Classic comfort food: the Templeton’s open-face grilled cheese sandwich.

Credit: Doug Shanks

THE $20 GOURMET: A good grilled cheese never lets you down

By The $20 Gourmet

When the weather becomes as relentlessly, wrist-slashingly dour as it’s been in Vancouver these past few weeks, only militant, soulless raw-foodists are immune to the twin siren calls of white-flour starch and dairy fat. Luckily for our sun-deprived souls (but unfortunately for our nutrient- and fibre-deprived colons), savvy restaurateurs have already begun acting upon the realization that the recession has made diners long for the womb-like embrace of childhood comfort dishes. Among these is the humble grilled cheese sandwich, which is emerging on menus where, until very recently, such a down-market item would have been unimaginable.

Of course, grilled cheese is an inherently nostalgic — and, therefore, highly subjective — thing, so submitting it to myriad highbrow makeovers is not only gilding the lily, it’s fucking with our deepest sense of right and wrong. At least one luxe New York restaurant I know of has swollen its grilled cheese with lobster, while Montreal’s famed Au Pied de Cochon is said to have put foie gras in theirs — an especially stupid and vile-sounding idea.

Furthermore, when the rain is pouring and the wind is buffeting and I only have an hour or so in which to sate my spirit, the last thing I want is the air of ceremony that usually accompanies fine dining. I want to get stuffed and get out.

Hub Restaurant and Lounge (1165 Mainland, 604-696-0400, HubRestaurant.ca), which replaced Browns Social House in Yaletown just a few weeks ago, is one of the newest restaurants in the city, and therefore the latest to offer its own permutation of the grilled cheese. Theirs comes with the addition of crab bolstering a mix of cheddar and Gruyère ($14). I sighed relief when it was set in front of me: It was made with what appeared to be standard-issue white sandwich bread (a good thing!), bright orange cheddar oozing enticingly out its sides. To be blunt, the crab neither added to nor subtracted from the virtues of its co-stars, the meat’s mild flavour all but smothered by them, although it added a slight textural graininess I could have done without. Another 20 seconds per side on the griddle would have brought the bread closer to ideal crispiness — a sentiment I’ll extend to the deep fryer and the (very generous) side of fries. In addition to a dunking pot of ketchup, you also get one filled with shrimp-cocktail sauce... and it kind of works.

In late October, On the Plate columnist Andrew Morrison extolled the virtues of the Croque Monsieur at Au Petit Chavignol (845 E. Hastings, 604-255-4218, AuPetitChavignol.com), and after having set upon one like Cookie Monster in a Nabisco factory, I can only nod sleepily in agreement. France’s elevated but highly dangerous take on the grilled ham-and-cheese sandwich, its bread is saturated with melted Gruyère and Béchamel sauce. Au Petit’s version (a bargain $10) is as good as you would expect from an eatery owned by the proprietors of the exemplary Les Amis du Fromage cheese shops. A textbook lesson in how to get carried away with an already good thing, the kitchen is exceedingly generous with both ham and cheese, but then they slather the beast with even more cheese before baking it in the oven. Add a side of perfectly crisp frites ($5, or salad for the same price), and you’ve got a meal that will render you happily immobile for hours, if not the rest of the day.

But if all you want is the sort of grilled cheese you remember from when your forehead barely cleared the surface of the kitchen table (minus the Kraft Singles — let’s be grown-ups about this), there is none in Vancouver I can recommend more highly than the one at The Templeton (1087 Granville, 604-685-4612, TheTempleton.blogspot.com). Cleverly served open-faced (all the better to show off all that Swiss and Gruyère) on crunchy-soft sourdough, with optional roma tomato and onion, it comes with fries, salad or soup for just eight bucks. Add one of their justly renowned “world’s best $5 milkshakes,” and the weight of winter (and of adult life) is suspended for as long as it takes you to finish.