It’s Gjusta’s version of Arby’s Carver Sandwiches….
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I’ve never had Arby’s, either!!! Which should I try first: Arby’s or Gjusta? 
Which is closer to you?
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Isn’t Arbys more comparable to that roast beef joint that opened on LaBrea and Olympic a couple years back ???
Yes…I was kidding. Arby’s is on the NEVER list. 
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Top Round is kinda good in a slutty way though
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A fucking slutty way ???
Please explain.
You ever given a blowjob for a hit of heroin on the corner of 6th and San Julian?
@CiaoBob I have no idea. I thought it was an interesting naming convention on the menu. Maybe because all of those cuts are more direct cuts of meats (from a butcher) compared to pastrami which is seasoned and prepared a few steps beyond a straight cut of meat? Now I’m stretching it. I have no idea! LOL 
@kevin Awesome! I’ve been looking for an actual non-dried / non-boring Turkey preparation for a while now. Gjusta does so many other things well, I guess it’s not surprising they can do Turkey well as well. 
And it comes with a Turkey Jus as well?! I can’t wait to try it next visit. Thanks.
Roasted turkey, delicately tinged with rosemary on the toasted baguette. They may brush that fucker with some Olive oil and that’s about it.
Simplicity incarnate.
And dope concentrated turkey drippings juice on the side.
Mosts thanksgiving’s turkeys may not even be half as good.
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I just had that sandwich. They don’t even brush it with olive oil. Just straight up turkey, cut so as to highlight both dark and white meat in each bite, + a cup of turkey au jus for dipping.
I am not totally sold on it without the au jus, but once you slick it, honestly, the pure simplicity of that sandwich makes it perhaps the most unique turkey sandwich I’ve ever eaten in my life. It is possibly one of the most subtle, yet fascinating sandwiches in all of LA.
But it also makes me wish even more strongly that Gjusta made a club sandwich, nothing hyper-complicated, just a straight up club with that fucking turkey, and their insanely great sourdough. Although idk if they make bacon…
That ain’t no fucking joke though
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this is probably the worst idea for a post ever posted on FTC, and possibly the biggest mistake of my life, but i’m dying to know something:
kevin described the sandwich you are speaking of as (essentially) turkey on bread. as did you.
yet, you said it was “the most unique turkey sandwich i’ve ever eaten in my life.” turkey, sliced, on bread.
what makes that unique? can you compare and contrast it to other turkey sandwiches in l.a.? in the united states? do other restaurants
not put sliced turkey on bread and call it a sandwich? are turkey sandwiches typically not sliced turkey on bread?
wait, you said the sandwich was improved by the jus served on the side. can you compare this sandwich served with jus on the side to other turkey sandwiches served with jus on the side? or does nobody but gjusta serve sliced turkey on bread with jus on the side?
this is the most fascinated i’ve ever been in my life about a turkey sandwich, so i was just curious.
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The sandwich is kind of like a the Rothko of sandwiches. I don’t know if it’s wholly interpretable outside of some philosophical context. Yeah, other places put turkey on bread, but they don’t JUST put turkey on bread. Inevitably one finds all manner of other ingredients, from vegetables to piles of bacon, slathering of mayo, aioli, or pesto, and perhaps some kind of cheese. The turkey on most other sandwiches is also usually something else, very thinly sliced, somewhat dry, more of a strict “deli” kind of setup in a traditional sense. It’s not necessarily bad, but turkey is always a very simple, lean meat used as the backbone of constructing more holistic sandwiches. The popularity of the BLT, essentially a paired down club sandwich which eliminates the turkey element, reveals a norm within sandwich culture (speaking broadly about America here, not globally obviously), where turkey is simply not considered a privileged item, rather something that is so bland that a sandwich can be markedly improved in form by its removal. Perhaps the fact that turkey is strongly associated with various holidays also helps position it as something not essential in everyday cooking sandwiches.
This utterly boring cultural perspective on turkey is perhaps why the turkey leg on the menu of Animal is so provacative of a dish. What Wes Avila calls Alta California cuisine has attempted to highlight turkey as well such as at Corazon y Miel, Broken Spanish, and even Mercado. (Probably propeled by Yucatan influence where relleno negro, a brilliantly, pungently spiced black turkey stew, and something like the Escabeche Oriental at El Faisan y El Venado are staples that seem to showcase turkey as something counter to the traditional view of turkey as merely a bland protein base).
At the same time, the dining culture of Los Angeles since approximately 2009 has been at least partly dominated by what is essentially “gut bomb fusion” fueled by the famous Kogi truck, and the ensuing empire of Roy Choi, but which can also be seen clearly in Josef Centeno’s Bäco’s (his “Original” has no less than 3 sauces + dressing on a salad), the pastrami flatbread of Eat.Drink.Americano, the intensely color, explosive flavors of Starry Kitchen (now Button Mash), the slick Philippino fusion of Belly and Snout’s adobo grilled cheese, the wildly sauced flavors of Seoul Sausage Co’s Korean sausages and galbi poutine, etc… even in the elaborate creations of Guerilla Taco’s to an extent that use so many ingredients and bold sauces. Thus the reigning trend in LA cuisine (though of course not the only one by any means) has been a kind of totalism.
As a contrast, counterculture movement within the dining scene, a sort of minimalism has also been growing in LA though. Gjusta is essentially a temple of minimalism, or perhaps a dojo would make a better metaphor given the emphasis of knife skills in so many of the items. Gjusta seeks to take simple ingredients, and elevate them to the point where they are the ideal versions of themselves, and presented in simple pairings that highlight their essence, just as Rothko took colors, and presented them as simple, raw emotions in simple pairings.
It is against this backdrop that one must understand the turkey butcher sandwich at Gjusta. The turkey is given as much attention in the cooking process as the porchetta, the brisket, or the prime rib (all of which are glorified, privileged meats everywhere else). The knife skills/butchery of the turkey are also thusly elevated so that all of the sections of the turkey are highlighted equally, the breast, the thigh, the fat. Turkey is not presented in such a fashion anywhere else (that is currently known about). Here, the turkey is elevated to the same status as something like porchetta (which it seems every new restaurant must have on its menu lately). No one else slices turkey so thick, so boldly, with such fat laced through it, combining all the parts of the turkey. The bread, of course, is incredibly simple as well, but there are odes written to the simple glory of Gjusta’s bread, so I need to go on about it. These then are the two basic items: bread + turkey; the sandwich is paired down to a raw, emotional essence as when Rothko presented two shades of red along each other to show the pure emotional power of each. The sauce of the turkey’s juices taken from the cooking process make the “essence” more ostensible by creating that effect of framing the hyper-minimalism in a thin line of a third “color”. The incredibly simple combination of turkey, bread, and jus can be seen as the apotheosis of a minimalist movement rising within LA cuisine; it showcases these simple ingredients in their most pure form which in turn reveal to us the extreme emotion involved in these basic elements of the form of a sandwich; the turkey and bread are highlighted in the same way Rothko’s highlighting of a few basic colors reveals the deep emotional content latent in the basic color forms of paintings.
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Outstanding!!!
may i request an interpreter?
what do blts, club sandwiches, tacos, sausages and “relleno negro” have to do with turkey sandwiches?
how does one slice “boldly”?
how does one make something “ostensible”?
do you really think no one else slices turkey and puts it between two slices of bread?
could you name six other turkey sandwiches you’ve had in the past six years in the united states or los angeles?
could you state why you didn’t ask for no lettuce, no tomato, no mayo, no special sauce on those sandwiches?
could you name six other chefs who make turkey sandwiches, and not bacos, turkey legs, tacos or sausages?
what do we know about mark rothko and his relationship to actual turkey sandwiches? did he eat them? did he create them? who were his favourite turkey sandwich chefs? did he say “ha ha” when encountering or creating these sandwiches, if, indeed, he ever encountered one?
a modigliani recently sold for 170 million dollars. what is the modigliani of turkey sandwiches?
do wes avila and joseph centeno fall into the american tradition of post-abstract expressionistic modernism?
where are jasper johns, keith haring and jean-michel basquiat on the turkey sandwich continuum?
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“I’ll fucking trade you my ‘Ode to Matisse,’ for your fucking Turkey Butcher!!!”
i’m very curious too.
this is a great fucking question.
And now FTC has finally and totally re-captured everything that I loved about CH… Bwahahahahaha.
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Reread what I wrote. The answer to literally all of your questions is in what I wrote.