For this month’s food spotlight, I made a quick stop in Eclectic on my way to Elmore County and Tallassee’s football game on Friday night.
I was recommended a nice hangout joint by the name of Little Rippy’s, which mostly serves sandwiches and chicken salad and such.
I’m not the biggest chicken salad fan — especially with craisins, grapes, apples and tomatoes. So I stuck with what I knew I would like and ordered the ham, bacon and cheese panini. The cost for the sandwich was $9.75, and it came with a bag of chips. I grabbed some Harvest Cheddar SunChips. I also ordered a bottle of Root Beer separately.
For anyone looking for a quick bite to eat, this is the place for them. My panini was pressed to perfection and the bread was the winner. It was perfectly crunchy mixed with soft, and the bottom of the panini was buttered so well that it stole the show from the panini-pressed top piece of bread.
Inside the sandwich was cheddar cheese with ham and bacon with a dash of honey mustard. The honey mustard was a good addition, but the cheese was my only issue with the sandwich. With it being pressed, I assumed my cheese would be fully melted. But it wasn’t, and the cheese just sat on the sandwich in little chunks with an odd texture.
It still tasted great and worked with the sandwich, but it did throw me off a little bit.
The meat, however, was great. Nothing needs to be said about the ham, but I liked how much bacon was on the sandwich. There were four total pieces of bacon on it, and they were spread out to where you got a little bit of bacon in every bite.
For just $10, it was well worth the trip and money.
Sandwiches weren’t the only thing that they offered. Next to the counter was a full ice cream station with a handful of flavors — at least one kind that anyone would like. But in case someone didn’t like those flavors, there was a cooler of Frios popsicles next to it.
I enjoyed my stop, and it wasn’t very heavy at all. That was especially nice, since I went on to spend the next few hours in the heat covering a football game.
