This sandwich shop is the newest addition to Yaletown fare, formerly Bella Pizza. With six different sandwiches to choose from that are made with local ingredients whenever possible and even available as a salad, it’s definitely a great place to tell a story about! “Yeah, so this one time I was eating between two buns.” -Whoa there, what is this, HBO? 😉
It’s hard not to go down the dirty-minded road though with selections such as “Strip’n”, “Cheeky”, “The Hot Chick” and the ever popular “Jerk It!”. Today, I brought with me Liane – the girl who teeters on the line of inappropriate innuendo and innocent banter.
We ordered the Maniac, Big Kahuna, a side of fries and two drinks ($31). I noticed it’s getting really popular nowadays to serve pop in a glass bottle – which I don’t mind at all.
Our fries ($3.50) came up quickly, they were well-seasoned, crispy and cooked thoroughly inside. A side of fries was perfect for the two of us. We didn’t even have to use the ketchup, they were really well flavoured. They also offer poutine and a whopping 5 pounds of poutine if your (soon to be congested) heart so desires.
The next order to come up was the Maniac ($9). The sandwich consists of “double smoked bacon, baby arugula, asiago and garlic parmesan aioli”. I think they also had some roasted tomatoes in it, the bacon was great – it was perfectly cooked and smokey. The sandwich reminded me of a BLT almost. The bread was fresh and soft, but I felt like the bun was too big (giggity goo!).
Our other sandwich, the Big Kahuna ($11) is made with “local albacore tuna avocado mousse, pickled red onion, cucumber pea shoots and ponzu vinaigrette”. I thought this sandwich had a great flavour to it – I can’t really compare it to the Maniac because the flavours are quite different. While the albacore was slightly sweet and cool, the ponzu vinaigrette is definitely marked and really makes this sandwich tasty. This ‘punch’ of flavour is a perfect compliment to the subtle tuna and avocado mousse. Once again, I felt like the bread – although very fresh and tasty, was a little too much for the good flavours in between the buns.
We noticed that they were getting a lot of traffic – in fact when we were about to leave, people were waiting for our seat. The seating area is a little small, with a small bar area near the window, a table that would fit maybe 6-8 people and some two seaters. The service is fairly quick – but it wasn’t so busy when we arrived. I was also impressed when the server asked one of their customers how their sandwich was, the customer didn’t like it and they offered to make her a different one.
Food:
Love the names and the good mix of ingredients to these sandwiches, but the buns are a lil too big (heehee!).
Ambiance:
I might be a little biased, but they’ve cleaned up this space significantly since it was Bella Pizza. It’s very simple, well spaced out and modern.
Check out their website here.