Grilled Cheese Invitational
A few weeks ago a friend of mine tweeted that she was attending a big pillow fight in Downtown Los Angeles to celebrate International Pillow Fight Day. (This is just a taste of what went on.) I already had plans and couldn’t go, but while looking at the website, I noticed it was sponsored by something called the Grilled Cheese Invitational. So I clicked on the link (as I hope you just did) and was transported to a website for what I thought was probably the best cook off ever invented.
Okay some back story here. I love grilled cheese. In my opinion there really is no better comfort food. One of the main reasons – it’s so damn easy to make. Just take a piece of your favorite cheese, slap it between two pieces of bread, fry in a ton of butter and voila, instant happiness.
I scanned the website and was thrilled to discover, not only did it take place in Los Angeles, but any average Joe or Jane could enter – it only cost $10. So I immediately signed up. And with three categories – The Missionary (basic grilled cheese), the Kama Sutra (exotic grilled cheese) and the Honey Pot (dessert grilled cheese) – I knew there would be plenty of good cheese eatin’.
But you didn’t have to be a competitor to partake of all the cheesey goodness. You could sign up to be a judge and taste all the weird concoctions being made, or play it safe and sample the variety of yummy grilled cheese from the army of professionals selling it to the masses.
My first stop – the Grilled Cheese Truck. There were two of them at the Invitational and still they had the longest lines of any of the vendors. Their menu was large, but I’d heard so much about their Cheesy Mac, that’s what I got. The ingredients were simple: mac & cheese and sharp cheddar cheese grilled on sourdough. Yes, my arteries were hardening just thinking about it. Now you might think, as I did, that macaroni & cheese doesn’t belong in a sandwich, but one bite changed my mind. This sandwich was super duper yummy! And yet, there were others that were just as good.
My next stop was Greenspan’s Grilled Cheese from the head chef of The Foundry. While his restaurant, Greenspan’s Grilled Cheese, hasn’t opened yet, it will be right next door to The Foundry sometime in late August 2010. I knew Chef Greenspan was gonna have good grilled cheese since he’d won the Invitational in the past. I wasn’t disappointed. I tasted his Johnny Apple Cheese which consisted of cheddar cheese, apples, and pastrami on sourdough bread. Again, heaven.
By this point I was getting kind of full, but I had to try at least one more grilled cheese vendor. There were so many to choose from, but since I’ve been to Campanile’s grilled cheese night on many occasions I went with the small, intimate Artisan Cheese Gallery. As with all the others, I wasn’t disappointed. I got there just in time to grab their last slice of an aged gruyere grilled cheese. Now I’m not a fan of gruyere, in fact I hate all swiss cheeses, but this was devine. I wish there’d been more because I would’ve bought another slice. It’s too bad they’re located in Studio City, a whole other world away from me, otherwise I’d purchase all my cheese from them.
There was just one more truck I had to try, the Sweets Truck. The reason I had to try their goodies, you ask? They had absolutely nothing to do with grilled cheese. As their name suggests, they only do sweets. Cookies, bars, cupcakes, you name it, they had it. And good thing, because by the time I got to them, I was grilled cheesed out. But now I was faced with another dilema – what should I order that would compliment all the cheesey goodness I’d had up to this point? There were cupcakes, huge chocolate chip cookies, rice krispie treats, something called a Farmeeo and my favorite, Crack, which by the way came in two flavors – chocolate and mint. But while the crack sounded enticing, I had to go with the Farmeeo – their version of an oreo. Oh. My. God. It was amazing. Quite possibly one of the best cookies I’ve ever tasted. And the perfect compliment (not to mention end) to this perfectly wonderful cheese-filled day.
