What better sandwich to kick-start this blog than Tesco’s Tuna Nicoise, a sandwich variety I am presently unfamiliar with, but which offers
tuna, egg, spinach, onion, and, tantalisingly, ‘tomato bread’, a bread type of
which I am similarly unfamiliar.
I feel sandwich ingredients are often lumped into clichés from
which it can be hard to break free; you have your egg salad of some variety, or
egg and bacon – no salad, most meats will be accompanied by a lacklustre salad
of some description, and cheese will inevitably accompany a pickle or tomato.
Tuna Nicoise is exciting in that it breaks these boundaries and dares to marry
tuna in with egg.
This pairing was explosive at first bite, with these two
distinct flavours exploding onto the tongue like a taste firework. Tesco’s have
offered a fine first bite by focusing the majority of the filling on the centre
of the sandwich, as is often the case with sandwich makers – the filling tends
to thin out towards the crust as you finish each half. This would be the first
time I have appreciated this inevitability whilst eating a sandwich, as the
flavours were so strong it was actually a welcome relief to have a couple of
bites of just the bread towards the end of my meal.
The infamous ‘tomato bread’ in fact was very palatable, with
a salty but sweet flavour that made up for its somewhat ghastly orange appearance
when I took the sandwich out of the package. It had a rather
chemical-remniscient appearance not unlike something you would expect to find
in an American high school in the 90’s, which, it is important to report, was
not the impression received when eating this actually very well crafted bread.
Sadly, the second half of the sandwich was a bit more
disappointing, feeling lighter to hold and indeed being less well-filled than
the first half – only half of a tomato slice was included, and a low egg-slice:tuna
ratio. As I started on the second half, the words “it is better to have loved
and lost, than never to have loved at all” came to mind – though I would
certainly prefer to endure another second half of a tuna nicoise sandwich than
a bout of full-fledged heartbreak. Importantly,
the flavours still shone through despite low sandwich content, with a delicious
peppery finish accompanying the tuna perfectly. On the very last bite, I had a
perfect chunk of tuna filling with mayonnaise attached to the crust, a
wonderfully moist way to finish this particular culinary adventure.
To conclude: Tesco have created in the ‘Tuna Nicoise… on
tomato bread’ a fabulous, powerfully flavoured sandwich, that is sadly let down
by a lacklustre volume of filling. I can only assume the scrimpiness is for
financial reasons. If there was more of the middle to enjoy, I can confidently
say that this sandwich would be amongst one of the best (or maybe Top 15)
sandwiches that I have tasted from a major supermarket, due to an intense blend
of flavours on a perfectly fitting bread. I award this a Sandwich Experience
score of 71.875%.
Note: for a full data breakdown on this score, please see below
Experience: 14/17
Branding: 2/3
Content: 2/4
Ingredients: 3/3
Appearance: 2/5
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