Big Melt were at the Ruddington Village Market this weekend to tempt and treat us with their excellent Cheese Toasties. Unsurprisingly they were proving to be very popular and they had drawn a decent crowd hungry to chomp on their Sourdough toasted cheese filled sarnies.
I first met up with Big Melt at the Nottingham Beer Festival in 2017 (read more here) where I just had a simple Ham and Cheese toastie and really enjoyed it. Of course I may have sampled one or several beers as well on that occasion, but I still recall it was good 🙂
Today I had made a special trip over to find the Big Melt so that I could check out their infamous ‘Grilled Cheese with Mushy peas‘ creation called “The Robin Hood”. I was hoping that this was going to be a new Nottingham classic in the making.
The Robin Hood is described in their tagline as “A true toastie legend” and is a sandwich made from ‘freshly baked sourdough bread‘ toasted and filled with ‘Melted Raclette, Red Leicester & Vintage Cheddar’ and ‘classic mushy peas & mint sauce‘.
THE ROBIN HOOD TOASTIE
I was not totally sure what to expect, was this just going to be a bit of a gimmick? or was this to be a star billing to showcase the Mushy Peas? I was soon to find out!
As with all of the Grilled Cheese sandwiches from the Big Melt, that crisp toasted ‘Artisan Sourdough‘ and a gooey melted mix of Raclette, Red Leicester & Vintage Cheddar feature heavily.
Taste buds were salivating as we watched the filling oozing out into the container as we pulled the slices of sandwich apart. This was going to be epic!
The somewhat generous layer of mushy peas slathered through the middle of the toastie was certainly holding it’s own and added a rich creaminess to the mix. The mint was more than a ‘hint’ yet not too much to overpower, at least for me as I love me some mint sauce on my mushy peas.
I was loving the mash up of textures from the hard crustiness of the sourdough toast, to the chewy tug of the melted cheese, together with the soft creamy but slightly crunchy mushy pea bite.
Could this be a Nottingham Classic sandwich? I would like to think so and can see it being pretty popular at events in and around the County?
Would I eat another one? Hell yeh, of course I would! 🙂
CHALK BOARD MENU
The Big Melt menu does have a lot of really great sounding combinations on it. They have the regular classics that we have all learned to love like the ones mixed with ‘Caramelised onion‘ and ‘Red Chilli Jam’
Then they have the specials that can change depending on where they are trading. Today in Ruddington at the Village market, as well as that Robin Hood we just talked about, they were offering up the Ruddy Magnificent Melt filled with the standard cheese mix and also ‘Double Cooked Bacon and Blue Stilton‘ so a FOUR cheese combo!
BIG BREAKFAST MELT
Another special on that board was The Big Breakfast Melt which was billed as being filled with ‘Double cooked crispy smoked bacon topped with sliced mushrooms & tomato’. We grabbed one of these to try as well!
I did like this toasted sandwich as well, but there was so much cheese in there that I was struggling to find the ‘crispy bacon’ . Now loads of gooey cheese is a good thing so I wasn’t complaining just noting that I wanted the bacon to get a chance to shine a bit more. I know I am just being a bit needy or is that greedy?
The tomatoes mixed with the cheese reminded me of toasted cheese and baked bean sandwiches. It had that same familiar flavour profile. All in all though this was quite a rich sandwich to eat and I was glad in the end that I was sharing and just having a half of one. Lets be honest though, we all know that I could have easily scoffed both sandwiches however rich or filling they were 🙂
In fairness to any other sandwich on the menu we could have added to our order, after having just sampled the Robin Hood Toastie it was going to be a tough ask to find another to compete for our Grilled Cheese love today 🙂
When I was checking out the chalkboard I noticed that they were offering sandwiches priced from £5. Now that is pretty good really since that was how much they were charging the first time I ate one back in 2017.
The Big Melt do make a really excellent Grilled Cheese sandwiches and considering the quality of the components and ingredients they really are great value.
If you want to find out when and where they are going to be trading you can check out their website, their Facebook page, Twitter Feed, and Instagram profile
I know you will be wanting to try out the Mushy Pea spectacular called the Robin Hood and I really do not blame you at all. Enjoy your toasties when you do!
To check out the rather brilliant and popular Ruddington Village Market have a look at their Social Feeds (Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram) plus the Website