Today's sandwich adventure was the Rotisserie Chicken Panini at Shea's Express just off Church St. near downtown Huntsville.

The sandwich was a overall success based on the team's comments and reactions. This is a substantial sandwich with a nice sauce and the panini bread is great. The consensus was that this is a sandwich you would want to eat again, but maybe would not make a special trip for it again. Might instead try other things on the menu - and several other things on the menu looked interesting.

Shea's also offers several tasty looking baked goods which would likely be worth trying on a return trip. It is not clear what the term "express" means in the name of the restaurant however since it interestingly takes quite a while to work through a relatively short order line, but once ordered the food shows up in a timely manner.

On a personal note, there was an actual pickle spear served with this sandwich was a nice improvement.

Karla joined us today and afterwards came across the following note that suggests there may be additional sandwiches to consider on the tour's list.

Today's other alternate sandwich experience

Down two members today, the sandwich team soldiered on, only to encounter a potentially disastrous setback: the second sandwich on the route, Slow on Sunday Morning at Ketchup, has been discontinued.

Resilient as ever, the team bucked up and ordered something else. The food and conversation were good--altogether a fine lunch.

For those who never had the Slow on Sunday Morning, here is my review in its memory. We can't say this one was nothing to write home about; here's what I wrote home about it the first time I had it.

The sandwich was the bomb. I think turning kobe beef into a sloppy joe is kind of a waste--you could tell it was really good meat, but the angus from the grocery store would have done just as well under the sauce. But it was saucy and cheesy and sloppy and super delicious. It barely escaped being too sweet. The sauce had just enough tang, and the cheese really took the whole thing over the top.

It came with a very good pickle and a bowl of nicely done fries: crispy on the outside, soft but not pulpy on the inside, and sprinkled liberally with very light parmesan cheese. They were excellent.

It being Ketchup, they also brought five different homemade (restaurant-made, that is) ketchups: regular, ranch, chipotle, maple, and mango. That's their claim to fame. The ketchups were cool and all, but they tasted too much like, well, ketchup. I had high hopes for the ranch one, but it tasted more like not-very-good rosa spaghetti sauce than anything ranchy. The maple one was the one I liked best, but the fries were better without any of them, honestly. If they had had non-ketchupy dipping sauces, I would have gone nuts--fries in barbecue sauce, fries in ranch dressing, I love stuff like that. But the good old American fries in ketchup, I've just never been that much of a fan. Fancy up the fries and put parmesan on them, they need ketchup less, not more. That's my opinion. A bunch of fancy additives in the ketchup don't change that. But overall, it rocked.

Next week, our destination is Shea's Express for the Rotisserie Chicken Panini on Pressed French Baguette. According to the original article that inspired the tour, it was the best-selling sandwich at Shea's Express as of last summer, so it should still be around to get us back on track.

Today's alternate sandwich experience

I'm sitting in my office today, monitoring a NASA telecon instead of joining the tour-de-sandwich crew on their next adventure. That is not to say that I'm missing out on a sandwich. On the menu today is a thick peanut butter sandwich that I actually brought yesterday. It has "aged" nicely so I'm not bothered by that annoying fresh bread texture. The side dish today was a nice crisp apple - the highlight of the meal. At least the price was right.

-Ken

On Tuesday (Aug 18) the sandwich team made its first group deployment in pursuit of sampling all the sandwiches listed on the "must have" sandwiches in Huntsville .

First up was the "fried bologna" at Lyn's on Whitesburg.

Pros:

• While not a sandwich to "write home about", everyone agreed it was likely one they would eat again, but maybe not go in search of.
• Lyn's is a pleasant venue that appears to not be the typical business lunch place.

Cons:

• The sandwich seemed a bit pricey for the contents.
• The acompanying pickle piece seemed a bit puny - could have gone for a whole spear...

In all, a successful visit. One mystery to be solved is the menu item for a "whole deviled egg". No one in our group was brave enough to order one so the mystery of how one stuffs a "whole" boiled egg without cutting it in half continues.