Bacon Sandwich Quest: The Reckoning

2012 is done and dusted. Dawn has broken (twice given my tardiness in getting this written) on a new year, the world is looking forward and not back. The time for reminiscence has passed, where the last few days brought reflection, teary-eyed montages in print and on screen, henceforward is a fresh start. A blank canvas, time for resolution.

But wait. A year in review cannot be complete until the year is out. Bacon sandwiches pay no heed to the march of time, to our arbitrary full stops and delineations. A quest for the finest sandwich in 2012 would not have been a proper quest and true until the final seconds of the final minute of the year expired. The possibility of more bacon is ever present.

And so, here it is. The final reckoning. I set out to record every bacon sandwich I ate during 2012, and have done exactly that. As I noted at the start, the humble bacon sandwich really is worth celebrating, and I hope that's what I've achieved. It's been emotional, at times depressing, at others hugely greasily satisfying, often dull, mostly futile and usually pointless, but we've reached the end of our porcine road together.

There are just December's sandwiches left to review, and then at long last the winner can be announced. If you're already getting distracted and drifting off in the direction of more fulfilling reading material, then I suggest you look away now. December was a four sandwich month. FOUR. That's almost one per week statistics nerds.

First up, and giving weight to the theory that large chains can't make bacon sandwiches properly is this effort from the Upper Crust at Wetherby services. Overpriced (£2.99), under-stuffed with over-smoked, over-salted, overly American style bacon. Just not very good at all.

Secondly, and proving that you can't really trust a greasy spoon either, is a weak offering from a caff in a shipping container on an industrial estate in Speke. That's just round the corner from Liverpool Airport in case you were wondering. The cheap and nasty bread would be excusable but the flabby bacon and the weird tasting brown sauce are not, especially not at over two quid.

There's nothing worse on a bacon sandwich than the intrusion of some sauce imposter that doesn't even taste like proper brown sauce. It doesn't have to be HP, Daddies is quite nice, and even some supermarket brands are ok, but whatever it is it categorically must not taste like barbecue sauce. I went to Australia once, and they kept trying to offer barbecue sauce in lieu of brown sauce on the grounds that 'it's the same thing mate'. It fucking well isn't it.

Now I've got that off my chest let's take a look at a good bacon sandwich. An excellent bacon sandwich in fact. Ever since the early days of my quest people have been telling me to get my bacon on at The Greedy Pig in Leeds. I've eaten breakfast there so know they're good, but had never had their bacon sarnie until a couple of weeks ago.

The Greedy Pig bacon and mushroom was splendid, a real contender for the title. A good quality roll with a bit of texture to it, not the super-soft variety but not quite in Scottish territory either, and fillings verging on magnificent. Thick cut bacon with a good layer of crisped fat, salty but not overly so, and oooh what mushrooms. It's rare to get anything other than button mushrooms in a bacon sanger, but these were fat slices of meaty field mushroom and took the sandwich up to the next level. Excellent work, £1.90 for bacon, 40p extra for mushrooms.

Finally.... New Year's Eve. Last chance saloon for Bacon Sandwich Quest. The Breakfast Club in Spitalfields, London. A bacon sandwich in a restaurant devoted to all things breakfast, in a big city increasingly devoted to all things food. Surely this would be another contender for the title?

In a word, no. It could have been a champion, all the ingredients were in place, the long hours on the training ground complete, due care and attention given to the minutiae of elite level bacon sandwich preparation until the last, only for it all to go wrong with fatally flawed execution on the day.

The retreat into the chasing pack was caused entirely by the singular failure to apply much heat to the bacon. As if it had been sweated in the bottom of a damp oven, each of the four rashers (yes, four!) of good quality pig were rendered a damp squib. What a shame. £5 with a good coffee or freshly squeezed juice.

And that is that. Twenty-eight bacon sandwiches and we can have only one winner. You could cut the tension with an HP-smeared knife round here I tell you, so I shall keep you waiting no longer.

The winner of Bacon Sandwich Quest 2012 is.....

The Greedy Pig, Leeds

The judges (that's me by the way) praised the quality of ingredients used, the faultless execution, the great value and the rare attention to detail on display in the bacon sandwiches at the Pig. The decision was unanimous and the lovely people at the Greedy Pig are worthy winners of the inaugural (and final) Bacon Sandwich Quest.*

For those of you with an unwavering commitment to Bacon Sandwich Quest here is a link to each of the monthly posts followed by a photo montage of bacon-y goodness and last but least, the final leaderboard.

Introduction
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November

*Note to editors: I am available for public speaking about bacon or other topics at weddings, funerals, christenings and bar mitzvahs. I will write for money. All text herein is © Northern Food 2012-13 and cannot be reproduced without my permission. No animals were harmed in the production of Bacon Sandwich Quest (except for pigs). I will accept free bacon subject to terms and conditions.

Bacon Sandwich Quest: November

At last! An almost interesting month on BSQ. Things are belatedly hotting up in the breakfast sandwich world, if not exactly in terms of quality then at least in variety. It's been a three sandwich sort of a month, each of them unique in their own funny little ways.

First up: the Costa bacon muffin. Three quid's worth of wrong, fresh from its superheated blast in the sandwich press. The waves of warmth radiating from the thing were actually the best bit, defrosting my hands on a chilly morning. The texture of the muffin wasn't unpleasant and HP sauce was available. Apart from that it was crap. The bacon was too smokey, bordering on artificially so, and  one and a half rashers is taking the piss.

It's chain central this month, the second offering being from Gregg's. Quite a pretty looking sandwich don't you think, with its bronzed, cornmeal dusted bap. A very reasonable two quid with a cup of tea. Let's open her up and take a look inside.....

....what the very hell is this? SAUSAGES? I didn't ask for them, honest, but they were better than I'd have imagined. Not half as dirty as they could have been, so I had to give this five out of five for accompaniments, as free sausages are not to be sniffed at even when they are smeared in cheap sunflower spread.

Surprisingly good bread and bacon that tasted alright despite the wizened like an aged flip flop look of it completed the picture. Go Gregg's.

I almost had a third chain butty last month. Almost. There I was, in hurried need of sustenance prior to a meeting in Birmingham. Caffe Nero was there. They're not too bad I thought. Better than those other chain coffee bastards I thought. Can't be worse than the Costa bacon effort I thought.

And then I saw this. The bacon roll, not the disgusting sounding festive panini thing. Same sort of refrigerated cellophane wrapped effort you find at the other places, but pre-loaded with the wrong sauce. The WRONG SAUCE. Who are you to tell me I must have tomato sauce on my bacon sandwich Caffe Nero? Hmmm? You guys are in charge of condiment decisions are you? Not on my watch.

So I went down the road and got this for 99p instead. There's a baguette price war going on in the vicinity of Birmingham New Street station, I counted three different places selling pretty much anything you'd care for in long sandwich form for a quid.

The bread and bacon weren't half bad for the price, and the whole thing was enormous. Too salty though and let down by copious quantities of astringent budget brown sauce. All in all 99p baguettes are about the only redeeming feature of the dystopian bunker that is Birmingham New Street. Not sure you'd want to make a special trip though.

There we have it. I've brought you chain catastrophes, free sausages and scarily cheap French themed breakfast comestibles. What more could you want?

In December I'd like to eat a truly great bacon sarnie that I didn't make myself. Please Santa I've been a very good boy.

Here's the leaderboard:

Bacon Sandwich Quest: October

The end is nigh. We've reached the final quarter of our journey together. We've experienced highs and lows, mostly the latter... I'll shut up before I go any further with this or I'll have nothing left to write come BSQ eulogy time in a couple of months.

Guess what? October wasn't particularly thrilling. 'Twas a two sandwich (actually three, but I got carried away and wrote about one of them last month) month, one steady but slightly disappointing and one offering up an unsettling bread related curveball.

Slightly disappointing was this effort from the Whirlow Hall Farm stall at the Sharrow Vale market. Whirlow Hall Farm are a charitable trust doing great work so I'd rather not be too harsh about their sarnie, but it was a bit pants. Very small, unevenly cooked bacon, not much of it, no brown sauce available. £2.50. The bacon itself was good quality though, so I'll just recommend that you go and buy some and leave it at that.

BROWN BREAD BACON SANDWICH KLAXON. This is wrong surely? Not just any old brown bread but full on thick sliced granary. This comes courtesy of the nice chaps at Mrs Atha's in Leeds, who will serve you excellent coffee. I think you need to rein in some of your wilder ideas a bit though lads. Granary/bacon is not the way to attract a regular buttie clientele. There's a time and a place for experimentation and the working person's breakfast is not it.

Having said all that I quite liked it, but the quantity of bacon therein was rather meagre relative to the bread. Brown sauce and good service were in plentiful supply. £3.

Due to unforeseen circumstances I can't bring you the leaderboard (I mean unforeseen in a kind of 'problems on the railways' sort of a way, as in 'entirely foreseeable') this month. It's safely stored on my personal laptop which is at home in Sheffield, whereas I'm in a hotel room in Scotland. Oops. I'll update the post on my return, in the meantime you can rest assured that neither of these two is going to trouble the frontrunners.

Not long to go. Keep the faith.

Edit: here's that leaderboard you've all been waiting for.

Mrs Atha's, Leeds

After a brief hiatus over the last few months Katie at Leeds Grub is back. This is great news as she's always quick to spot anywhere new and interesting on the Leeds food and drink scene. Very helpful if, like me, your finger is nowhere near the pulse.

You'll find Mrs Atha's exactly as described in Katie's review, it really is a very nice space. It's obvious that lots of time and effort (and money too I would imagine) have gone into the fit out;- I could imagine whiling away a good few hours in there, especially during the dark days ahead.

A beautifully made flat white was smooth and strong with quite a pronounced but balanced bitterness. Excellent stuff, I could drink one hell of a lot of these.

This was a breakfast visit, so of course a bacon sarnie was in order. This wasn't so great, the two very thin rashers being a bit meagre in the presence of thickly sliced granary bread. Unusual choice of bread for a bacon sandwich too, though I quite liked it.

The staff were also very friendly and eager to please, and prices are about par for the course for a good quality coffee shop (£2.30 for a flat white I think). I'd highly recommend this place despite the slightly underwhelming sandwich, it's really all about the coffee and that was fantastic. They have some good looking cakes too.

8/10


18 Central Road
Leeds
LS1 6DE

Bacon Sandwich Quest: September

It's that time again. Here's what you've all been waiting for, the nervous tension reaching a climax, the anticipation almost unbearable as you hit refresh with ever increasing frequency, sweaty palmed at what porky joys await.

I'll try to let you down gently. Most of September's pig related fun came in the form of Spanish jamon, British bacon appearing on my menu just the once in a spectacularly underwhelming effort from the Breadbox kiosk in Manchester Piccadilly station.

It didn't cost much (£2 or £2.50 including a tea?), but that's where the compliments end. It's one of those places where the breakfast butties are pre-made, then reheated in some sort of industrial megamicrowave grill machine that zaps the shit out of them in mere seconds, somehow rendering the bacon fiercely hot yet limp and flabby, and the bread damp inside but dry out. There's a reason microwaves with grill functions never took off.

That ought to be your lot, but I did say I'd let you down gently, so just for the hell of it here's October's first entry. I ate it at lunchtime on the first so it wasn't far off September.

This was better, a £2.20 large from our Gert's cafe in Walkley, Sheffield. A good soft roll harboured three rashers of sturdy, rough hewn bacon. The cooking was a touch irregular, some bits crispier than others, but other than that a solid effort. The chap serving was friendly, but he didn't offer me any sauce. No sauce! What is the world coming to.

Three more months and the ordeal will be over. It's becoming increasingly clear from the leaderboard that most bacon sandwiches are mediocre, and you'd be better making your own. Ho hum.

Bacon Sandwich Quest: August

I'm really getting sick of this blog feature now. Why did I decide to do it? Why? Roll on December is all I can say. August was hardly a thrilling month in bacon sandwich world, but at least it wasn't as bad as July.

July really was the pits of the world. It rained too much, I didn't go on holiday anywhere less rainy and nowhere near enough bacon was involved.

August was a three sanger month. But there are only two sandwiches pictured below I hear you cry. You'd be right, I ate two of them at once, as the magnificent Buffet Box of Cumbernauld does a special breakfast offer: 2 bacon rolls and a tea or coffee for two pounds.

TWO pounds for TWO bacon sandwiches. AND a hot drink. They're small but very well formed. Similar to the offering just up the road at the Old Inns Café and plenty of other places in Scotland for that matter. Smoked bacon on a crusty-ish roll, smear of brown sauce, friendly service. These were just let down a touch by a surfeit of cheap marg.

The other one was from the café at Rivelin Valley Park in Sheffield. The bacon and bread were good here, and had it not been for some poorly drained tinned tomatoes rendering the whole thing a bit soggy, I'd have been impressed. Thick cut bacon with a mild cure, very soft fresh bread and not badly priced at £2.50 to eat in.

Four more months to go. I must and shall complete this challenge. It really hasn't turned out to be much fun though. Perhaps I should have upped the ante a little, bacon sandwiches are so 2010 what with everyone on the internet shoving bacon in any foodstuff imaginable. Ooh look at me I made a bacon trifle and it was AMAZEBALLS and just wait 'til you try my bacon and black pudding pavlova you'll go blind with pleasure.

Here's the leaderboard as if anyone were interested:

Bacon Sandwich Quest: July

Oops, this month I almost forgot completely. You wouldn't have missed much, as it turns out I only bought one bacon sandwich in July, and it was a bit crap.

I've just been racking my brains for the last ten minutes trying to recall where on earth I bought it from, and then it came to me: a mucky sandwich van in a lay-by on the A57. Don't you yearn for a glamorous life like mine?

I can't really recommend this one, the roll was small and so were the rashers. A very meagre effort for £2.40. The bacon was also completely devoid of fat, like those Matteson's turkey rashers or somesuch abomination. There's no fun in fat free bacon now is there?

At this stage in proceedings August isn't shaping up any better. I might eat nothing but bacon sarnies for a week to improve matters as this is getting tedious. Sorry.

Here's the leaderboard.

Bacon Sandwich Quest: June

Bacon! Coming at ya! I'm on the ball this month. No dilly dallying until the second week of July for June's porcine instalment. Here it is you lucky people.

There were two bacon sarnies in the month. I got off to a flyer with back to back butties in week one, then failed miserably to push on from there. Weak.

The source of this little beauty: Cumbernauld's very own Old Inns Café. The bacon rolls in Scotland are different. The bread is usually crustier, more chew and heft than you'll get in England. Maybe it's the auld alliance at work. Whatever the reason, I like it. The sturdier bread matches the powerful bacon hit within. It's smoked, and coarsely cut, and delicious.

Sauce bottles are provided allowing you to dispense your own perfect measure, and uniquely Scots accompaniments are available should you wish. The tattie scone carb double whammy being a particular favourite of mine.

Service here is also far cheerier than you could reasonably expect from some blokes who spend their life in a wooden hut in the corner of a garage forecourt next to a motorway in a town once voted Britain's ugliest. Excellent, but not enough to knock me off number one spot. £2.20 for the straight bacon.

And this one: Westmorland Farm Shops at Tebay services on the M6. It flatters to deceive a little this place. The quality of the food is markedly better than at most motorway service stations, but that only means it's not completely shite, and not that it's actually much good.

An 'any two breakfast items' sandwich costs £3.95, and isn't really worth it. The bun was a bit stale as well as being too small, and the portion control isn't really designed with construction of a sensible sandwich in mind. Not enough bread, not quite enough bacon and a year's supply of mushrooms. I exaggerate but you get the idea. Good bacon and mushrooms though.

Leaderboard time:

Bacon Sandwich Quest: May

I don't know why I'm still bothering with this. I only ate one bacon sandwich in May, from a caff in Nottingham. Here's a photo of it:

Exciting huh? Don't let the uninspired appearance fool you though, it was a fairly good bacon sandwich. The increasingly uncommon use of sliced bread was welcome, and it was good bread too. Not the cheapest of plasticky loaves, but nothing too artisan either. Just right. Soft and accommodating.

The bacon was rough hewn and generously supplied. Maybe a little underdone, the fat could have done with a minute or so longer to crisp, but the flavour was mighty fine. Porcine.

It wasn't oversauced and service was swift. A good all rounder, it's done just enough to creep into the medal positions, like a competent heptathlete at the end of day one. Has it done enough to hold off stronger competitors as the tournament reaches its denouement? I doubt it. My money is on the Ennis of bacon sarnies storming through with a fine performance in the javelin (bread) and a personal best in the 800 metres (service). Or something. Only time will tell.

Leader board:

Sorry it's barely legible, I'm struggling with a better way to display it in Blogger. Suggestions anyone?

June will be more fun. We're only a week in and I've already eaten two bacon sandwiches!

Bacon Sandwich Quest: April

Bet you thought I'd forgotten about Bacon Sandwich Quest. Sadly I haven't, the April round up is just running a little late. Things perked up a bit in April, there was an unusual coffee shop offering, a standard greasy spoon effort and of course I threw my own sarnie of champions into the mix.

The coffee shop curveball for starters, from Grind Coffee Lounge in Wakefield. A bacon sandwich toasted on a griddle, eaten in an independent coffee shop, reminiscent of those you get in the chain coffee shops. It was sort of good, flavour packed smokey bacon, but sort of wrong, as the bread was overtoasted making the whole thing rather crunchy. Bacon butties shouldn't be crunchy. Hmm.

Let's face it, if you want a job doing properly you're best off doing it yourself. It seems a little unfair to rate my own bacon sandwich, but given the generally lacklustre standard so far people obviously need some guidance. I don't mean to sound boastful but this is how it should be done. Anyhow I think I've been objective, docking myself a point for service on account of getting cold feet from the kitchen tiles whilst making it.

And finally, Pat's Cafe, Knowsley Industrial Estate's finest. Solid, reliable, unspectacular. No photo, but it looked like any other bacon roll (or barm as those crazy cats like to call it).This isn't the first one of these I've eaten, and it certainly won't be the last. Currently residing in the final podium place, but can it stay the distance?

Here's the leaderboard, formatted horribly but Blogger is driving me up the wall. Sorry. Here's to May.

The perfect bacon sandwich

What with Bacon Sandwich Quest proving so underwhelming thus far, I thought it was high time I threw my own rasher into the ring so to speak.

I'm not the only one who's been pontificating on the bacon sandwich of late, and this post got me thinking. It might just be the case that the finest bacon sandwich imaginable is the one you make for yourself, to your own exacting specifications. My dream butty may not be the same as yours, but it works for me.

This was the bacon sarnie I ate on Sunday morning, and it was by far the best of the year to date.

I grill the bacon. I tend to err on the side of grilling as the method of choice as it ensures a good, even crispness to the fat. The grill should be medium hot rather than on the hottest setting, as the fiercest heat will result in fat that is charred rather than browned.

Three rashers of good quality, thick cut back bacon, unsmoked. Two is not enough, resulting in a flatly filled, linear sandwich. You need that extra rasher to create layers of bacon where they overlap. I love smoked bacon but prefer unsmoked in a bacon sandwich. Just do. A simple cure is best too, nothing too sweet.

As the bacon grills I prepare the bread. An intermediate level bread is best I think. Pappy white sliced is good, but a little too limp for fine, sturdy bacon. An expensive artisan, sourdough loaf would just be wrong, too strongly flavoured and too much heft to the crust. Thick slices from a supermarket bakery bloomer do the trick. You know the type, one of the animal themed ones (tiger, hedgehog, badger etc. I used tiger). White of course.

I buttered the bread, because, as we all know, everything is better with butter. There are no exceptions to this rule. Creamy, unsalted butter is great here, but I didn't have any so slightly salted it was.

Now it's time to add the sauce. Brown. HP or Daddies. Not ketchup. There are some who say ketchup is preferable as the vinegary molasses tang of brown sauce is too much in a bacon sandwich, assertive and overpowering. To those people I say: that's because you used too much. A smear is all that's needed, not a squirt or a splash. Sauce shouldn't drip everywhere as you bite into it. Just a smear adds a delicious fruity backnote and a hint of acidity.

The bacon is ready. Crisp fat, browned but not blackened. The flesh still moist but not damp and absolutely not wet. In it goes, and on goes the top slice of bread. A gentle squeeze and the heat starts to melt the butter into the sauce into the bacon fat.

And then it's time to eat. In no time at all it's gone, and all I'm left with is a grin and a strong mug of tea to wash it down. I think I've found a winner.

Bacon Sandwich Quest: March

Last time round I was hoping the next instalment of Bacon Sandwich Quest would be more exciting. Sorry folks it isn't going to be more exciting.

I really don't eat as many bacon sandwiches as I thought. Just two in March, neither of which were very exciting. Inexplicably I do seem to have taken photos of both of them though, so here they are.

A passable effort from Asda in Grantham, satisfactory in all areas but uncommonly small.

Another passable effort from Diana's Diner on Cross Green Industrial Estate in Leeds. Good bacon let down by a spongy, overfloured bap and watery tomatoes. Splendid service though, use of the word 'love' and a multititude of sandwich customisation options: spread on the bread, sliced or tinned tomatoes, sauce, how much sauce, pepper?

Presumably you can't stand the anticipation a moment longer, so without further ado here's the leader board.

Venue	Where's that?	Bacon	Bread	Accompa-niments	Value	Service	Total
Rumbletums	Otley	8	3	4	4	3	22
Wilsons pie van	Leeds	7	3	2	4	3	19
Diana's Diner	Leeds	7	2	2	3	5	19
Asda	Grantham	6	3	3	3	3	18
Cosy Caf	Bollington	6	4	2	2	3	17
Monty's	Windsor	7	2	3	2	3	17
Spar	Knowsley	5	3	3	3	2	16
McDonalds	A19 Billingham	4	1	3	3	2	13

Must try harder in April.

Bacon Sandwich Quest: February

I almost forgot about Bacon Sandwich Quest, and then Gary sent me a link to this Guardian article and the piggy goodness was duly returned to front of mind. Bacon, bacon, lovely bacon.

What's clear from the article and comments beneath is that bacon sandwiches are a very personal matter. There's a lot to consider. Streaky/back, white/brown, soft/crusty, smoked/unsmoked, red/brown/other, buttered/unbuttered, grilled/griddled/fried.

I've already discussed the options at some length and for the record I'm usually an unsmoked grilled or fried back bacon, soft buttered white bread, brown sauce kind of guy. Variations are possible, but not when it comes to sauce. Brown is the correct choice. Ketchup is for chips and sausages. Ok? Good. And as for mustard??

Wilson's: squandered potential. Could have achieved great things.

So how did I get on in February? Terribly. I only ate two bacon sarnies, neither of which were very exciting. The Wilson's pie van offering had great potential, but was let down by chewy, wizened bacon. Excellent quality bacon mind, with a wonderful flavour, but surely there's a way of keeping it warm on the van without it drying out so much. They also lost out by having no brown sauce. Schoolboy error. If I ever get one of these while the goods are fresh we could have a contender.

Knowsley Industrial Estate Spar: the mushrooms couldn't save it.

The Knowsley Spar effort was mediocre in every way, and not worth discussing further.

Here's the leader board so far:

Venue	Where's that?	Bacon	Bread	Accompa-niments	Value	Service	Total
Rumbletums	Otley	8	3	4	4	3	22
Wilsons pie van	Leeds	7	3	2	4	3	19
Cosy Caf	Bollington	6	4	2	2	3	17
Monty's	Windsor	7	2	3	2	3	17
Spar	Knowsley	5	3	3	3	2	16
McDonalds	A19 Billingham	4	1	3	3	2	13

Let's hope March is more exciting.....