Review 2021: The Christmas Sandwich Reviews: Co-op Turkey Feast.

Food  Did I imply that Review 2021 was over and that I wouldn't be writing about any more pre-packed Christmas sandwiches?  Yes I did.  Did I think it was over?  Well, yes.  But then having written about all of the annual reviews from across the decades at the top of all the Christmas Links and realising that it might need some kind of big finale (without getting too carried away), I decided to go after the big white whale once more, the supermarket sandwich which eluded me last year, to finally try the Co-op Turkey Feast (with smoked bacon, pork, sage & onion stuffing (which is pork AND sage & onion stuffing, not pork as a separate entity on the sandwich no matter how its implied on the box), cranberry chutney & fried onion mayo on malted bread).  Apologies for the quality of the photograph but I was in my break at work and every second counts.

Much like the rest of the supermarkets which featured last year, the Co-op (pronounced coop) has just sort of been there.  Dad was telling me earlier about how membership had been passed down hereditarily through my Mum's family and that he could even remember the number she used to give when visiting one of the local shops and how she received a dividend at the end of the year.  But it's only quite recently that it's really become part of my life, through the shops opening on Myrtle and Hardman run-on streets in Liverpool and on Lark Lane, not the Doctor Who one which is mainly residential, the real one with all the restaurants and retail.  When it opened, it was during the period with the verbose branding with "the Co-Operative" written on everything which made it feel very metropolitan somehow.  They're since returned to the more familiar homespun low-caps logo.

If you don't mind, I'll refer you to the Wikipedia page for an explanation of how the gestalt structure of the Co-op chain works and how it might go some way to explaining why there are two near identical supermarkets at the top and bottom of the same road, and why some shops feel more corporate than others and instead move on to the sandwich.  After about a year of not eating turkey, bacon, stuffing and cranberry sauce on malted bread, my taste buds have lost any baseline expertise that it they might have acquired last December.  But this seems like a pretty generic example.  Despite being out of the fridge for two hours after I bought it, the bread and filling were still cold which give everything a slightly stodgy texture.  The cranberry sauce is pretty overwhelming so the flavour of the onion mayonnaise is al most non-existent.  The bacon is thin streaky kind which otherwise finds itself wrapped around small sausages.  It's fine.

Review 2021: The Christmas Sandwich Reviews: Conclusion.

Food  And there we have it, twenty days, twenty sandwich reviews.  As you might suspect, the original plan was work right through to Christmas Eve, but at a certain point when you've walked into both Wilkinson's and Co-op on multiple occasions only to find that they've sold out of pre-packed festive sandwiches or weren't even restocked in the first place that you realise you have to just stop.  That and being stuck in the above cafe working through this dismal three bird sandwich (chicken, turkey and duck) just to make up the numbers and realising the logistics of trying to squeak out a final four review could ruin an already psychologically tenuous Christmas.

Do I have any conclusions after eating turkey, bacon, stuffing and cranberry sauce on malted bread every lunch time for nearly three weeks?  Not really.  Most of the sandwiches are very similar and after comparing my own experiences with the some of the professional reviews online, you're probably at the mercy of whoever put the individual sandwich together as to how it tastes.  Too much of one ingredient, too little of another can mean the difference between a pleasant or average lunch.  There's a lot to be said for looking in the window on the hypotenuse of the triangular packaging and seeing if they seem to be well balanced.

The choice of ingredients can mitigate against the average.  The bread needs to be relatively thin, it's not the most important part of the meal, it's really just a container.  My preference is for thinly sliced Turkey rather than "pulled" or in chunks which can create a stodgy effect.  Smoked back bacon please.  The thin streaky bacon might be what you'd find on pigs in blankets but it often barely registers in this environment.  Proper cranberry sauce with real berries, anything else is just sad.  Sage and onion stuffing, but a thin layer.  Pork is already covered in the bacon.  No spinach or brie, they're just an unnecessary complication.  Sausage is optional and only if its moist.

The price of sandwiches doesn't seem to have much sway on the quality.  In these circumstances, you don't always get what you pay for.  Some of the cheaper options have been deliciously rich, while the more expensive sandwiches were pitiable.  The problem is, you don't know, you never know, although its fair to say that if you already like a particular brand of sandwiches, you'll probably like their Christmas variety.  It's all a matter of taste.  But make it a treat.  Eating these lumps of protein every day hasn't exactly helped my constitution, weight or bank balance.  If there's another reason to stop it's so that I can become more regular, healthier and solvent.  All the best to you and yours.

Review 2021: The Christmas Sandwich Reviews: Waitrose freefrom Gluton Free Turkey, Stuffing & Bacon.

 Food  Although I use Google Alerts much less than before - I tend to just visit a search page daily if it's something which is likely to have something published about it well, daily.  But there are odd things which I've kept and one of those is for Waitrose AND Liverpool.  Every now and then something pops through and it's a piece from the Liverpool Echo website which has been syndicated throughout the Reach newspaper network about product recalls for various supermarkets.

What I'm aiming for is an early warning that an actual Waitrose shop is opening in Liverpool city centre.  For years it was one of the shops which was synonymous for me with breaking out of the localist bubble and visiting the outlet in Formby was a way of tasting what supermarket shopping was like in places like London, with a more unusual selection of goods from brands who wouldn't be seen dead in Tesco or Asda.  If Manchester or Chester could have a mini version why not us?

Well, neither Manchester or Chester have those any more after a series of branch closures in the past couple of years, which makes the chances of them opening in Liverpool, the city centre also as we've discussed already oversaturated with Tesco shops, increasingly slim.  I'm coming to terms with that, not least because a few of the brands which only seemed to have been in Waitrose have slowly begun to appear elsewhere, even in Tesco or Asda.

Plus, Liverpool does have a Waitrose of sorts.  It's situated on the top floor of the John Lewis building in The Place To Eat Cafe, currently in the counter opposite the entrance which serves teas, coffees and cakes.  There you'll find numerous varieties of Waitrose snacks and where I bought today sandwich, saving me a trip to Formby.  Not somewhere you can pick up a Wood Pigeon or a packet of Gravadlax, but still a chance to possibly try something different.

Not this sandwich of course.  Apart from the glutton free bread and so slightly dry crusts, this isn't that much different to a dozen or so of the sandwiches I've also eaten this month.  The strongest flavour and texture is from the bacon which as with every other occasion this has been the case is smoked.  The cranberry doesn't make much of an impression, or the turkey, although that isn't as hard as in some cases.  So not bad, but definitely not worth £4.95 ...

Review 2021: The Christmas Sandwich Reviews: Pret's Christmas Lunch.

Food  Dear god, what a crushing disappointment.  Rather like the film Dune, I find myself on the other side of the overwhelming critical plaudits for Pret a Manger's festive offering which has garnered four and five star reviews from the likes of The Independent and Time Out and generally very positive in places which don't do the star rating sort of thing.  The only write-up I've found vaguely in line with experience is from "My London" back in July when they originally went on sale and their writer Melissa Sigodo wrote: "As I bit into the festive meal gone lunchtime snack, I couldn’t quite distinguish the different tastes, as a mish-mash of carbohydrates rolled together in between my jaws like a cement mixer."

Folks, this was a chore to eat.  Right through the middle is a thick seem of crunchy spinach which is ever present throughout every bite and overpowers pretty much everything else the sandwich is trying to do.  On top of that, the seeds in the too thick malted bread are rather large and tough as grit and yet still somewhat distinguished from the crunchy onions which have been sprinkled throughout.  All of this means the turkey, stuffing and sauce which should be the stars of the meal make no impact and you're left with an ordeal of sandwich which seems to take forever to work through.  About half way through I had to take a break, not because I was filling up, but to give my jaw a rest after chomping away at the crusts.

Usually I love Pret.  Is it a perfect company?  No.  The wikipedia has a list of their failures including a failure to list all of the ingredients on their packaging which led to deaths.  That will account for the incredibly details label stuck to the bottom of the packaging which makes those elements which could cause an allergic reaction as clear as possible.  It's currently owned by a holding company which originated with a family whose ancestors were enthusiastic supporters of Adolf Hitler, although the mother of the current owners was Jewish and they run a foundation which offers support to victims of the holocaust and Nazism.  Wow, that took a turn.  You can bet the end of this paragraph wasn't what I expected it to be when I started writing it.

But I love their porridge, their soups and their coffee.  Outside of the Tesco Chicken Salad, the other sandwich I'll walk out of my way for is the Classic Super Club at Pret which somehow manages to get the right balance between the poultry, bacon, lettuce, tomatoes and mayo.  Pret's outlets always have a good and consistent atmosphere no matter where you go from Liverpool to London.  During the lockdown we'd regularly order a bag full of goodies from there via Deliveroo and it always cheered us up.  My first experience of them was a soup at Cheshire Oaks and of all the chain food places, Pret's one the few which has never let me down.  Until now.  Sulk, sulk, sulk.

Review 2021: The Christmas Sandwich Reviews: Aldi Vegan Festive Feast.

Food  Surprise.  I promised long time friend of the blog (hey Darren!) that I'd cover a vegan option and here we are, the single Christmas sandwich left in the local Aldi mid-afternoon.  When Aldi first began opening shops in the UK in the 90s it seemed immensely exotic from the name (which takes the first two letters of the founders of the company the Albrechts with the German name for Discount, Diskont) to the contents, which if memory serves still had English translations stuck over continental labelling on a number of products.  

Slowly it entered the mainstream.  As late as 2008, The Guardian was sending Jay Raynor in to sample the goods, like a travel writer entering some remote clime suggesting it as "It's stack 'em high, sell 'em cheap."  That article's a fascinating record of how the business used to be.  Now it's much closer to its rivals often beating them to awards.  Some items are still cheap, but you're more likely end up spending much the same as you would elsewhere.  We love their steaks, but they're sometimes a couple of pounds more expensive than the Asda opposite.

But visiting still feels like an oddity as, for example, the checkouts don't have a particular place to pack your bags, expecting you to put your shopping back into your baskets or trollies and do that business at a long counter at the front of the shop, which in a lot of ways I prefer because it stops you from the anxiety of trying to balance out the weight in your bags as the good fly furiously through the checkout, much nicer to take your time, put everything in its place.  Now that I come to write this, I remember Kwik Save in Speke used the same method.

What of the sandwich?  It's fine.  Instead of the faux Turkey I've seen in other supermarket vegan alternatives, this is parsnip fritter with a vegan sage and onion mayo, spinach, fried onions and roasted pumpkin seeds on cranberry and poppy seed bread.  It's a bit bland, none of the flavours really breaking through, maybe the onion, just a general sweetness.  But it is moist, not stodgy like some and given the price, just £1.75, I certainly wouldn't be averse to having it again, even though I've never really been a fan of parsnips.

When I was writing this post, I asked the Twitter hive mind some questions.  Like, how do you feel about vegan food being labelled as such?  Does it just make it easier to shop because you can see it a mile off or do you feel like you're being identified as somehow different to other shoppers?  This has the word vegan three times on the front as well as the "plant menu" description.  What have been your favourite pre-packed sandwiches this year?  

@shauney said, "Not had many but I think it’s very important they are clearly labelled vegan because it can be frustrating having to read ingredients etc!"

@wimpyking offered:  "Enjoyed the Pret Meatless Meatball hot wrap- have had sadly few pre-packed sandwiches this year though. Happy for products to be badged clearly."

If you have something to add, I'll update this post with any replies either on Twitter or to my email address, stuartianburns@gmail.com

Review 2021: The Christmas Sandwich Reviews: M&S Turkey Feast.

Food  It's not just a Turkey Feast, it's an M&S Turkey Feast.  Just a quick review today because (a) busy with Christmas and (b) for various reason Marks & Spencers is difficult for me to write about right now.  Too many happy Christmas related memories and I'm going through it.  No denying this is a lovely sandwich.  The scent on opening the packet is like being blasted by the smell you imagine when seeing a large festive spread in a Christmas film.  The most prominent flavours are the cranberry sauce and the bacon, the smoky flavour breaking through in way I've not often had with these sandwiches.  It's also lovely and moist.  This would be straight into my top five if such a list existed.

Review 2021: The Christmas Sandwich Reviews: Jamie's Christmas Turkey Feast.

Food  Yes, yes I forgot to photograph the sandwich again, yadda yadda yadda.  I was so mesmerised by Mr Oliver's face, plastered as it is across the top of the packaging and the side, same photo by the way, that it completely slipped my mind.  Best get this out of the way early.  I have a potentially irrational dislike of Jamie Oliver.  He's often immensely irritating in his media appearances, a smugness which I'd also attribute to the James Cordens, Ed Sheerans and Michael McIntyres of the world which comes from them seemingly being absolutely fucking everywhere and knowing it.  

When the Shell deal was announced there were plenty of exclamations of hypocrisy.  Here's an especially withering column at Marketing Week from someone who clearly dislikes him as much as I do and an anti-corruption campaigner at The Guardian suggesting the deal was an attempt to burnish their dumpster-like reputation.  I have a mental box somewhere in my mind palace within which I hide people like him away so I don't have to think about them.  But today, my appetite conspired against me and there he is, grinning from the top of the packaging.  

There's a video on the Shell website in which Mr Oliver is depicted making examples of these sandwiches.  It's as cringy as you might expect and it's also interesting in how it describes the sandwich.  On the packaging the turkey is listed as "lemon and rosemary marinated" but in the video Jamie says "flavoured with rosemary and lemon" which isn't the same but I'm splitting hairs.  What certainly isn't similar is that the sandwich he prepares has nice thick slices of turkey and what you get in the package (also illustrated on the same page) which is a bit more granular.

All of which said how does it taste?  I was a bit concerned when opening he package because it smelt spicy, like a chicken curry.  The flavour is different; you can detect the lemon and rosemary in the turkey and the stuffing has a nice nutty texture.  It's also nice and moist.  Now that mission creep has set in I can't say whether its better that anything I've reviewed.  It's certainly not the worst.  But I would also say given the choice, I'd probably pop a little bit further up Smithdown Road and buy the better value Tesco sandwich instead. That's a pound cheaper and has sausages.

Review 2021: The Christmas Sandwich Reviews: Urban Eats Turkey & Stuffing.

Food  Urban Eats is one of those sandwich brands which I've encountered a lot over the years in railways stations, convenience stores, libraries and universities without actually knowing much about them.  The packaging offers the address for Samworth Brothers Group in Melton Mowbray who's website shows that sandwiches are just part of a portfolio which includes Ginsters, West Cornwall Pasty Co., Soreen and Saladworks to the name the ones I've heard of.  They also produce own brand meals for high street supermarkets (although they neglect to say which).  As with many legacy brands, their origins are somewhat complicated and include starting then selling Walkers crisps and you read a synopsis on their Wikipedia page.

Except Urban Eats as a brand was only a recent acquisition, bought last year from the sandwich maker Adelie after they went into administration at the loss of over 2000 jobs.  Most of the news stories I've seen put this down to COVID-19 restrictions presumably because many of the places their products were available, in railways stations, convenience stores, libraries and universities were closed for just that little bit too long and so orders dropped.  That will also account for the redesign of the packaging with its neon colours and bold lettering, in contrast with the slightly more reserved previous packaging livery brought in when Adelie ploughed £5m into their own rebrand about a year before they closed.

There was no reason for me to know any of this before writing the previous two paragraphs but I wonder about the extent to which the sandwiches themselves have changed between the two companies.  When they were Adelie, Urban Eats sandwiches were never very nice.  Some of the cheese and pickle varieties perhaps but anything with meat was always dry, the bread a bit stale around the edges and it was the sandwich you bought when absolutely nothing else was available and even then, what with the price, you might consider going hungry.  Somewhere I used to work would have so much stock left at the end of the day they would simply give them away so they didn't go to waste.

Well, imagine my surprise when I bit into this and the flavours burst into my mouth.  One of the rare occasions that the bread makes an impressed, the malted elements breaking through.  But its the combination of turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce and mayo fillings which made me say "yum" and "wow" out loud for the first time in a few days, so moist and just so, well, "yum".  I'm a relatively quick eater but this is an occasion when I let the food hang about in my mouth for a while lubricating my taste buds.  By losing the bacon or sausage or any of the additions elsewhere, Urban Eats and whoever owns them now have found a sweet spot and I look forward to trying the rest of the range again.

Review 2021: The Christmas Sandwich Reviews: Morrisons Christmas Lunch.

Food  How do you pronounce Morrisons?  Most of the time I hear it with a hard R then a weaker ONS.  But for years now, decades, I've said it with a soft R and a real emphasis when reaching the ONS, with a slight West Country accent, so Murisuns.  I've tried doing it the other way, many times just before sitting down to right but it won't stick, it just sounds wrong to me in the same way that the old adverts used to mangle it in order to make a rhyme work ("More reasons to shop at Morr-i-sons!").

Here's why.  Back when I was an undergraduate in Leeds, the big supermarket most of us attended was the giant Morrisons at the Merrion Centre.  Each Saturday I'd visit Leeds Market for the fresh meat and veg then toddle up The Headrow to the supermarket for half a cooked chicken or one of their freshly made "supadupa" pizzas for tea that night.  Somehow I was able to feed myself for £15 a week, although to be fair that was quite a lot of money in those days even for student.

Although I was based at Beckett Park initially we had a Safeway close to hand in Headingley, Morrisons was cheaper so that's where people went and so therefore talked about and that included a friend from Somerset and since this was the first time I'd encountered the place and I heard her talk about it a lot, it's her pronunciation that stuck.  I don't know if she still reads this, but here you go Rosie, this blog post's for you.

There's a shot of what the old shop looked like in the video about Leeds I made in the Practical Presentation Skills module of my library course which you can watch here.  It's in the opening montage when The Bangles reach the lyric "You were so hard to please" in their cover version of Hazy Shade of Winter.  I'm surprised and delighted to see that it's still there thirty odd years later although its surrounded by much greater competition than those days.

Liverpool has a couple of Morrisons in Speke and Belle Vale and they briefly flirted with the city centre through one of their convenience stores, the M Local, until they were all sold off in 2017 to a company which ultimately couldn't sustain them as a going concern (and ruined the best M Local feature, the salad bar).  This sandwich was, however, bought in Southport because I was already there to visit the Waterfield's bakery.

As you can see I completely forgot to photograph the sandwich before eating it again, but having seen a few of these yourself by now, you can imagine what it looked like with the usual ingredients.  It's fine, nice even, no better or worse than the Tesco or Asda examples with the cranberry chutney blending well with the stuffing and the bacon adding some nice texture.

Review 2021: The Christmas Sandwich Reviews: Waterfield's Christmas Sandwich.

Food  Waterfield's is a chain of bakers based completely in the North West, mainly in the Lancashire region.  The only outlets in the Liverpool area are on the outskirts, Walton to the north and Woolton to the south with none in the city centre.  That's probably why I don't have any kind of emotional connection to them.  Despite being in existence since 1926, our first occasion to be in contact with one another was in Southport or Chester when there were other choices available and I don't tend to eat a lot of pasties or sausage rolls anyway.

As the biography on their website describes, Waterfield's is a family business, its current managers the grandsons of the founder, Alice Waterfield.  She opened the first shop in Leigh and was successful enough that her coal mining husband retrained as a baker and began working in the kitchens.  Their children took over the running of the business in the 50s and it's since continued for another generation.  There's something especially poignant about all of this compared to Sayers or Greggs who have long since lost their connection with their founders.

This sandwich ... isn't great.  You'd think that having been made with cranberry bread and with a coating of cranberry mayonnaise, that it would taste of cranberries.  Instead everything is over powered, including the thin slices of turkey, by the thick layer of stuffing which has been trowelled on in the middle and doesn't have much flavour in and of itself.  Plus it makes the already moist bread even soggier.  It's not inedible, I ate the whole thing, but it's not at all satisfying and certainly not worth the £3.40 I paid for it.

Review 2021: The Christmas Sandwich Reviews: Starbucks Tis The Season Turkey Sandwich.

Food  Oh Starbucks.  A couple of weeks ago Stuart Heritage from The Guardian said, "nobody has ever travelled to Starbucks specifically to eat a sandwich".  Well, there's a first time for everything.  He didn't like it.  He said it "tastes exactly like every pre-packed chicken-and-stuffing sandwich you have ever bought from a petrol station in a fit of self-loathing" and give it 2/5.  Now that I've eaten what amounts to a lot of those, I have some idea of what he means.  But I also think he was a bit harsh but let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Starbucks entered the UK in 1998 after acquiring then rebranding 56 outlets of the Seattle Coffee Company and it's probably about then that I visited my first although for the life of me I can't remember which but ever since it's been my place to go when I need a coffee and a sit down.  It's unfashionable to say this, but I'm a fan.  What attracted me then was just how different it felt to anywhere else on the high street, like stepping into a coffee house in an American film with its light jazz (also available for sale), large cosy chairs and unusual snacks.  

I've had numerous regular Starbucks over the years, visiting often enough for the staff to get to know my drink preference, and although some of the distinctiveness has eroded over the years (CDs no longer on sale) (bucket chairs), I like the predictability of it, the comfort of knowing that when I visit, it'll be the same coffee, served in the same way, usually in a decent atmosphere.  After lockdown subsided last year, the first cafe I visited was the Starbucks at Liverpool One and the beans I use most at home are their decaf espresso.

All of which will be incredibly disappointing to people who champion independent roasters and believe me I do use their services as well.  But as I explained to my Dad recently, if you're a decaf drinker, Starbucks is the only place which produces a decent, rich-tasting cup.  A lot of the indies (and the other chains) offer a much weaker blend which isn't to my taste especially when its been watered down by filling to the top because I've asked for black and I've forgotten to ask them not to (coffee with milk is just too bland for me).

So its with some trepidation, and Stuart's review ringing in my ears, I attacked their Christmas sandwich, but I needn't have worried.  It's gorgeous.  Despite the wedge of spinach in the middle, this is a moist, juicy affair with loads of flavour thanks to the citrus hints in the cranberry sauce and the abundant stuffing which isn't as claggy as it can often be.  I ate it with an americano at the side and they complimented each other perfectly, the sandwich strong enough to hold its own against the brute force bitter spiciness of the Christmas blend.  Worth the £3.90 to eat in?  Shrug emoji.  I enjoyed it.

Review 2021: The Christmas Sandwich Reviews: Boots Christmas Turkey Feast.

 Food  There's an argument to be made that the Boots meal deal has fuelled the nation.  A sandwich, snack and drink for about £3 was certainly how my lunch went for many years when working in call centres.  Anything from the triple chicken to the New York Deli to whatever's left because it's 2:30 in the afternoon and I've only just got my break so alright I'll have the flatbread thing even though it looks very dry from the outside and what do you mean the quiche doesn't count as a snack any more? 

Even sporadically still its been the mainstay of lunchtime cinema matinees when half the game is trying to find the most expensive item in each category in order to get the most savings however little they actually work together as a culinary delight.  Only when you're sat before the screen do you discover that whatever this green smoothie concoction is, it probably should not be eaten in conjunction with a chocolate brownie or beef and horseradish.

There have been disappointments along the way.  Like the time they tried a two-tier system were some of the larger packets of sandwiches like the triple chicken were put into a more expensive offer (which oddly enough is the price all of the meals are at now, £3.39).  Or when they swapped the chicken and sweetcorn sandwich in the triple for chicken stuffing removing the palate cleanser for the chicken and bacon on the other end.  Or whatever was going on with the chicken tikka sandwich which did little but induce indigestion.

Plus not all the sandwiches are particularly great and I'd include this "turkey feast" in amongst them.  There were other options, one with lower calories and the vegan alternative but I stuck with the one with all the usual stuff to offer a fair comparison and its at the bottom end of the scale.  It's not inedible.  It just doesn't have the flavour pizazz of some of the sandwiches I've eaten during this project.  The turkey is hard, the bacon barely registers and most every tastes of the stuffing.

But as I've said on previous days, the context of the sandwich is important.  Most people probably don't pay much attention to the fundamentals of this or make comparisons about dozens of them across successive days.  It might be that I'd be more accepting if I hadn't already feasted on so many similar sandwiches already.  Plus although the packet says £3.00 it scanned at £2.75 making it one of the cheaper options, a meal deal you might say.

Review 2021: The Christmas Sandwich Reviews: Upper Crust Bacon, Brie & Cranberry Baguette.

Food   Until the 25th November (which is the day this is being written), I don't think I've ever been inside an Upper Crust.  Mostly a fixture at larger railway stations, there's always been a more familiar brand available so I've tended to go there for a train snack.  Plus it has a reputation for being quite expensive, so the idea of paying a lot of money for what looks like through the window from the concourse outside a very basic baguette with some filling, it just seemed easier to go to Boots or where ever instead.

Opened in 1986 by Travellers Fair, the catering division of Travellers Fare, Upper Crust now has around a hundred outlets across the world in stations, airports and universities.  It's currently owned by SSP Group, who're also the brand managers for the likes of Caffè Ritazza, Starbucks, Burger King, YO! Sushi, Millies Cookies and Whistlestop within travel locations.  If I've discovered nothing else on this culinary journey, it's that there's a complex web of companies and business agreements hidden behind a number of facades.

How was my first Upper Crust baguette?  Very nice indeed thank you.  Lovely soft bread which made it easy to bite into which isn't always the case with baguettes.  But what made it sing was the combination of this cranberry sauce with the brie, the former with its very juicy, sweet flavour complementing the creaminess of the latter.  This must be what Booths were attempting when they included brie on their turkey sandwich but where that was a bit plastic and the sauce was non-existent, I didn't want to finish eating this.  Well done Upper Crust, well done.

You get what you pay for, I suppose.  The price was £5.29 which is by far the most expensive sandwich I've had so far but as we discussed in the entry about Cafe Express at Chester station, the economies of scale in running shops which exist completely in travel venues must work somewhat differently to the high street.  Not to mention the pandemic hasn't been kind to the chain, which has had to restructure due to enforced closure for many months with many staff losing their jobs.  Nevertheless if I wanted to treat myself and was feeling a bit flush, I'd certainly consider a return.

Review 2021: The Christmas Sandwich Reviews: Sainsbury's Turkey Feast.

Food  Before Asda in Hunts Cross, the real supermarket treat when I was growing up in Speke was the Sainsbury's in Woolton, probably because it was easy to get to on the 89 bus.  This usually happened around Christmas time, although I do remember popping in now and then we Mum or Dad was taking me to the matinee at the Woolton Cinema, the place were I first saw the likes of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Return to Oz (which was a birthday treat) and the Superman and Star Wars films.

The Liverpool Echo has some photos from the early 1980s which only really show how little the in-store experience of supermarkets has changed.  As I've said about other places, the difference was one of scale.  Imagine having only spent your life visiting express shops and then finding yourself in a much larger space, made even larger because you're only eight or nine years old and therefore shorter.  Anywhere which has more than one type of something will always seem like a treat, especially when the alternative has been the labeless tins stall on Speke Market.

Woolton is still the largest Sainsbury's in the south of the city, which is otherwise littered with some local versions which are otherwise drowned out by the preponderance of Tesco shops.  A few have closed in the post-COVID era, with the outlet at the top of Bold Street or bottom of Leece Street now having given way for another restaurant (it was in a challenging position slap bang between a Co-op and a Tesco.  But the shop at Central Merseyrail Station and in St John's Precinct aren't too far away if you're that brand loyal.

Their Turkey Feast is pretty average, just the already discussed standard ingredients - they also have a Pigs Under Blanket option which explains where the sausages have gone.  There is a lot of bacon, which you can certainly smell on opening and taste on biting through although in combination with the dense turkey makes it quite a hard sandwich the bite into.  It's much of a muchness, nothing that my taste buds are likely to fetishize.  Nothing to complain about for the £2.40 cost which is cheaper than other supermarkets selling roughly the same thing.

Review 2021: The Christmas Sandwich Reviews: Munch Turkey Feast.

Food  Munch is the sandwich brand sold by WH Smiths in its travel outlets (which I recently discovered are a separate entity to the high street stores within the larger company) (business is weird).  Previously they were supplied by the Urban Eat brand most often seen in universities and the like these days.  Smiths shifted over to Munch in 2016 which was then own by a company called Cranswick which was subsequently bought by Greencore, a catering suppliers which began as a sugar manufacturer in Ireland back in the 1920s before diversifying in the early 1990s due to some privatisation shenanigans by the Irish government.

If that paragraph looks messy, its because some brands just exist.  They don't really have a history and the company behind them aren't accustomed to explaining how any of it happened.  The third result for a Google search of "munch sandwich" is this especially mean-spirited, under researched review from 2016 (from just before the Greencore buy-out) which doesn't bother to check who the manufacturer is (assuming that its WH Smith) and makes a serious error in adding up the percentages in the ingredients block (although to be fair the reviews in the comments do mostly agree with him).

But I'm burying the lead.  This is a gorgeous sandwich.  The reason seems to be the "pork, sage & onion stuff mayonnaise" which has a slight kick to it due to inclusion of Dijon mustard which brings a whole new rich taste profile to the thing.  But you can also taste the bacon and turkey well enough to know they're there.  Whether its just like this or because its sat in my fridge for a couple of days and had a chance to marinate, I don't know, but this was perfect, bite after bite after bite.  This would rank pretty highly if was giving these things a star rating although if that was the case it would lose a star for the price which at £3.75 is a tad expensive.

Review 2021: The Christmas Sandwich Reviews: Cafe Express Turkey Stuffing.

Food  The hunt continues.  Trying not to exhaust the obvious sources, I realised the other day that there'll be sandwich shops and cafes which only exist in certain places like railway stations.  Over the next few weeks I'll be checking Pumpkins, Travellers Rest and Upper Crust, all of which much surely have their offerings, but there'll also hopefully be some independents to have a gander at and that's why I found myself in the Cafe Express at Chester Station.

There's some stiff competition here.  Across the concourse is a large Costa and opposite there's a WH Smith which also sells sandwiches.  But the dates on its Trip Advisor reviews suggest its been there since at least 2015 perhaps remaining popular due to its unfussy nature.  It has small frontage on the concourse so there aren't any barriers for someone who needs some drinks and snacks but doesn't have much time to wait between trains.

This is a very basic sandwich, especially considering the price, £3.65, something you could easily make at home.  The ingredients label on the back is incredibly thorough which means we're in the unusual situation of knowing who their supplier is, a company called Brakes.  It's this brown bread, this sliced turkey, this sage and onion stuffing and  this cranberry sauce.  

Which means we're also able to calculate the mark-up.  Bread is 9p a slice, two of those, 18p.  Turkey is 10p a slice, two of those, 20p. Sauce is a 1p a gram so 2p.  Stuffing is also 1p a gram so what 5p.  We'll ignore the trade discount.  So that's 35p to make which means there's a £3.30 mark up per sandwich although obviously a proportion of that will be for staff and rental both of which must be quite high.

Given all of that, how does it taste?  Like a sandwich you could make at home.  It's unremarkable.  The bread is heavy, the turkey insubstantial, the sauce is sweet and the stuffing barely registers.  It's not inedible and I expect on a long train journey when its the only thing accessible in that moment could be quite welcome or comforting, especially with a hot cup of coffee.  It is what it is.

Review 2021: The Christmas Sandwich Reviews: Asda Festive Feast Sandwich with Cumberland Sausage.

Food  Back when we were living in Speke in the 1980s, visiting Asda in Hunts Cross was a bit of a luxury.  It was newly opened and our nearest large supermarket, the local shopping area, South Parade, mostly having at various times a Kwik Save, old school Iceland and somewhere popularly called VeeGee but which had Colin Sykes on the hoarding (which no one I knew could ever explain to me).  The biggest shops we ever had were at Christmas when the hamper my parents had saved for all year would be delivered and we'd spend the afternoon working through and discovering the tins.

Memories of those visits aren't strong and certainly not as strong as the Sainsburys in Woolton (we'll get to there), partly because the Sefton Park shop has become the Platonic Asda in my head since it became our main shop for the past decade.  It has such a pull, in fact, that since my Mum's death, I've only managed to get through it on a couple of occasions, both of which involved me breaking into pieces, sobbing in the ready meals, because of the weight of memories and not being ready yet.  This was bought at outlet behind the Richmond Tavern on Church Road, Wavertree.

On first glance it seems identical to the Tesco, as the packaging proclaims, this has Cumberland sausage and  beechwood smoked rather than cured bacon.  The Asda sandwich smell and taste too, with the sausages which make their mark on opening the packet and a rich cranberry flavour on eating.  The turkey and sausages are nice and soft too, as is the bread, although its difficult to judge how much of this has to do with it sitting in my home fridge for a couple of days (to be eaten on the "use by" day pictured above) (I warned you I was writing these ahead of schedule).

Six days in and there's a definite formula developing as to what appears in these sandwiches.  This typically seems to be turkey, bacon, stuffing, cranberry sauce, maybe sausage plus unique ingredients, in this case fried onion (which I didn't notice).  Of the six, this is probably in the top three.  A reviewer for Reach ranks this as her top choice.  She's a tad harsh on the Tesco, but I am a sauce lover.  Fortunately I'm not forcing myself to give each of them a mark out of five because lets be honest the point of this exercise isn't to really review the sandwiches.

Just one interesting anomaly.  The sandwich I bought was called Festive Feast, but it appears on Asda's website, with identical packaging as a Turkey & Trimmings and glancing across the web reviews, that seems to be the case across the country with it appearing under each title in various places.  I wonder why that might be, assuming I'm not muddling up some chronology.  As that website says it was £2.18 which makes it the cheapest sandwich by quite some margin.

Review 2021: The Christmas Sandwich Reviews: Costa British Turkey Feast.

Food   How many Costa Coffee shops are there in Liverpool?  Trying to use the store locator on their website doesn't help.  It seems designed to somehow hide their ubiquity by only allowing the user to see whatever is in the particular area of a map when a button is pressed.  A quick guestimate is about fifteen in the city centre alone rising up for thirty or so if you include the surrounding areas and that doesn't include all of the other outlets, supermarkets and the like hosting a Costa Coffee self service machine.  There are three in the Penny Lane/Allerton Road area (which is where I bought todays sandwich alone).

Which is disappointing because their coffee is dreadful.  Actually perhaps I should qualify that.  There hasn't been a Costa Coffee I've visited yet which has been able to serve me a decaf coffee which hasn't amounted to being hot, brown water without any flavour, even when I've asked for an extra shot or a smaller cup.  I've never been able understand why this is and the shops are always full so clearly their caffeinated blends are to everyone else's taste (or their just not as picky).  Mum loved their cappuccinos and we have family friends who go often enough that the staff are already preparing their order as they enter the premises.

Other coffee chains and independents are available and arguably if you're visiting somewhere like this just for the drink you either, like me, don't have any friends or social life and just need somewhere with different walls to look at or have a coffee review blog.  But as I am in present condition unable to drink caffeine at all when there isn't anywhere else to go hide from the outside cold and any of the other warm beverages on the menu would blow my calorie allowance for the day, it just really sucks when I order a decaf, hoping against hope that it'll be ok this time then realising pretty quickly that I might as well be drinking warm water.  

All of which said, this sandwich was pretty nice.  You'll notice I forgot to take a photograph before mastication, but I'm sure you can imagine what it would have looked like within the empty packaging pictured above, thin layers of turkey and bacon framed with stuffing and cranberry sauce against the bread.  Ripping the box open reveals the usual scent of sage and onion and biting into it, a nice moist texture, albeit with slightly harder chunks of poultry.  The sandwich lent itself to my preferred method of eating the crusts first and then the middle (not always possible when there's a higher filling to bread to ratio).

One thing which inevitably troubles me is the name.  Why is it important for us to know this is a "British" sandwich.  It says so up top there and in a little circle with a union jack on the back.  Presumably there's a regulation but why be so prominent about it?  I'm also not sure it's worth £3.50, although I appreciate these things will mostly be consumed on the premises and there is rent and staff to pay (or not).  There's certainly less of it than the sub £3 sandwiches I've tried so far and its not as tasty.  Sorry the above is so grumpy, but I've been disappointed by Costa Coffee on enough occasions that I couldn't let this slide.

Review 2021: The Christmas Sandwich Reviews: Subway Tiger Pig.

Food  That didn't take long.  After unsuccessful perusals in Iceland and Sayers, I have now officially suspended the pre-pack only rule at least to the extent of chain bespoke sandwich retailers.  Which means, for now, independent cafes etc are still excluded but given how things are going, I can see that relaxing before Christmas too.  Which is fine.  Perhaps this will turn into some kind of survey of the current state of play in the sandwich industry.  Or at least the desperate mutterings of a blogging lifer trying to get his writing back on track.

Not featuring Subway in this would have been ridiculous anyway given that they're the largest sandwich retailer in the country.  My reticence for inclusion was because Dad and I visited the outlet opposite the hospital on the night we found out Mum was dying and I'll never forget pushing that spongy chicken, brown lettuce and pale tomato about the plastic salad bowl as everything else in our world was crashing down around us.  It's been difficult to face returning to any of the chain, but part of the healing process is to emotionally address these things.

Truth be told, I've never been a big fan of Subway's sandwich, the bread always seeming a little bit too dry, the filling never quite appetising enough.  For a while though I ate a salad pretty much every day because they were cheap (so long as you didn't have any other additions) and filling (so long as the person creating it took into account you weren't having any other additions).  But eventually I grew tired of the ingredients, as you often do when you have just a little bit too much of something and moved on to the Tesco Chicken Salad sandwich (see yesterday).

Subway serve a turkey sandwich all year round so I decided to try one of their specifically seasonal offerings and went with this Tiger Pig affair, which is a long sausage wrapped in bacon, covered in cheese, sozzled in tomato sauce and with the usual salad.  Endeavouring to keep some sort of order, I asked for it to be prepared just as it is in the menu photograph which looks it should have included spinach, onion, peppers and tomatoes.  Instead, the server piled on all the salad, so all of the above plus lettuce, olives, pickles, sweetcorn, cucumber and jalapenos.

The overall result is crunchy.  Subway prepare their warm sandwiches by putting the prepared items on a bread roll which has been sliced down the middle and flattened then put in the toaster.  This is then subjected to the salad before serving.  As you can see from the photo, this results in something which is crusty on the outside and inside and in the middle too which honestly makes it a challenge to eat. especially in this case because the sausage is completely intact and hugging the hinged side of the tole while the salad tries to not to fall out of the other.

Flavourwise it's fine.  Warm sausage and salad on a sandwich isn't something you'd usually expect and indeed it does feel like eating two different delicacies at the same time, biting through one side of the bread and then the other, crumbs and bits of crust falling onto the paper throughout.  About half way through my mouth was burning, I'd forgotten about the jalapenos and ran over to the counter gasping for water which the server quickly gave me from the self service tap at the front of the counter.

What I suppose was missing was that it didn't feel especially Christmassy, being essentially a sausage and bacon sandwich made strange bedfellows with a pile of salad (although I've been to New Year's Eve parties which have been exactly like that which is I no longer attend New Year's Eve parties).  Given that they already have turkey on the menu that Subway would be well equipped to deliver a more traditionalist festive feast and I could have tried to cobble something together myself from existing menu items but that's not why I'm here (why am I here?).

The Subway website suggests, with some jiggery-pokery in the customisation section that this business would have been 485 calories which seems on the low side considering the side of the bread and sausage and the cheese.  It cost £3.99, although as this review of the same thing from an outlet in Lincoln last year suggests, it's cheaper than some parts of the country.  And that's that put to bed.

Review 2021: The Christmas Sandwich Reviews: Tesco Turkey & Trimmings.

Food  This project (or whatever it is) (a bit?) may be more difficult than I first thought.  Turns out not every retailer with a sandwich selection pushes the boat out in that regard during the festive period, so neither Heron Foods or B&M will be judged here and instead we're assessing Tesco on the third day.  My plan is to keep these logistical notices to a minimum, but don't be surprised if the pre-packed only rule, apart from Subway of course, is suspended as the days and weeks role on.

Of all the supermarkets, Tesco's been the most ubiquitous in my biography mostly because my Mum worked on the check outs in the Clayton Square branch between the mid-90s and when she retired.  We'd do all of our shopping in there to take advantage of her staff discount and remained pretty loyal right up until Asda opened their massive supermarket within walking distance of home.  But now Tesco  have shops in almost every street, it's pretty impossible not to shop there.

For years I've been addicted to their chicken salad sandwich to the point that there may have been a sobbing incident when I was finally able to get one on the single occasion when we managed to get some home shopping during the first lockdown in 2020.  Mum loved their cheese and onion sandwich (too rich for me) and Dad always has the prawn mayonnaise when it's offered to him.  We're big, if habitual buyers of Tesco sandwiches.

Fortunately, Turkey & Trimmings doesn't disappoint.  It's gorgeous.  On opening the packet you can smell all of the ingredients, like sitting over a dinner plate on Christmas day and all of those elements are present and correct during the devouring, turkey, sausage and bacon working together with the cranberry to create a moist, yummy taste.  On seeing it in the shop I did think, "Well, that's a lot of protein ..." but it wasn't as hard or stodgy as they have been previous years.  This is a nice sandwich.  Onward.