[Meat Free January] Grilled Cheese from The Cheese Truck

With a name like 'The Cheese Truck' you're really leaving nowhere to hide, particularly when you're about to feed a hungry burger blogger who hasn't had meat, or a drop of booze, for almost a month.

Following in the footsteps of the imperious Kappacasein dairy cheese melt, the impressive Lundenwic grilled cheese sandwich, and the more functional toastie from the Melt Room as part of my meat free January series - The Cheese Truck in residency at King & Co in Clapham has some tough competition.

How tough? Well read on, oh lovers of grilled cheese sandwiches, read on...


Price: £6

As part of its residency at King & Co, The Cheese Truck (normally a Maltby Street, van-based cheese slinging operation) has an expanded menu of different cheese-based toasties to choose from. The one I'm going to tell you about is the Keen's Cheddar and Montgomery Ogleshield-laden beast (with no small lament at not being able to add bacon...this time) with onions.

The grilled cheese sandwich comes out of the kitchen wrapped in a heavily-buttered Italian sourdough, and oozing its melted cheese, well, pretty much everywhere.

I'll freely admit it's a beautiful thing. In the words of Enid Blyton, the lashings of cheese festooning out of the . The sourdough having been given a thorough grilling, is dark brown, super crunchy and saturated with molten butter, but importantly the sandwich still has structure and volume. The blend of Keen's and Ogleshield is clever as it balances the bite of cheddar with the buttery flavours of the Ogleshield - combine that with a blend of mild flavoured onions, and it's a grilled cheese of epic proportions. And just when you think it's getting a bit rich, take a bite of one of the salted pickles on the plate - mellow with a hint of pickle - it offset the whole thing perfectly.

Oh, then there's the portion of Somerset Fondue fries.  Genius.

So a quick point here. The Cheese Truck residency is only lasting as long as my meat free January so you'd better make some time in your diary to check. it. out. Or you can catch them in the truck at Maltby Street Market every Sunday. Either way, you need this grilled cheese in your face. Like, now.