T's Restaurant reviews

Southern California

Cousin Vinny's Cafe
5148 W. 190th St, Torrance, CA 90503
In the 99c Store strip mall
310-542-3300
www.cousinvinnyscafe.com
Plenty of free parking.

Cuisine: Sandwiches

Visited: Several times, most recently, February 2011, Lunch, Dine-in

Well, they're from back east, and they say they got a good Cheese Steak, and boy, they sure do. We really enjoyed our sandwiches, and will definitely be back.

From a south Philly perspective, the original Philly Cheese Steak ($8.00) was very nicely done. The hoagie roll is soft and toasted on the griddle. The meat is plentiful and very tender, and the onions, bell peppers, and fresh mushrooms were cooked very nicely. They also use Provolone, which was great, but also have Cheez Whiz for those that prefer orange cheese.

They also claim to have the best French Dip ($8.00) around, well, not so much. It's a very fine sandwich with that nice bread and meat, however being from LA, nothing tops Philippe's. And my longstanding pet peeve, they used the term 'au jus' incorrectly on the menu.

The Meatball Sub ($8.00) is made with their homemeade meatballs and marinara, and is also very tasty. Good bread is such a key, and their hoagie roll holds up well to the sauce and melted mozzarella.

The Italian Sub ($8.00) is available cold or hot, and comes with ham, Genoa salami, pepperoni, provolone, lettuce, tomatoes, and pepperoncinis. You also have your choice condiments including vinaigrette. And while this sandwich also comes on their lovely hoagie roll, the filling to bread ratio is a little off. If you put all of the filling into one half, it's perfect!

The Classic Pastrami ($8.00) is a mound of pastrami and Swiss cheese all melted together on grilled rye bread. When I have a hot pastrami, I'm used to having it on a roll with the juices all soaking into the bread, so this sandwich was more like a Pastrami Melt, not bad, just different.

The BLT ($6.50) comes with 5 strips of yummy smelling bacon, iceberg, and tomatoes. You have your choice of Italian bread or rye, and we went with chef/owner Christy's suggestion of grilled rye. Upon first look, the sandwich seems to have a lot of lettuce, but it's actually quite nice.

All sandwiches come with a huge portion of crinkle cut fries or macaroni salad, and a pickle spear. Or you can get onion rings for $1 more.

Vinny's is a new business (opened in Sept 2010), so watch out for coupons in area mailers.