Bacon Implosion Sandwich is Good… But Can’t Save C4

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There’s a reason that most Midtown pubs are not considered Midtown Lunches.  First off, few serve lunch for under $10.  Tack on tax and tip, and you’re usually spending a ton of money for food that is fine by Midtown standards… but kind of boring.  And not better than what you can get for less at a real “Midtown Lunch” spot.  Sure, there is the added bonus of beer and TV during your lunch… but is that really worth paying $4 for a soda?  Yeah, that’s right… Channel Four (on 48th btw. 5+6th) charges $4 for a soda.  I know it’s expensive to run a restaurant in Midtown, and I won’t pretend to understand the financial difficulties of being in this high rent part of town. But $4 for a soda?  That says one thing to me… tourist trap. (Or, rich lawyer happy hour spot.) Either way it’s unforgivable.

But I’ll give credit where credit is due.  Channel Four stepped to the plate with this bacon explosion thing.  If you haven’t heard of the bacon explosion, it was one of those gross food sensations that hit the internets earlier in the year. Essentially a bacon wrapped, ground pork roll covered in BBQ sauce, Channel Four decided to recreate it for consumption in Midtown. (Amazing, right?)  Even more than that, they were willing to turn it into a sandwich (called the “Bacon Implosion”) and charge under $10 for it as part of our Midtown Lunch Sandwich Challenge.  So I swallowed my cheap bastard, Midtown Lunch’ing standards and stepped into Channel Four yesterday for a taste.

Be prepared to be rocked by the “Implosion” after the jump…

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Yeah, I was a little disappointed too.  Not by the taste but by the look.  If something is called the “Bacon Implosion” it should be… well… I don’t know… grosser looking.  If the bacon implosion sounds good to you, and you like bar food- you’ll probably enjoy the sandwich.  The bread is what you would expect, and the most prominent flavor is less the bacon than the sweet and smokey BBQ sauce it’s covered in.  It’s moderately fatty, and overall pretty tasty… although I would have liked it to have more meat (surprise surprise.)  I’m sure they use quality ingredients, and good bacon and pork is not super cheap… so I won’t question.  But there is no doubt this sandwich would be 10 times better with 10 times the meat. (Hell, even twice the meat.)  Of course then it wouldn’t be under $10.

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All in all it was a good BBQ bacon/pork sandwich, and the fresh fried potato chips and pickle make the whole thing worth the $9.95.  But it wasn’t the explosion of grossness I think a lot of people will be hoping for. Not enough pork, too much BBQ sauce flavor. If there is a ton of meat, the BBQ sauce flavor is perfectly fine. But if using high quality ingredients means the sandwich has less meat, I think I’d prefer the BBQ sauce flavor to be dialed back a bit- so we can taste the quality meat.

In the end if you normally like bar food, and bacon and pork, I would definitely recommend trying it at least once… but real Midtown Lunchers should take it to go.  If not, you may end up paying $4 for a soda!

Channel Four, 58 W. 48th St. (btw. 5+6th), 212-819-0095

12 Comments

  • Bacon is suffering from over exposure.

  • I tried it on Tuesday and totally agree with Zach about more meat. It is definitely worth trying once – I liked the onions, pickle and french fries (vs. chips) that came w/my sandwich. I’m curious to see what someone who has had the original Bacon Explosion thinks of Channel 4’s version..

  • That’s not enough pork to satisfy me.

  • Mamacita was right. If you going to try to satisfy her with pork, you better be packing. I don’t even think she’d be satisfied by the additional pickle in the equation as it looks average at best. I can see easily her taking them both on at once, yawning and not even dropping her nail file.

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    wtf is this dinky BLT looking thing. i was prepared to see a bacon wrapped hoagie deepfried. epic fail

  • It’s like a BLT after Oliver Stone has had a go at it.

  • i had this last week… it was good, but goddamn i was shocked by the $4 sodas when I got the bill

  • $4 sodas make me want to say f* it and get a real drink for $3-4 more. (I actually foolishly ordered a soda at Tro- what is the name of that seafood place in the Met Life building? – at the bar there, and when she said $6 I was like excuse me? did I accidentally order alcohol? seriously WTF.)

    I’d still get that sandwich though, looks pretty bangin’. Pork/pickle shortage be damned, I’ve dated Asian before.

  • oh snap… yvo just said asian men are hung like hamsters

  • god I don’t even know what to do… I was about to give Rudy a gold star for his joke, but then Yvo just took it to a whole other level….

  • What the? Hey, nothing wrong with chinese sausage. And there’s a reason why it goes into a bun. It’s fatter than that slice of bacon.

  • Looks like a couple of fatback chips.

    Where’s the beef? Looks like they forgot the bacon. Epic fail indeed.

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