Food Notes: 4/22
Searching for Bennigan's Monte Cristo, plus cheese tariffs, Persian cuisine, and more
The Bennigan's Monte Cristo sandwich is a sight to behold. Ham, turkey, and cheese sandwiched on deep fried french toast, topped with powdered sugar, and served with raspberry jam on the side. It was my all-time favorite dish from any casual dining chain restaurant, but I haven't had one in more than two decades.
I don't often eat at chain restaurants. There are fewer to choose from in New York City, and the local restaurants typically have more interesting offerings anyway. Having grown up in suburban New Jersey though, I certainly have had my share of chain restaurants.
Years ago, when I was in New Brunswick attending Rutgers, we often ended up at Chili's, Applebees, Romano's Macaroni Grill, Rainforest Cafe, and Cheesecake Factory. New Jersey even spawned its own chain, Charlie Brown's Steakhouse, that had a branch within walking distance of campus. To New Brunswick's credit, it also supported some of New Jersey's best independent restaurants too, but the price point for college students aligned better with the chains.
By far my favorite of all these casual chains was Bennigan's, an imitation of an Irish pub filled with Irish-y kitsch. Ironically, I primarily ate food there before turning 21 rather than drinking at the bar.
I did have a 22nd birthday at the location in New Brunswick. The restaurant here was on a forsaken plot of land entirely surrounded by highway access ramps. The abandoned store was eventually overgrown with weeds until the building was replaced by a hotel. That birthday dinner was the last time I ever ate at Bennigan’s.
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Bennigan's began back in 1976, on the early side of the casual dining chain restaurant trend that came to define the abundance of the 1980s and 1990s. It was part of the Pillsbury Corporation at the time.
The original concept for the restaurant chain was as a bar for singles to meet and drink. The concept was popular at the time, pioneered by TGI Fridays in Manhattan, which quickly expanded. But while Friday's evolved into a family-friendly casual restaurant competing with other sit down chains, Bennigan's floundered. Other than the Monte Cristo (and maybe the Turkey O'Toole) there wasn't anything memorable about the food, and a deep fried sandwich, no matter how beloved, can't really carry a chain.
Not long after my 22nd birthday, Bennigan's began closing down restaurants in the northeast, then closed all the corporate-owned restaurants, and then the remaining franchise restaurants slowly began shutting down too. For several years, the nearest Bennigan's to me was located in Scranton, Pennsylvania, not far from Steamtown USA, home to historic steam locomotives. I kept trying to organize day trips that included trains and Bennigan’s, but never got any takers. That restaurant location eventually closed, too.
In 2015, a new management team acquired the Bennigan's name and IP, and by the chain's 40th anniversary, was growing franchises again. That's when I saw a restaurant had opened in Bergen County, not too far from a station on NJ Transit's Bergen Line. I suggested to my friends we should make it an adventure one day after work. Nobody seemed that interested. That location closed during the pandemic, and it seemed like I would never have the Monte Cristo again.
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The Monte Cristo sandwich is an American take on the Croque Monsieur, a toasty French sandwich common at brasseries. A recipe from 1968 explains how the sandwich earned the name of Alexandre Dumas's famed Count. The stale bread used to absorb the egg mixture represents starting with nothing, the years the Count spent imprisoned, but the sandwich finishes rich like the Count. Honestly this sounds like a story looking for sandwich.
The Washington Post cites a 1923 industry publication as the first instance of the Monte Cristo sandwich that can be documented, but the earliest reference I found was from a year later in a Sacramento, California paper. The brief note is essentially a recipe. That version includes American cream cheese, boiled ham, and bread that's dipped in egg and pan fried.
That version of the sandwich is close to a Croque Monsieur, a toasted ham and gruyere sandwich that sometimes includes Béchamel sauce. Over the next few years, newspapers around southern California displayed advertisements for restaurants offering Monte Cristo sandwiches.
Recipes through the mid-century have variations with different cheeses and meat combinations. The 1960s saw the addition of fruit and fruit preserves alongside the sandwich. The sweetness and acidity helps cut the richness of the fried bread. By the time Bennigan's was founded, the Monte Cristo was a well-established American classic, but chain's kitchen certainly took the recipe to extremes by deep frying it.
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My first Monte Cristo was not at Bennigan's, but at a diner. The recipe I've most often seen at New Jersey's diners are open face sandwiches with French Toast and melted Swiss or mozzarella over ham and turkey, with pancake syrup the sugary component. After eating Bennigan's fried monstrosity, these don't really compare.
We spent spring break in southwest Florida, a microcosm of America. Here, among sprawling gated communities, chain restaurants line divided roadways. There's an interesting assortment of chains here. Midwestern chains have chased snowbirds, and of course national chains join them, with outlets like Olive, Garden, Carrabba's Italian Grill, and PF Changs are some of the more obvious examples.
Cheddar's Scratch Kitchen is a relatively new addition to the chain restaurant mayhem here. It's a low stakes dining experience, with a fish tank in the front of the restaurant entertaining our toddler. But I was surprised to see, on their menu, a Monte Cristo sandwich.
The first Cheddar's opened in 1979, growing over a quarter century to 42 outlets. From 2003, private equity began growing the chain, eventually selling off to Darden Restaurants in 2017. Conglomerate General Mills had spun Darden off as a holding company for their portfolio of chain restaurants that included the troubled Olive Garden. Despite what Google's AI summary suggests, Darden brands has never owned Bennigan’s, but the Cheddar's Scratch Kitchen Monte Cristo is essentially a perfect copycat.
In my memory, the Bennigan's sandwich is slightly crispier, the raspberry jam slightly more bright red, but otherwise Cheddar's has successfully copied the sandwich. Even the side of fries gives off late '90s Bennigan's vibes. Now if only someone could recreate the Bennigan's Turkey O'Toole.
The Latest
Goodbye, Italian Cheese
The Trump tariffs aren’t just sinking the stock market, but the new taxes are making imports of Italian foods more expensive. Americans consumer more than $9 billion of Italian food stuffs and tariffs will drive up prices. American counterfeit products — Parmesan cheese rather than Parmigiana-Reggiano — won’t pay tariffs, but with less competition from the real thing, those prices can rise too.
The Rise of Persian Restaurants
Eater takes a look at how Persian-inspired cuisine is really hot right now with popular restaurants celebrating Iranian cuisine. Along these lines, we managed to scoop up a table at Eyval last summer and thought it was one of the best dining experiences in Brooklyn.
The Best Tortilla Chips
You know Cinco de Mayo is just around the corner since Serious Eats is taking a look at the best tortilla chips. These days we’re just buying the tortilla chips that are on sale, which means a rotating selection of brands. It’s actually kind of interesting to explore the different flavors, and to be honest my take away isn’t that there is a best chip, but that there are many different types of chips that offer different flavors and textures.
Pizza Indexes
Pizza soothsayers are pointing to an uptick in fancy frozen pizza as a sign the economy is headed for recession. A cheap luxury, frozen pizza sees higher sales when the economy lags. Of course, there’s the other pizza index that suggests a link between the price of a subway ride to the cost of a slice of pizza — and slice prices are topping $4 these days. Frozen pizza recession, rising prices of slices? That’s stagflation!
Mail Order Liquor
California refuses to allow New York distilleries to ship spirits to California residents. So naturally a California-based distillery is suing New York State. The problem stems from NYS’s rules on shipping alcohol. Craft spirits can be shipped to individuals in the state — up to thirty-six cases a year. But only if the spirits come from states that allow residents to receive shipments from New York, which seems like a fair trade off. Instead of lobbying their elected officials in California to allow reciprocity, The Obscure Distillery decided to sue New York. The case will inevitably have a big impact on interstate alcohol commerce once the Supreme Court rules.
Tomato Purse
If you ever wanted an expensive purse shaped like an heirloom tomato, now is your chance.
Stoner Snacks
Turns out that the best place to buy snacks is your local dispensary.
Très Brooklyn
The Best in Brooklyn?
Alexis Benveniste over at Extra Credit suggests the best 20 restaurants in Brooklyn. I’m impressed that Noodle Pudding continues to be a top pick, not because it isn’t good, but because of its longevity. One issue of concern with this list is that Anchored Inn (fully deserving a place on this list), is very obviously in East Williamsburg, not Bushwick.
Brooklyn’s Best Pasta
Last month Brooklyn Mag found the best pasta dishes in the borough.
Community Board Karens Killing New York City
New York City has been slowly turning into a sleepy suburb ever since Andrew Cuomo shutdown the overnight subway service during the pandemic. Overnight subway service is back, but late night drinking is not. The New York Times reports that the un-elected community boards have been making it harder for bars to obtain licenses to operate until 4am. Bar owners can appeal to the state liquor board, which allows bars to operate later, but the process takes months. The lost hours can mean the difference between a bar’s survival or closure, with those late night sales accounting for as much as 12% of receipts. (And taxpayers lose out on service taxes and wage taxes).
I’d say you were saved by Bennigan’s closure, but that’s just the cardiac nurse in me talking. The foodie goes, you poor deprived man.