Coming in hot off the press, it’s a fresh take on the tired old grilled cheese. Before you say it’s just a patty melt, take a closer look! The orange-yellow tinge granted by the cheese layer gives the sandwich a welcoming hue in the right lighting. The burger patty adds a hearty heft, giving the sandwich a nice weight in ones hand. A thin layer of hardened cheese encrusts the outer side of each bread, making this dish toe the line into “grilled cheese” territory.

The patty’s tough and disturbingly uniform texture harkens back to days long past in primary school cafeterias. Cooked through completely from top to bottom, it assumes a dull grey that warns onlookers of its perpetual dryness. You may be wondering how such a patty could be redeemed, but you need only look to the cheese above and below it. Prepared in a freezer for several months, the cheese has acquired a sogginess that by itself would also deter potential eaters. But combined with the burger patty, the two achieve an equilibrium and work together to bring both to an acceptable level.

The world of cheese-carb dishes is a tough one to break into. Mac and cheese is a the top of the pyramid, and even the tried-and-true grilled cheese is very popular. The patty melt is more underground and more raw in a way that plain old mac and cheese could never hope to be. These castes have historically been rigid and fixed, and generally accepted by society as a whole. However, the grilled cheeseburger cracks this entire social fabric wide open, failing to be confined to a single category. It’s not quite a revolution, but the undercurrents of disruption are beginning to flow strong.