Other Coast Cafe

I have to preface this posting with the fact I dooped myself by just entertaining the concept of this place. I am pretty unconvinced of wanna-be nichey east coast mimicky sandwitch shops. If i would like to bust my gut with a greasy philly cheesesteak on a flakey super bleached soft doughy roll and having my forearm glisten with emulsified cheese product and steak “juice”, i’m going to PHILLY.

Would you go to Tennessee to eat smoked salmon lox and cream on ciabatta?

I was victim of the tummy rumbles and puroused Flours in Ballard and decided i didn’t want some fruffy poser edgy basil oil truffle salted mozz sand.  I can make that at home. What I thought Other Coast would provide in heartiness and creativity,  turned out to overcompensate in the “ripping-me-off” genre.

I had my doubts during the menu stare-down, but once I glanced over at the register and saw Seattle Magazine and The Seattle Weekly endorsements, I started to regulate my sandwich insecurity. I ordered the special, which was Boars head cajun turkey, buffalo house made blue cheese mayo dressing, lettuce and tomato. I chose Rye. HOT. For half a sandy, it came out to 9 bucks.

It basically was a mound of rushedly hacked cajun mechanically separated and formed turkey product, 2 slices of freezer burn tomato and a poor poor schmear of this buffalo blue cheese mayo liquid thing. Oh, and a mound of shredded iceberg lettuce.

I could write a whole blog about how pointless and insulting iceburg lettuce is and how humiliating it is to know that most Americans think that it actually belongs in a salad, and actually pay for it, and accept its presence on a sandwich and still deem it acceptable to called it a lettuce rather than what it is: cellulized water.

Total waste of 9 bucks. (FOR A HALF SAND!!) The buffalo mayo was just really salty and blandly hot, I never thought this was possible for mayo but it was also DRY . I wasn’t convinced of the “house-made” claim nor could i seem to detect the blue cheese in the sauce, and I honestly couldn’t taste it either. the processed turkey product was filling but not remotely resembling a real turkey texture.  The rye was a good dry rye studded with caraway seeds, but I wonder if it was baked locally or from a food shipping distributer. It was at best a protein rich salt-lick.

The only truth to this  East Coast sandwich shop with a “Northwest Attitude” as they self proclaim, is that it is a pretty passive aggressive attempt at crafting sandwiches. Maybe I should try a few more, but then i’d be wasting more money that could be spent on experimenting at LunchBox or Homegrown  which don’t claim its Easterness and stay true and foodie to its NW roots.

Hey Seattle, its O.K. to set a different standard for sandwiches, the East Coast doesn’t have a patent on them so just accept that our gastro-regionality needs no imitation and vice versa.

Other Coast, lower your prices or take down your outdated magazine cut-out praise trophies as to not doop the next unassuming and hungry foodie.