Review: Winchell's Donuts - Black Forest Ham Sandwich

Winchell's is a West Coast donut chain that is the only place I know of to get a good French Cruller donut. But they also make bagel and croissant sandwiches and currently offer a $5 Meal Deal where you can get any bagel sandwich, an order of chips and a drink (coffee or soda) for $5.

The Black Forest Ham sandwich is normally $4.79 so $5.00 sounded like a pretty good deal to me.

My Black Forest Ham Sandwich came with Black Forest Ham, bacon, provolone cheese (you can choose), mayo, mustard, and a third sauce that was a bit tangy and spicy, all served on a sesame bagel (again you choose the bagel). It was an awesome sandwich.

It took a while for the guy to make my sandwich but part of that was because he put it through the conveyor toaster twice. Once to toast ham and bagel and again to melt the cheese. The smell of the ham as it sizzled and cooked and the sesame as it toasted had me drooling as the conveyor moved ever so slowly.

The Black Forest ham was a good quality ham not like what you usually pick up from the deli aisle of the supermarket. It was like a thin-sliced ham steak off the grill and the star of the sandwich. There was plenty of ham with a good meat to bread ratio. If you're looking for veggies though, there weren't any by default. Although I'm sure I could have had some added, this wasn't Subway and I thought I'd just let the guy work.

There wasn't too much bacon but it added flavor here and there.

The bagel has a nice balance of toasty crispness without and soft denseness within.

The ham and everything together made for a great sandwich that I honestly didn't expect to find inside a donut shop.

Winchell's Store Locator