I tried Lancashire's and the UK's most expensive toastie...

Lancashire Post

I tried the £20 wagyu pastrami sandwich at King's Castle - Lancashire's most expensive toastie...

Transcript

00:00Hi, my name is Jack Marshall. I'm a digital food and drink reporter with the Lancashire

00:04Post newspaper and welcome to another one of our food reviews. And this week we really

00:08are doing something which is about as far outside the box as I've ever done before,

00:14because I have just tried comfortably the most expensive sandwich I've probably ever

00:20not only eaten, but ever seen in my entire life. It is astonishing. I paid £20 or more

00:26accurately £19.99 for this sandwich. Yes, sandwich. And to be honest, I just, when I

00:33saw the price tag and I saw the kind of way it's been advertised as something extremely

00:37special indeed, which we'll go into in a minute, I just had to try it and see if, frankly, if it

00:42was worth it, I mean, just what a £20 sandwich would be like. I feel like I'm in Pulp Fiction

00:48where he's talking about a $5 shake and he's like, it's literally just ice cream and milk

00:52and that's $5. He just can't get his head around it. That's what I'm like with this

00:56£20 sandwich or £20 toastie, more like. Astonishing. Anyway, so the home of this £20

01:01toastie is King's Castle in Preston. Now, King's Castle is this one of the most incredible

01:07places I've ever been in the sense that it is the most classic American diner location

01:12you can imagine. Pink neon everywhere. It's got Hollywood Boulevard style stars on the ground

01:19with a cacophony of kind of like very out there celebs in there. You've got everyone from

01:25Halle Berry and Vin Diesel to The Rock and God knows who else. It's an absolute assault

01:29on the senses in there. Everything's neon. Everything's pink. Everything's bright. Everything's

01:32loud. Everything is just everything all at once. So they're doing a certain product on

01:38their menu, which is a Wagyu beef pastrami halal sandwich. I'd seen it on TikTok because some

01:47of the more famous food reviewers in the UK had been heading down to try it for themselves

01:50and it looked incredible. I mean, Wagyu beef is amongst the most expensive food products

01:55going really. It's absolutely astonishing beef known for its quality and they use local beef

02:01from a local butchers as well to really get that local authenticity whilst also getting

02:08the kind of premium Wagyu cut just perfect in this sandwich. So I thought if this is going

02:14to be essentially Lancashire's most expensive toastie, I've got to go down and have a bash.

02:18So yeah, turned up. Like I say, the whole place was assault on the senses. I ordered the

02:23sandwich. It's 150 grams of halal Wagyu beef, which comes in this pastrami, which is all

02:30about like American mustard and really, really nicely done kind of crispy toast. And it was

02:37an experience. It looked like one of the best sandwiches I'd ever seen. It looked astonishing.

02:40It looked really, really pretty. It looked so kind of well put together and the layers

02:45in it were really crisp and the beef was tender and juicy and pink. Really, really nice.

02:50Upon taking a bite, I will admit to being a little underwhelmed. When you're paying £20

02:57for a sandwich, I really want the flavour of the main costly ingredient, aka the beef in

03:03this case, to knock me out. I want it to come through and dominate. And I've got to say the

03:08thing that dominated most in this sandwich flavour-wise was the taste of American mustard.

03:12Now I can get a bottle of American mustard from Tesco for about a quid. The majority of

03:20the flavour, or the overwhelming part of the flavour from this sandwich, £20 toasty, was

03:26American mustard. Now that's, I don't mind American mustard. I like American mustard. Is

03:31it the flavour I want to be dominating in my palate when I've paid £20 for beef wagyu

03:37pastrami? Not really. I want the beef. What I did end up doing was pulling bits of beef out to try it

03:44on its own to get the flavour. And then it came through. It was nice. It was good. I don't think

03:50it's £20. I don't think it's worth that much money at all. I don't think I'd really rush back

03:54to have another one. I do think it's somewhat of a novelty. But it was a very nice sandwich. It was

04:01good. Everything about it was very tasty. Everything about it was very satisfying. It was very,

04:06all the beef was very soft. The meat was obviously really well cooked, well put together, very

04:10carefully created as a dish, as you'd expect for this kind of price point. But I must say,

04:16I just, I wanted more from the main star of the show. I wanted it to stand out more. I wanted it

04:22to pack more of a punch. I wanted it to dominate more. I wanted it to overtake the other flavours

04:26so that they're just adding to it rather than my flavour palette being mustard, mustard, a bit

04:30of beef, mustard, yeah, sauce, nice, whatever. Pastrami, I feel you need saltiness in there.

04:35You need almost like a kick to it. Didn't really get much of that, but it was still delicious.

04:41It was very nice. I just, I think the balance could have been a little better. But anyway,

04:45if you've got a spare £20, which I know is a lot of cash to ask for and you fancy trying

04:51that for yourself, head down to King's Castle. It's just on the bottom of Church Street.

04:55So head down there, grab yourself one, let us know what you think. But yeah, thank you

04:58for watching. Cheers.

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