Bachelor on the Cheap

By Mike Thayer

I recently wrote about what to look forward to in 2019 from fast food.  Trending, are smokehouse/steakhouse style burgers and sandwiches and the meat of the year is predicted to be brisket.

So with that brisket in mind, for dinner tonight I sampled the Smokehouse Brisket Sandwich from Arby's.

Here's the description from the Arby's website:  We set out to make a sandwich with layers of smoky flavor, and this is the result. Our brisket is smoked for at least 13 hours in a pit smoker. We top that delicious smoked beef with smoked gouda, crispy onions, mayo and BBQ sauce and serve it all on an artisan-style roll.

So how was the sandwich you ask?

"Eh"....

Count those 'crispy onions'

I expected far more for a sandwich that boasts of brisket smoked for 13 hours, but this is a very average sandwich and the preparation fell into the typical fast food preparation mode - LAZY.

This sandwich has SO much flavor potential but totally failed to live up to the marketing hype.  First, there's no way this brisket was truly smoked for 13 hours, yes, it was tender and seasoned well enough, but it didn't carry all the smoky notes you would expect from a meat being in a bonafide pit that long.  I'm calling B.S. on the smoking process.  The meat to bun ratio was good, the gouda cheese is a nice pairing with the brisket and was melted nicely, so no knock there.  The 'crispy' onions however were almost non-existent and lacked a true crunch, being almost mushy. The sandwich was sauced well with the mayo and BBQ sauce - a nice BBQ sauce - and the 'artisan' roll, while that sounds good in the sandwich description, doesn't really deliver any special flavor or texture to the dance. 

Under cooked

This sandwich gets three out of five Bachelor on the Cheap stars and only because I don't do half stars.  It falls short on delivering enough smokehouse flavor and the preparation was less-than-stellar.  I'm sad to report that even the tater cakes were under cooked.  How tough is it to set and pay attention to a timer?  I entered the Arby's restaurant shortly after 6pm on a Wednesday night, there were maybe eight people inside and perhaps three cars in the drive-thru at the time.  It's not like the staff of five (that I saw) was getting slammed.

This sandwich is NOT a repeat buy.  It was an insult to brisket done right.  My 'Smokehouse' Brisket Sandwich, large order of tater cakes and drink came to $9.98 with tax.  That is not Bachelor on the Cheap wallet friendly, especially for a brisket sandwich that failed to deliver.

Related:  Arby's Arbynator

Related:  Arby's Beef Short Rib Sandwich

Related:  Arby's Bourbon BBQ Brisket Sandwich