Restaurant Review: Chuck's Deli Eastwood Mall

For a regular Filipino guy, a sandwich for a meal is not a complete meal at all. Most of us would prefer to eat and be filled with the good old rice and ulam partnership to be fully satisfied. Maybe it’s because the sandwiches our parents used to prepare for us were the one-variant spread kinds where we don’t get to taste so much of the spread or filling in between the breads. 

A few days ago, we had one of those rare occasions to sample several hearty gastronomical treats. My wife and I, plus a couple of friends, spent a delightful dinner at CHUCK’S DELI at the Eastwood Mall in Libis, Quezon City. There, we got to taste a parade of rare types of sandwiches that won’t make you think of consuming another meal until the next day. The sandwiches we ate were filling in the truest sense.

Chuck’s Deli sandwiches, more commonly known as slabwiches, are the creative concoctions of Chef Katrina Kuhn-Alcantara. Her husband, Marco, who grew up in the U.S., wanted to put up a sandwich house type of resto where U.S. residents and Am-boys, or at least people who used to live in the U.S. for quite some time, could have somewhere to taste the food they grew up eating while here in the Philippines and where almost all meals are served with rice. Katrina, who finished her culinary training at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, has the knack of preparing food from scratch. This means they bake their own bread, process their own sausages and corned beef, and make their own beef patty. This adds to the unique qualities of the culture of Chuck’s Deli where everything is home-made.

Among the best sellers of Chuck’s Deli is the Reuben super slabwich, served in a ten-inch long ciabatta bread that’s freshly baked every time you order. It is stuffed with home-processed certified angus beef, layered with bar-thick slices of Swiss cheese, sauerkraut, mustard and glazed with Chuck’s special sauce completes the almost half a kilo sandwich meal.

Another Chuck’s most raved about slabwich is The Buffy, a mouth watering buffalo chicken sandwich with spicy garlic sauce and coleslaw. One special feature about this slabwich is the Chuick’s five-minute Buffy challenge. A successful contender who can finish eating a full slab of Buffy in less than five minutes will get the meal for free plus a shirt and will earn the bragging rights for his/her name to be included with the names posted on Chuck’s famous Buffy’s slayer wall.

After two scrumptious sandwiches, we got to try three or four more types of sandwiches which were all equally and deliciously satisfying. Among the array of sandwiches that landed on our table, there were two particular ones with tastes that linger on my palate up to now. The first is the French Kiss is which is actually a corned Lengua on a sandwich with sauerkraut and garlicky horseradish spread that tasted more like a tamed wasabi. The other one is the Philly Cheese Steak which is actually beefsteak on bread with American cheese and mushrooms, and spiced up with fresh onions and bell peppers.

Every sandwich lover out there who wish to have a great memorable sandwich experience will certainly love Chuck’s Deli. For the light eaters, Chuck’s menu can also be as accommodating with their Flatwiches and Veggie-salad selections. As for me, who usually prefers to eat rice than bread, would certainly steal time to visit again and grab a slabwich meal not for snacking but for a gut-filling treat.