YumNoms

Here is the verdict on my first experience with ‘The Cheesy Chick - Grilled Cheese on the go’, Buffalo’s newest food truck. Firstly, the window girl was super-nice and the service was a bit slow (but understandably so - they seemed a little overwhelmed). I ordered a grilled cheddar sandwich on wheat with apple and a side of pickles. It didn’t taste like they used butter (more like commercial margarine or cooking spray), so my sandwich had a slight, unpleasantly chemical, bitterness to it with every bite. Cheese was great (nice melting mild cheddar), bread was good (crusty, not your standard wonderbread fare), apple was too sweet and so thinly sliced so it got lost in the sandwich — they should really use a tart apple (e.g.: granny smith) sliced about twice as thick to keep it from getting lost. Also, the dill pickles are not good quality; I would like to see a better dill pickle (spears or long slices) that comes as a garnish with the sandwich. My sandwich was a good size, but James’ lucky7 was freakishly small (1/3 the size, yet almost 2x as expensive) with some of the meat inside it still cold (one expects their grilled sandwich to be hot) and he ended up describing it as ‘wholly disappointing’. The biggest short term changes they can make are to use a quality salted butter to grill the sandwiches and to standardize (or make proportional) sandwich components (so you don’t have a freakishly large/small sandwich or apples that you can’t taste). Based on the sandwiches I observed coming out of the truck, price is a pretty decent value for what you get (it just needs to be tweaked and executed better). I wanted to try the tomato basil soup, but they were out; ideally they should be crossing off unavailable items as they run out. Lastly, their sign and website advertise dips but do not list what they are (it just says to ask); these really need to be written on the menu so people can formulate their order by the time they reach the order window… I don’t want to wait in line for 5-10 minutes only to not be sure of what I’m going to get, and being able to read a complete menu also helps pass the time.

They have the right pieces to do something really great here, but as of now still have a lot of work to do; I would like to give them another shot when they have been open longer and have fully refined their product. For now, I rate them 1.5 out of 4.

Crust:
1 1/2 cups flour
Extra 1/2 cup flour on the side
1 stick butter
1 tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1/4 cup (dry measure) of water

Make as normal. Then do a folding knead of the extra flour into the dough

Filling:
4 cups pitted sour cherries
3/4 cup sugar
Splash vanilla, double splash almond extract
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp fresh lime juice
2 tsps Pomona pectin

1.5 tbsp pasture butter between filling and upper crust