Blend in Sneinton Market is a fantastic spot serving up some of the best grilled cheese sandwiches I have had for ages. They may just have saved my grilled cheese life!

They are serving proper grilled cheese cooked on the flat top grill and have created a whole load of tasty combinations all with themed names, more about that later, but spoiler alert it is puntastic 🙂

The first time I walked through the door I did not get past the words Kevin Baconator on the menu, I mean ‘cheese’ and ‘bacon’, who needs anything else in their grilled cheese? I ordered that and sat like a patient Labrador waiting for his food, drooling slightly, ears pricked up, and all hopeful

The Kevin Baconator

 

Officially the Kevin Baconator at Blend is filled with “Dani’s Espresso BBQ, Honey and Black Pepper Bacon and Stilton“ and it is a totally joyous bite of food to behold.

The Stilton made it quite a rich bite and it was almost too much, but luckily or probably intentionally the sandwich is also packed out with lots and I mean ‘lots’ of crispy grilled bacon, and that balanced this baby right out!

That bacon really makes this an incredibly satisfying meal and a sandwich that you really do have to come back for. This is already up in my top 5 bites of food this year!

The house cheese blend is dreamlike, still don’t know what is in it, and I kind of want to be left in the dark so that there is some mystery left in the magic. I am however happy to let myself down by using the classless description of ‘Ooey Gooey’ when I talk about how good the cheese melds into the sourdough bread filled sandwich.

Oh my! It was so amazingly good that I had to come back a few times to take worship at this Church of Grilled Cheese before I got around to writing a blog post. I kind of wanted to eat everything they had first but I just need to blither somewhat star struck and all giddish before I lose it 🙂

Lets have a Look at The Grilled Cheese bit of the Menu

The menu in the window of Blend offered so many other choices that I just had to come back, I was after the “Cuban Gooding Jr” which I had spotted on my first visit, and on this latest visit I chowed one down (more about that below)

However, outside of that choice,  the “Classic” with just ‘the cheese blend and some Dijon“, the “Brieyoncé” with ‘mushrooms, brie, and spinach‘, and the “Joey Romano” with ‘Sloppy Joe and Romano Cheese‘ are also on the To-Do list,

But this time we could only fit two of them in 🙁

So what else did we scoff?

First Up!

The Brieyoncé

On our third visit to Blend we tried a couple of different grilled cheese sandwiches, the first being The Brieyoncé  which included “Roasted Wild Mushrooms, with Brie and Spinach” as the added ingredients.

I quite liked the idea of this one as I am a big lover of the mushroom, I found the mix of flavours were a lot more subtle than that rich Kevin Baconator. I had been a little worried that the Brie would get in the way of my enjoyment but it was actually a very light blue cheese flavour note lurking in the background.

I did find that the spinach and the mushrooms added a lot of softness to the bite and I was not sure how I felt about that. I was not quite as in love as I was with the ‘Baconator’ but maybe that is just because it is hard to beat the bacon 🙂

The classic cheese blend combined with the crunchy sourdough toasted surrounding the fillings made this a sandwich greater than the sum of its parts, and the sum of the parts is already veering towards the moon with it’s reach into my grilled cheese loving heart!

This is one for the ‘Herbivores’! “You lucky lucky people”

The Cuban Gooding Jr

The Cuban Gooding Jr is filled with “Ham, Pork, Salami, Dijo, Gherkin and Emmental” and it didn’t half look pretty on my plate. “Show Me the Money“? “Show me the Cheese and Meat” more like!  I really liked elements of this sandwich, I always loved a ham and cheese toastie, and when you put deli meats and grown up cheese inside a grilled cheese sandwich? Well then you make a grown up man very happy indeed.

I loved the Ham, Pork and Salami, and the classic cheese mix, with the addition of that Emmental was a pretty good combo. I quite liked the Dijon mustard, although I pondered that it was close to being as annoying as an overactive little brother, you are supposed to love it, but sometimes it needs to be quieter.

I wasn’t that keen on the pickle, I am sure it was jolly good, but I am just not a pickle guy. I left it in there as I like to think that the sandwich magician knew what they were doing so I ate half with the pickle in. The next half without the pickle, I liked that half more 🙂

This is another great sandwich combination as well, it has elements of a classic Cuban sandwich, only with all the great bits of a classic grilled cheese as well or mathematically 2+2 =5 or more if you like 🙂

Another Kevin Baconator

I think that my favorite and possibly my goto sandwich at Blend at the moment has to be that Kevin Baconator! It really is a terrific effort and one to get all excited about and make you want to walk the 12,500 steps from my apartment by the river just to get your chomps on!

Yes we did indeed come all the way back to Blend for another photo opportunity 🙂 and of course another one of these most marvellous grilled cheese!

I really will try something else as well sometime 🙂 , possibly one of the sweet efforts, you know like for pudding? The offerings for the “Dessertivores” really did intrigue me. I mean the “Elvis” builds on legendary classic folklore of the man himself with an offering filled out with “Peanut Butter, Banana, Cheese Mix” and as they suggest “add bacon for the full King experience”. I most certainly would, I want to be just like the King! 🙂

The Coffee at Blend is pretty good too, well if Latté counts as a coffee 🙂 That coffee comes from Stewarts who are right next door and I think are kind of lurking just to make sure you get a quality caffeine fix.

The café itself is light, airy and inviting. I was surprised how many people were down here especially as it is a bit of a walk down from the town centre. I can only think that it is all the hipsters and creatives crawling out of Sneinton and the Lace Market finding a home for themselves away from the hustle and bustle

The Market area seems to be blossoming with the rejuvination that the area has had over the last year or so, there is loads going on and it is really a huge compliment to the development of the Creative Quarter in Nottingham.

Blend Café is located at Avenue C, 30 Sneinton Market, Nottingham, NG1 1DW

It is like right opposite GB café and the Avenues Café and a jolly nice place to hang out in

Check them out on Twitter and on Facebook as well

Their website suggests: 

“Our menu shows off our love for the ’Grilled Cheese’ sandwich, think more New York, gooey, street food than your cheese toasty crimped together. Served on locally baked sour-dough with our own ‘house’ cheese blend and an assortment of great tasty additional fillings. We also do brunch and an awesome bacon sandwich, “

 

Cool 🙂