Downtown Long Beach’s popular brewery ISM has created a stunning black and white chicken sandwich as part of the Vans Warped Tour.
“The sandwich itself is a chicken katsu; then we made an Alabama white gravy with a little bit of spice on the back end, and there’s a thick slice of heirloom tomato in there,” Ian McCall, the owner of ISM Brewing and Kitchen, told The LA Local.
For the second year in a row, the music and alt-sports festival has paired some of its headliners with Long Beach’s popular eateries as part of Long Beach Food Scene Week. The collaboration is led by Longbeachize founder Brian Addison, joined by the Downtown Long Beach Alliance and Insomniac Events.
Each eatery is paired with bands like Jimmy Eat World, Mayday Parade and Papa Roach to inspire and create a new menu item. Most importantly, prices are kept at $15 or less as part of Vans Warped Tour’s mission to keep things affordable.
Served on a black charcoal brioche bun with white sesame seeds, ISM’s black and white sandwich is inspired by Holy Wars, an alt-metal band based in Los Angeles.
“I reached out to the band themselves and asked them some of their opinions on what they wanted to see,” McCall said. The band wanted their one-of-a-kind food item to embody their new album “Shadow Work/Light Work.”
The pub-style chicken sandwich was named after the band’s song “Ceremony,” where frontwoman Kat Leon sings the chorus, “Devour me whole, nothing left to go to waste.”
Some of the other restaurant collaborations include the vegan “Evil Core Hotdog” at San and Wolves, the “BIG mini Tico” bean and cheese burrito at Sonoratown’s Long Beach location and the “Bleed American Burger” at Selva. The full list of collaborations can be found on Longbeachize.
The Warped Tour takes over the Shoreline Waterfront this weekend but the “Devour Me Whole” chicken sandwich is available at ISM through July 26.