Like many different Bay Space cooks, Charles Phan of Slanted Door fame plotted a pivot excellent for the pandemic: a sandwich store hooked up to his industrial kitchen in San Francisco’s Mission District. It has taken two years to lastly come to fruition, however now, it’s able to debut.
Chuck’s Takeaway opens Monday, Feb. 7 at 3332 18th St. close to Capp Avenue, previously a storage room that Phan mentioned “regarded like a morgue” and now gleams with white tile and a whopping 20 canine portraits by artist Judy North. No, it’s not a dog-themed restaurant. (The artwork will rotate.) And no, it’s not particularly a banh mi spot as one would possibly count on from a chef recognized for contemporary Vietnamese delicacies — although Phan will serve his model of a basic banh mi there.
“I’m not going to remain in my lane. I’m going to make all types of sandwiches,” Phan mentioned.
Chuck’s will serve about six sandwiches per day, with roughly half falling below the banh mi class. Different sandwiches on the menu embrace American-style, mustardy egg salad on fluffy Japanese milk bread and a bollito, with wealthy braised beef stomach and a zippy salsa verde. They’ll all value $16 and be out there for takeout solely, alongside housemade sodas ($6), Vietnamese espresso ($5) and teas ($4).
That is removed from the primary time Phan has served sandwiches. His extra informal Vietnamese restaurant Out the Door, which closed its Pacific Heights location final 12 months, bought banh mi for years. However the pandemic gave him time to deal with the bread, which now will get baked each morning.
The CP #3 is his riff on the basic Vietnamese particular, with pork pate, a skinny smear of hen liver mousse and chả lụa, which Phan likes to name Vietnamese mortadella. The entire chilly cuts are made in-house utilizing sustainably-raised meat. There’s additionally a vegan model, starring yuba steamed in banana leaves.
Both method, Phan isn’t a fan of the basic topping of pickled daikon and carrot, which he says overpowers the meat. As an alternative, sandwiches include seasonal pickles on the facet, comparable to as romanesco or purple cauliflower. They’re completed with a bounty of herbs like rau ram, mint and cilantro, plus cucumber for crunch. The bread is just like a French baguette however softer within the middle and simpler to eat, with a skinny, crackly crust.
“You get that crunch. On the similar time, it’s a bit of chewy. It may’t be powerful,” Phan mentioned. “For those who don’t do it proper, in two hours, it’s crumbly.”
The chef’s quest to make correct banh mi bread led him to beg distributors in Vietnam to indicate him their strategies. He’d supply a whole lot of {dollars} and flash his passport to show he wasn’t a competitor. His efforts failed till 2015, when he met a baker who was completely satisfied share his data. However Phan didn’t write something down from this lesson, and his telephone containing footage crashed.
In 2018, he went again to Vietnam and located the baker once more. Phan returned to San Francisco excited to copy the loaves, however didn’t have a lot luck. The dough wasn’t behaving the identical method within the metropolis’s much less humid air.
Two months in the past, Phan bought a name from the baker. He was in Oregon and keen to indicate Phan the bread once more, in Phan’s kitchen. Phan watched because the baker felt the dough and tweaked his recipe on the fly, almost utilizing half as a lot water as he did in Vietnam.
From there, chef Dong Choi, the highest chef at Phan’s restaurant group, mentioned the principle problem was making bread that matched their obsession with top quality substances. He didn’t need to use potassamium bromate, a meals additive that strengthens dough. (It’s generally used on the East Coast for bagels however should include a cancer warning in California.) And he needed to make use of natural flour rather than the extra frequent bleached, enriched flour. He’s nonetheless chasing perfection.
“We’re very, very shut,” he mentioned.
Despite the fact that the Slanted Door within the Ferry Constructing has been quickly closed since March 2020 and Out the Door’s important location completely closed, Phan’s crew is staying busy. They hope to reopen renovated variations of the Slanted Door and Out the Door on the Ferry Constructing within the fall, in addition to Embarcadero whiskey bar Exhausting Water within the spring. The Slanted Door location in San Ramon has been open for a lot of the pandemic, and the informal Vietnamese restaurant Rice and Bones on the UC Berkeley campus lately reopened. Napa is getting a Slanted Door, hopefully this 12 months, and the crew has been promoting pho kits at Bi-Ceremony Market and via Goldbelly.
Chuck’s additionally marks the debut of a brand new line of condiments made by the Slanted Door crew. The label Wo Hing Common Retailer is an homage to Phan’s father, who ran a retailer in Vietnam below that identify within the Fifties. Count on to see Wo Hing hoisin, chile oil and preserved lemons on the market alongside imported substances and native ceramics.
Chuck’s Takeaway. Opening Feb. 7. 11 a.m. to three p.m. Monday to Friday. 3332 18th St., San Francisco. chuckstakeaway.com
Janelle Bitker is a San Francisco Chronicle employees author. E-mail: janelle.bitker@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @janellebitker