Surprising Finds

Greetings, Dear Readers!

You know, I’m not going to lie here, but even when you’ve been sandwiching as long as I have, every once in a while, even I get surprised by a sandwich find.

Take this past weekend for example, while shopping at the mall with Charlene, we stopped at the newly revamped food court at the Westfield Fashion Square in Sherman Oaks. Having looked around at all of the new options (the only real noticeable franchise left was Subway), we stopped at a new local chain I had never heard of before: Stone Oven.

Looking through their tempting sandwich menu, I was surprised how delicious all of the sandwiches had sounded, but the thought never occurred to me to actually write a review about a new local chain restaurant in a mall food court.

I ended up ordering the spicy chicken sandwich which had pulled spicy chicken breast in a red BBQ sauce, melted provolone cheese, chipotle mayo, black bean and corn salsa with avocado between slices of freshly baked foccacia bread.

Now as with any fast food place, whether or not the bread dough was actually made in house is up for debate, but if anything I watched it bake right in the stone oven in the middle of the store. So they aren’t kidding when they say the bread is “freshly baked”.

Now here’s the thing, and this point was surprising: while Stone Oven may be a chain/franchise, it still crafted a well made sandwich. Well enough that I would write a blog about it.

The chicken was tender, a bit spicy and tangy. The chipotle mayo added another spicy kick while the avocado and black bean and corn salsa cooled the sandwich down a bit.

Oh, and the mustard and black pepper potato salad was excellent. 

And so while I will never recommend a chain restaurant over a mom-and-pop shop, I will say that even I can be surprised that a chain can still create some decent sandwiches. Regardless, I am looking forward to get back to finding some excellent non-chain local finds next week.

How about you, Readers? Was there ever a time you found a sandwich you liked that you didn’t think you would?

Until next week…

Spicy Chicken Sandwich
*** Stars
Stone Oven
Various Locations
http://www.enjoystoneoven.com/