By Helen Schwab
Restaurant Writer
Posted: Friday, Mar. 30, 2012

Bow to the champion of the 2012 Observer Tournament of Food:

The Growlers Pourhouse Reuben.

The winning sandwich is a sophisticated and occasionally drippy concoction: corned beef (from Salisbury’s Freirich Foods) and Gruyere cheese, with sauerkraut doctored in-house with rehydrated juniper berries, a housemade dressing made with the Thai chile sauce called sriracha, and the unconventional addition of housemade, sweet-edged, caraway-seeded slaw, all piled onto marbled rye and grilled, open-face, on a sandwich press. It’s the

n put together and served like a regular sandwich.
A classic, traditional Reuben? No. But it ups the ante on each ingredient, leaning to lushness at every opportunity.
Call it Reubenesque.
Its layered but hearty flavors handily topped a very good Cuban sandwich from Concord’s Havana Carolina Café, whose chunks of tender roast pork and overall proportions proved excellent but whose bread simply wasn’t crusty enough.

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