Tom + Chee

Recently hubby broke his arm and had to have surgery at Indy Ortho on the West side (Trader’s Point area), so I took the opportunity to cross the street and try Tom + Chee. Their thing is grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup; I figured if they’re spending all that focus on just those two things, they should be good right?

So I got a build your own version and tried to recreate one of my favorite combination but they didn’t have all my favorite things to choose from, so I ended up with blue cheese, Swiss cheese, bacon and tomato (they are strangely lacking in the vegetable department—I really wanted spinach). Well, honestly, I wasn’t overly impressed with the sandwich, the bread was toasted pretty nicely but the bacon was in the form of like, bacon dust (technically I guess they were “bits”, but they were pretty small), The tomatoes were thick cut and under ripe and the cheese was kind of minimal. Considering it’s a grilled cheese place, you’d think they’d give you a fair amount. 

I got a little dipper cup of tomato soup just to try it for the sake of the blog—I got the classic one and it tasted pretty much exactly like tomato soup you have had before. Nothing particularly unique. They do have a couple of other versions, but the cashier recommended this one as the best, so that’s what I went with.

Again, I needed some vegetables, I ordered a side salad as well. It was just a pretty regular fast food-ish side salad with lettuce and some carrots, but there was one thing about it that really stood out—they put little croutons made of mini grilled cheese on there and they were my favorite thing. They had a better ratio of bread to cheese and seriously, grilled cheese croutons are pretty genius. There may have been more of them than salad, but I didn’t complain. I mostly used the salad dressing (blue cheese) to dip the sandwiches and croutons in. I do like dipping a grilled cheese in salad dressing. Much more than tomato soup. But to be fair, I am not a huge tomato soup fan.

Anyhow, it served its purpose for a quick dinner during the surgery that wasn’t what looked like horrific hospital cafeteria food. And I think it's a good idea for an interesting fast food concept, but I don't think it's executed very well-- I don’t know that I would choose it again. I’m totally going to make grilled cheese croutons though. Anyone have something here they really like?

Tom + Chee

5650 West 86^th Street #126

Indy  46278

317/334-1330

www.tomandchee.com