#10 Tat's Jambalaya (w/ Brisket sandwich)

When in a drunken haze I originally conceived this whole mess, I looked through the Tat's menu and just started counting shit.  I included salads and sides and the major variations of the prime items (Chicken, Tuna, and Egg Salad sandwiches all separately, for example).  It ended up at 52 and that seemed ideal for my plan. The downside was that this meant that meal #51 was probably going to be me eating some Tastykakes.  Not exactly compelling.

My plan for each of the menu items that aren't a sandwich, or at least aren't large enough to constitute a meal in and of themselves, is to eat them along with a sandwich that isn't part of the 52.  This is going to allow me to squeeze in some of the unlisted specials, and to come up with a few weird-as-shit hybrid sandwiches.  "If you don't see it...ask!" is the motto on the Tat's sign, and at some point I'm going to take them up on that.

The only person I know who is as willing to dedicate his time and effort to pointless (ie: fucking rad) acts of consumptive self destruction as myself is Chris, the man behind Idiot's Delight.  He pointed out the special at Tat's today and I sure as shit wasn't going to abstain.

To cross one of the 52 off the list along with my brisket, I ordered a cup of the Tat's jambalaya.

 

I've been wondering for quite a while what the hell was going on with Tat's having jambalaya on the menu.  Maybe this is an east coast thing I'm ignorant of. The thing is, I fucking love jambalaya. I make a pretty fucking mean brown jambalaya with roast chicken and andouille. No disrespect to the creole style of red jambalaya, but the Cajuns have this thing locked the fuck up.

I opened up the plastic container of Tat's jambalaya and thought maybe they'd accidentally given me a side of marinara.  Digging in, it got weirder.  Below a thick layer of tomatoes was a layer of rice.  As I started mixing it up things got even weirder.  There were sausage chunks, which I'd figured on, but there were also a whole bunch of corn kernels.  This has to be somebody's mom's recipe, there's no other explanation for the weirdness going on here.

This was a bowl of tomatoes stewed with garlic, chunks of what I believe was andouille, although unsmoked and rubbery.  There was a pretty good spice kick to it, and it was as warm and hearty as you could ask for.  Once I put my confusion as to why exactly I was eating stewed tomatoes and rice instead of jambalaya aside I was pretty happy about the whole thing.  It's damned tasty.  Italian jambalaya?  I don't know what the hell to call it, but I have a feeling I might end up craving it in the middle of the night when I can't sleep.

But on to the main course...

The disclaimer I should give about bbq is this: I make a lot of my own bbq, and I have friends who are bbq nuts as well.  I rarely eat bbq at restaurants around Seattle anymore because most of it is shit and the stuff I make at home is easily superior to anything I've found, and I've spent time at a lot of local bbq spots.

Brisket is a funny thing, because it's one of my favorite types of bbq, it's not that hard to make, and yet it's the hardest to find in a remotely edible form in Seattle.  The best brisket I've ever eaten was smoked by Chris of the Mop Sauce and Two Smoking Barrels BBQ team. One day I hope to make it down to Austin and hit up Franklin Barbecue, but until then I have no expectation of eating anything on par with Chris' brisket.  The point of all of that being, when someone says they have brisket, my first reaction is excitement, followed by despair as I realize it's not going to be any good.  My buddy Wes and I refer to being fucked over by a bad food choice as being "brisketted" due to a time when I ordered brisket and waded through a pile of what most closely resembled rehydrated beef jerky while he consumed some of the fattiest spare ribs I've ever seen.

Tat's brisket sandwich, all of that said, is pretty damned good.  It has no bark, and while there's plenty of smoke flavor there's no real smoke ring to be seen around the meat, so I wonder what goes on in their in-house smoker.  But these guys aren't a bbq house and they don't claim to be.  Given that, their brisket is better than what you will find at most places in town who DO make that claim.  Tat's brisket is sliced paper-think and is tender enough that a bit of pressure causes it to fall apart and almost resemble chopped brisket (as in the picture above).  Open the sandwich up, though, and you can see that it's very carefully sliced, beautiful brisket.  The slaw is good, as always, better than any BBQ place in Seattle other than the now-relocated Rhodie's which used to sit at Denny and Broad.  The sauce is brown sugar sweet and honestly pretty reminiscent of KC Masterpiece. It could use a lot of apple cider vinegar and/or being replaced by a totally different sauce.  But in the context of the sandwich it works fine and I'm sure it's a crowd pleaser.

Nit picking aside, as you'd expect, it's fucking good.  I'd eat it again in a heartbeat, if I get many of those left after this whole project is said and done.

#9 Hoagie Steak

As much of an institution as the cheesesteak is, there's two variants of almost equal importance.

1. The pizza steak
2. The hoagie steak

There's a group of people, a subculture, that would argue that there is a third: the chicken cheesesteak.  These people are fucking turds who deserve to have their mouths washed out with diarrhea.  In fact, even the inclusion of a "chicken cheesesteak" on the Tat's menu is an absolute disgrace.  A person of higher moral character than myself might choose to abstain from even eating here based on that item, and they would be a better person than me.  "Chicken cheesesteak" - heavy on the air quotes.

That is Tat's failing.  My failing is that I've never had a hoagie steak, or a hoagie cheesesteak.  Never.  Had a hundred cheesesteaks.  Had a dozen or two pizza steaks.  Had more hoagies than anyone should eat and still be able to fit through a regular sized doorway.  Never had their bastard offspring.

My buddy Ethan met up with me and we broke my hoagie steak cherry, as anticlimactic of an event as that is.

"Hoagie Steak. Topped with lettuce, tomato, onion."

The Tat's menu is wild about capitalization and sometimes straight up terse.  I did mine up this time, provolone, onions, and fried peppers.  The french rolls today were super soft, there was no crust on it and that was a little disappointing, but it saved the roof of my mouth some pain so I shouldn't complain too much.  Other than that there's not a single bad thing I can say about this sandwich. I devoured it before I even realized I had started eating it.  I could go in for two more right now. 

Unlike my last encounter, the beef was fantastic this time.  The provolone is always a good choice, and the onions and peppers really shouldn't be optional.  The lettuce and tomato take this sandwich in a totally wholesome direction, which for a cheesesteak is pretty weird.  It's like the sandwich equivalent of an attractive lady dressed up as a slutty librarian.  The contrast between the virgin (lettuce, tomato, onions) and the whore (fucking cheesesteak, dude) is more than the sum of its parts.

Go eat one.  Remember to not stand up until your sandwich boner subsides.

#8 Sausage, Egg, & Cheese

Holy shit you guys.

I was having a crap morning and getting antsy sitting at work, so I hauled my ass out of my chair and trekked through the rain to Tat's this morning. Next in line on the breakfast menu was Pepper, Egg, & Cheese... but I was unhappy and a vegetarian sandwich wasn't going to come close to cutting it.  I skipped straight to the Sausage, Egg, & Cheese with Provolone.

When I'm old and dying I hope I look back on this as one of the better decisions I've made in my life.  Like not believing in god and buying a giant flat screen plasma tv.

Without getting into too much masturbatory food hyperbole let me just say this: go eat this fucking sandwich. Wait until it's pissing rain and you're having a bad day and then go get 8" of absolutely fucking delicious breakfast sausage patties chopped up topped with fried eggs and melted provolone.  For $5.  Five fucking dollars.

#7 Tat's Grinder

This one I've had before, and I'm sure as fuck happy to have had it again.  Tat's on a Friday.  I love this place.  Some of the stuff I've been eating lately is out of the realm of what I'd choose if left to my own devices.  The Grinder however, deserves its place directly below the Tat'strami at the top of the Hot Subs list.

"Capicolla, Pepperham, & Genoa Salami, w/ Provolone, hot & sweet peppers, pickles, LTOM"

In classic Tat's fashion it's a lot of unnecessary capitalization, but they're just really excited about the sandwiches.  This sandwich is basically pork three ways: capicolla is cured shoulder, pepperham is cured pork leg, and genoa salami may have anything in it (including beef) but is generally made from pork trimmings and/or shoulder.  Between the three meats, grilled and served hot on an italian roll with all the peppers, cheese, and the copious lettuce, tomato, onions, and mayo, this verges on being a kitchen sink sandwich.  There's a whole lot going on, and there's something wrong with you if you can eat it slowly enough to decipher the details.

The veggies are hiding a monstrous pile of sloppy, warm, cheesy meat.  I'm going to need to exercise and diet for a day or two after to make up for this, but there's not a doubt in my mind it will have been worth it.

#6 Cajun Turkey

What the fuck can you say about 52 sandwiches that is worth saying?  That isn't the point of this, but it is nagging at me anyways.

I'm really feeling the Hoagies portion of the menu.  Continued on with the next one on the list.  I've been thinking that I just can not fucking wait for the roast beef coming up next, but I really want to save that for a sunny day.  It's getting cold and wet fast and I can already tell that hot sandwiches are going to be calling to me.

When it's raining in Seattle you can tell the tourists by their umbrellas. Natives wear hoods and hats and mainly they just suck it up.  Walked through the rain to Tat's and nearly got an eye poked out by an idiot girl with a giant UW umbrella texting while she walked down her left side of sidewalk around a corner.  Admissions standards for the University of Washington are clearly fucked.

The cajun turkey description reads "Our In-House Smoked Turkey all spiced up and served with Pepper Jack, roasted reds & hot pepper spread."  Wouldn't have known there was hot pepper spread if I hadn't read it, the mayo was out in force today.  The Italian roll was on its game as usual.  Turkey was the same as last time, a little dry to be honest and this time the smoke character wasn't very appealing.  The "cajun" part of this sandwich is nothing other than a cajun dry spice mixture sprinkled on the sliced turkey. That is weird, and the first bite was as disconcerting as I expected.  Wasn't feeling it.  Second bite and I thought I was going to throw it away.  Got some of the peppers on the third bite and then it made sense.  Get a straight whiff of the spice and it's not good - paprika, cayenne, probably garlic powder, etc. Given how much "Philly Cheesesteaks" have been bastardized outside of Philadelphia and you'd think Philadelphians would be a bit more conscientious about the blatant misrepresentation of another American regional food culture, but apparently not.

 That's a lot of sandwich.

After a bit I got into it and the whole thing kind of made sense.  Kind of.  You'd be hard pressed to put these peppers on this bun and put meat and cheese on it and have it not be damned good, but this one doesn't reach its potential.  I knew with a menu this huge there had to be some filler, and for me this is definitely it.

Didn't stop me from housing the whole thing in a few minutes, though.

#5 In-House Smoked Turkey

Tat's gets busy at lunch.  It's understandable, it's hands-down the best place in Pioneer Square to get enough food in your belly to get through the rest of a work day.  The difference between Tat's and Salumi is that at Tat's the line moves.  The regular to tourist ratio is HIGH and the folks who work at Tat's know what's up.  You want a sandwich.  They make it happen.

It was almost 1pm and I hadn't eaten, so I checked the Tat's Line Cam on a whim.  There was no line in sight.  I walked over and decided to move down the list of Hoagies.  I was still thinking about the Italian I had a few weeks ago.

Next up, the "In-House Smoked Turkey."  I wasn't excited. I thought about skipping it.  If I'm being honest with myself I'll say that if I wasn't doing EVERYTHING at Tat's I would never in my life order this sandwich.  Turkey is fine, sure, but a Turkey sandwich at a restaurant inevitably means turkey breast, which is a close second to chicken breast on list of meats I don't ever want to eat.  Bred to the point where all fat (ie: flavor) has been removed from an already lean cut of meat, turkey/chicken breasts don't have much going for them.

The menu description says "In-House Smoked Turkey Breast w/ Swiss.. The Best! Make it a club and add thick-cut bacon."  I tooked their suggestion and got everything and the bacon.

It's a hefty sandwich.  The smoke on the turkey is there for sure, but in the context of the sandwich it's very subtle.  The Swiss is almost imperceptible, but it holds everything together.  The bacon is a good call, it fits well into the sandwich.  The balance of ingredients/meat/bread in this is perfect.  I am way more excited about this sandwich than I'd ever have imagined I could be.  Like the Italian it's clean and filling, perfect for when you aren't in the mood for a gut-bomb.

There's a few details about it that could be improved - diced yellow onions are a weird touch here, where thin sliced red onions would have been amazing.  The yellows were just bitter and came in a large dice.  That's about it, though.  Tat's nails it yet again.

#4 Hot Pastrami

And... I'm back.  I was out of state for over a week and hence unable to eat any Tat's.  My buddy Lauren and I rectified that problem today.  She suggested I go for the Hot Pastrami sandwich and I was more than happy about that choice.

I spent the last week in a small town in the midwest.  It was pretty intense culture shock.  I lived out in the middle of nowhere during high school, and I've been on tour and seen a lot of this country.  But staying in a place you're not from for that long can give you a lot of perspective.  I won't shop at Wal*Mart, I have no desire to eat at Arby's. I vote with my paycheck, by supporting local businesses and giving my money to my neighbors and to people who work hard and make our community a more enjoyable place to live.  This was a tremendously difficult ideology to uphold where I was. You'd never find a place like Tat's out there, and that's sad.

But I'm back now and a minute after I placed my order I had this in front of my face.

It's so good to be home.

The Hot Pastrami is "In-House smoked Pastrami & Swiss w/ spicy mustard on Rye bread" and it comes optionally with slaw.  I asked the nice lady at the counter if she thought I should get slaw and she offered it on the side, so I took it.  Glad I did.  Slaw on a sandwich is always good and next time I'll do it that way.  I was a bit worried it would make this sandwich into more of a Tat'strami clone, and without it the mustard and the awesome rye bread did really shine.  Tat's pastrami is always great, it's got a nice brine flavor and very mild smoke.  Wonderfully fatty and juicy, it's possibly the pinnacle of beef.  Cured in brine, covered in crushed black pepper and coriander and smoked, sliced thin and warmed on a grill until bits and pieces get crispy... damn.  Do you think if Mitt Romney ate one of these he'd stop being an ingorant piece of shit?  Probably not