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For Grilled Cheese However You Please: “The Wheelhouse”





A grilled cheese is the perfect yet simple meal whether you are a little hungry or a lot. But if you want to upgrade your grilled cheese you need to look no further than “The Wheelhouse” in Brooklyn.

This small grilled cheese oasis, located in Bushwick, Brooklyn, opened in April 2014 and quickly made Gothamist’s list of the eight best places to eat a grilled cheese in NYC. As of April of this year, “The Wheelhouse” also appeared on my annual to do list (https://bit.ly/2WatoF2). 

Ironically it was also 2014 when I first started visiting Bushwick in search of delicious cuisine. At that time it was to check out nearby “Roberta’s” (https://bit.ly/2RUOGYZ) to see what all the fuss was about and much later on to sample some of what "Ozi Dumplings” (https://bit.ly/2W1SRR5) was serving up.


While there are other things on the menu, such as a variety of salads and non-grilled cheese sandwiches, those options were not even on my radar. 


My table went right into all the cheesiness you can find here when we started with the cheesy bacon tater tots as an appetizer.   

Those tater tots are the stuff perfect snacks are made of. The cheesy sauce wasn’t spicy but packed full of creamy flavor. The tots were crispy, unlike the way the frozen ones I heat up never seem to be, and the bits of apple-wood bacon and chives on top were the icing on the cake. I could have eaten myself sick popping them in one after another, and very nearly did. 



For my entree I opted to build my own grilled cheese with gruyere, aged Vermont sharp cheddar, avocado, and caramelized onions, all on ciabatta bread. All sandwiches come with your choice of roasted tomato soup or housemate kettle chips. I REALLY wanted to try the soup because that’s my favorite kind and as of late I have been making a killer version myself so I was really curious what it was like. The only problem was that it was like a hundred degrees outside and not that much cooler inside. I am sure they had the AC on but I certainly didn’t feel it. So chips it was. 

My sandwich was yummy. All of my favorite flavors cooked on the delicious bread the restaurant gets from Balthazar Bakery in Manhattan. 

Though I loved my choice I was so full from those tots and the heaviness of the ingredients in my sandwich that I had no other choice but to take the remaining half home. 

I reheated it later and fell in love all over again. I always say that when leftovers are still as good as the food was when it first arrived at your table you know you have eaten a good meal. And at “The Wheelhouse” I surely did. 

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