BACON BACON WHY WHY WASN'T IT BETTER BETTER?
What started out as a food truck (that eventually caught fire) and morphed into an actual brick and mortar location,
Bacon Bacon has developed quite the following. I had been meaning to get by there but their hours have been a bit inconvenient for a day jobber. On a recent hooky day I decided to finally take the N-Judah over to the edge of Haight neighborhood and check them out.
It's a small unassuming storefront with counter seating only and I almost walked right by it. Yes, everything comes with some form of bacon. You can even get "bouquets"--a set of 6 strips of bacon with different flavors. I was kind of hungry and decided to go with one of the sandwiches, the bird, and something new they were offering, deep fried mashed potato balls.
The bird is turkey, spicy cole slaw, panko breaded deep fried slices of bacon, provolone and avocado mash (which as usual I went without) on a soft roll. Turns out the avocado is the sauce on this sandwich, which I wasn't told, so without it there is nothing else on it to give a creaminess to not make it "seem" dry. So lesson learned, ask for mayo. The spicy cole slaw was actually more sweet and I didn't taste any spicyness at all. It was decent, but not spicy. The turkey was nice and smoky and surprisingly was the star of this sandwich when I thought it was supposed to be the bacon. So let's talk about the bacon. As you can see in my picture there is just the sight of the bacon beneath the purple slaw and above the turkey, there were two slices on the sandwich, doesn't quite look like the bacon stuffed
sandwich on their website. Not only that, I could barely taste it
and it was overcooked
and tough
and why wasn't there more on here? The bread was soft, though warming it up would have been nice and I do like provolone so, you know there was that.
The balls were a mixture of bacon, cheese and mashed potato rolled in panko and then deep fried. These were good if not spectacular. The outside was nice and crunchy, though they would have benefited from another minute in the deep fryer as the inside wasn't totally cooked and they had a tendency to just fall apart after one bite. Again though, I really couldn't taste the bacon or the the light white shredded cheese they used, by themselves they needed a little more flavor. Fortunately they are served with a sriracha mayo dipping sauce which I did like and actually used some of it on the sandwich to keep it from being dry. This was their first day serving these so hopefully after some customer feedback they will perfect them because it is a good idea and alternative to french fries.
At this point I was on such a roll I was wary about the bacon chocolate they had but I got it anyway.
It's bacon dipped in chocolate and covered with thin mints (
yes the Girl Scout cookie). Problem with this is that he didn't tell me they were thin mints, he just said it was bacon covered in chocolate and cookies. Now
bacon chocolate I've had and really like. This however, was a total train wreck. Mint and chocolate are not my favorite things together, it's like toothpaste, and adding bacon didn't help. I can't tell you how many ways this was awful, even the SO didn't like this combo and he's game for most anything. I should have gone with the one covered in chocolate and peanut butter cookie, oh well, another lesson learned.
Needless to say I was a bit disappointed, here I thought the bacon was to be the star but I tasted more turkey, potatoes and (bleck!) mint instead. Sure, maybe I made some bad food choices but, hey, if it's a regular on the menu it's supposed to be good every time right? I won't say I wouldn't go back and try the bacon bouquets, but I probably won't be making a special trip out there to do it. If I'm in their hood and they just happen to be open, maybe, otherwise, I'm not really looking for another lesson.
