When we started Cheat Day in Ericeira, I was mainly focused on tacos and all the different things we could do with them. Two of our bestsellers on the Sunday specials were the Taco Camarão and the Vietnamese Pork Belly. They sold fast, and I loved making them.
But the competition for tacos is getting bigger. More and more places are adding them to their menus. It makes sense: tacos give you plenty of room to be creative while still feeling familiar. They’re a natural fit for indulgent restaurants. I recently saw that a big new barbecue place near Ericeira is serving its meat in a taco, too.
There’s room for lots of burger places in Ericeira, so there can be room for lots of taco places as well. But I’m curious about what else we can do. I want to keep pushing ideas and finding something new and exciting.
This winter, I want to build a repeatable Sunday specials program around a few dishes that have already worked well for us. As my little taco rant probably revealed, I’m going to spend more time exploring sandwiches. That doesn’t mean the tacos are going anywhere. I love them, and our birria tacos are still one of our most praised bestsellers. I want to see what else we can do with sandwiches, then take stock after the winter: what I’ve learned about both, and how well tacos and sandwiches can live on the same menu.
One of our bestsellers was the Philly cheesesteak sandwich, or as we called it, the Philly Cheese Prego. The first version used slow-cooked prime rib, chopped up on the hot plate. For the second, we made a lovely roast beef from picanha. Both versions sold out quickly.
The Pho-inspired sandwich, made with alcatra, deserves a mention too. It helped me learn a lot about building a sandwich, and about how much you can do with one.
Now I want to develop a few sandwiches that can rotate alongside the tacos in our Sunday specials. The Philly Cheese Prego is coming back with alcatra, tons of cheese and pickled bell peppers.
Then there’s the French Dip: roast beef, horseradish mayo and slow-cooked caramelized onions.
Those are the first two sandwiches in the rotation.
This Sunday, we’re testing a very viral sandwich: the Caesar’s Chicken Sandwich. Maybe it’ll become a Sunday special. Maybe it’ll make it onto the regular menu. We’ll see. I’ll tell you more about that in another post.
For now, I wanted to talk about what I’ve learned from the Sunday specials so far—and all the delicious food that came out of them.