Ersatz Club Sandwich at Erik’s

Ersatz Club Sandwich at Erik’s

At Erik’s in Oak Park last week, I ordered a Chicken Salad Club Sandwich.

When it arrived, my heart sank:

* Instead of being on toasted bread, it was on untoasted bread
* Instead of being quartered, it was cut in half
* Instead of having meat-lettuce-bacon-tomato on each of the two levels, it had meat on one level and lettuce-bacon-tomato on the other

And it had no frilly toothpicks!



I’ve come to accept that what a menu calls “chicken pot pie” is rarely pie – it’s usually just stew with a pastry shell on top.

I’ve come to accept that “baked Alaska” is almost never actually ice cream and sponge cake in a toasty meringue shell.

I’ve come to accept that “Caesar salad” will almost never contain raw eggs and whole Romaine leaves.

There’s definitely room for “interpretation” of classic dishes, but that’s not what this is. This ersatz club sandwich was the bastard child of carelessness and corner-cutting.

To have a popular time-honored institution like Erik’s flagrantly ignore such basic club sandwich requirements as toasting and quartering and disposing ingredients equally between layers…that’s just bullsh*t.

And no frilly toothpicks!? There’s steam streaming out my ears now. This is a big deal!!

Erik's
107 N. Oak Park, Oak Park
708-848-8805

I feel your pain brother!
When I first moved to da OP Eric's was decent food at a fair price point. After changing hands (a couple times?) it's just sad now.

This travesty ranks right up there with those Wisconsin style tuna melts served "closed faced" between two pieces of bread instead of open faced as the good lord intended.

I know someone who worked at Erik's a long, long, time ago. Prolly 20 years or so ago. I know them REALLY well. Back in the day, I can't remember if we (ahem, I mean they) were supposed to toast the chix salad club, but I'm pretty sure, we (ahem, I mean they) always did the chix salad club with salad scoop on bottom, then the top layer was swiss cheese, two pieces of bacon cut in half then the four strips placed side by side over the cheese, then lettuce, and tomato on top in that order.

And then, it would sit under a heat lamp for five minutes because invariably, someone forgot to put down the fries.

I shudder to think how many "Bankers" I (ahem, I mean they) made for that place.

I will say this: the owners/mgrs liked to keep the kitchen spotless, and rotated the products in such a way that there was pretty much no chance for spoilage.