese, super tasty grilled onions and peppers, and a fantastically warm and steamy roll to hold it all together. It's the hot girl next door of sandwiches. Chicken? Doesn't hold a lot of appeal for me. In this case it's phenomenal, though, and beyond that the sandwich is really more than the sum of its parts. This goes near the top of my list for things I'll revisit once I finish the menu, and I'd put it up against the Tat'strami as one of the top sandwiches that you can get on the entire menu. Go get one, or two, and don't skimp on the onions and fried peppers.

#36 Reuben

"Tat's Corned Beef w/ kraut, Swiss cheese & Russian dressing on Rye bread."

... and a pickle. I started eating it because I was so frustrated with how hard it was to unwrap. Some sort of uncontrollable animal instinct.

I'm apparently much less jaded today then when I ate the very similar New Yorker back in April. Maybe it's because I'm coming off the heels of having to cross the Egg Salad off of my list. Maybe it's because I haven't just endured 8 months of darkness and Seattle rain.

My point in that post, however, is valid. The New Yorker and the Reuben are very similar, especially when you add slaw to the former, which serves a very similar counterbalance that the kraut in the Reuben does. The Reuben was generously portioned, as you'd expect from Tat's. The Corned Beef tasted like it has been reheated in bacon grease, the kraut is nice and slightly tangy, the rye is nicely toasted and even under the weight of all that meat, cheese, and sauce, it didn't give up after a 10 minute walk back to work. The guy in the elevator up to my floor had a Jimmy John's sandwich in hand and as the amazing corned beef smell filled our elevator I think I saw him cry a little.

The Reuben also marks a kind of pivotal point in the history of E.A.T.: I've now eaten every sandwich off of the "Hot Subs & Specials" list, which is arguable the heart and soul of the Tat's menu. The Kosher Dog remains, but is not a sandwich, and I have yet to write up the Tat'strami, as I'm saving it for last.

#35 Egg Salad

I did it. One of the three sandwiches I really don't want to eat has been knocked off the to-do list.

Yeah, I like egg salad sandwiches. They are, when made well, great comfort food.

No, I'll never, ever, ever order this again. No. No, no, no.