A Delicious Aroma

Greetings, Readers.

If you haven’t noticed by now, Los Angeles has a fairly large selection of delicious sandwiches. Despite the wide-ranging options throughout this massive city, it’s sometimes the ones that are closest that can be the most memorable.

It’s been awhile since I’ve been to Aroma Cafe in Studio City, which is a shame as this quaint coffee and tea shop nestled away on a quiet street is a great place to enjoy food and conversation.

Settling down this time in the garden patio in back, I ordered the Chipotle Steak Panino. Medium cooked chopped roast beef, aged cheddar, caramelized onions and horseradish aioli combine to create this sandwich between two fluffy slices of focaccia bread.

The chopped steak was juicy, but did not have an overpowering flavor compared to the other ingredients. The choice of aged cheddar worked well with the steak, contributing a mellowed smoky flavor to the sandwich. My main problem with the cheese though was that for a hot sandwich, it wasn’t really melted well at all. If it had been melty and oozed between slices of steak, this would have worked much better.

The caramelized onions and horseradish aioli brought a bit of bite and spice to the mix which was a welcome contrast from the mellow and smoky flavors or the cheese and steak.

The focaccia bread was fluffy and soaked up some of the steak juices in the process, but I really would have like to have a bit of rosemary crusted onto the top, to give the bread itself more of a contributing flavor.

Overall though, this was an enjoyable sandwich at an enjoyable location. Definitely worth your visit if you have never been to Aroma Cafe before.

Until next week, Readers…

Chipotle Steak Panino
*** 1/2 Stars
Aroma Cafe
4360 Tujunga Ave.
Studio City, CA 91604