It’s toastie time! Toasted sandwiches are the ‘new hamburger’ and can be much more than two slices of boring white bread filled with a slice of ham and cheese. Now you can get them made with fruit bread, or filled with avocado and bacon. Once a sport canteen snack, now on the menu of every trendy café in town. Inside Rotterdam hit the streets and tested some old and new-style toasted sandwiches!
Visser & Ko
Points: 8.5
Price: €4.50
We liked the Mister Croc! Perfectly grilled with Rotterdam cheese, parma ham, and tomato. Excellent quality and nice and crispy, including the fried ham. Cheese was melted to perfection. With salad, extra tomato, and ketchup on the side.
Westplein 107
La Buvette
Points: 8.4
Price: €8
Not a true Dutch toasted sandwich as such but worthy of a special prize all the same. Beautifully presented with a perfectly fried egg and salad on top. A taste of France, this Croque Madame, with melted cheese, crunchy grilled cheese, and béchamel sauce. A meal in a toastie (luckily we were allowed to share it).
Coolsingel 104
Vlaamsch Broodhuys
Points: 8.3
Price: €7.45
Sourdough bread, gouda cheese, cooked ham and violet mustard cream. A tasty toasted sandwich served on a wooden plank. A little bit of chilli sauce for extra flavour. The owner of this bakery and restaurant is a former chef and you can tell!
Meent 8a
Hopper
Points: 8.2
Price: €7.45
No ordinary old cheese and ham for this toastie, but Stolwijker cheese and Spanish chorizo with home baked bread. Perfectly toasted with a nicely melted filling and tasty spicey homemade ketchup on the side.
Schiedamsevest 146
De Huismeester
Points: 8.1
Price: €7.50
A double-decker toastie for boys with a hunger on! You have to stretch your jaws to get your mouth around the El Klassiko. ‘It’s fried in the pan first, then heated in the oven to make sure the filling is fully melted,’ says our attentive waiter. With Emmentaler cheese and ham, tomato sauce on the side, and sprinkled with parsley. Nice and crunchy. A little too heavy for our liking though.
Meent 115
Ter Marsch
Points: 7
Price: €7.50
We passed on the ‘World Food Championship’ toasted sandwich with chicken and bacon for the ‘Patty Melt’ with cheese, pickles, and nut salad. We didn’t taste the nuts particularly, but the combination of cheese, little gem lettuce, and organic sourdough bread was pretty good. A tad heavy.
Witte de Withstraat 70
Picknick
Points: 7
Price: €7.50
Great looking Croque Monsieur with cheese, bacon, béchamel sauce and fresh thyme served with a mesclun salad and homemade ketchup. A little soggy and bit too much sauce spoiled the balance unfortunately.
Mariniersweg 259
Rotown
Points: 6
Price: €4.50
A typical toasted sandwich served on a retro aluminium plate at a cosy table covered with a gingham tablecloth. A little over-toasted and dry though and took a long time to come to our table despite it being quiet in this pop podium, café and restaurant.
Nieuwe Binnenweg 19
De Ballentent
Points: 5.9
Prijs: €3.00
An old school toasted sandwich made with white bread, cheese, and ham with a sachet of tomato sauce on the side. Something for the kids we would say, plain and a bit bland. This establishment is one of Rotterdam’s oldest harbour pubs and is called Ballentent for a reason. Forget the toasted sandwiches and go for the meatballs instead!
Parkkade 1
The Tosti House
Points: 5.8
Price: €3.10
A little confusing; in the Tosti House you don’t get toasted sandwiches but flattened paninis. Next door is called Trattoria Panini, where they serve ciabatta! Average flavour and the bread didn’t quite work.
Nieuwe Binnenwegplein 9a
Editor & photographer: Ellen Scholtes
