The Governor Modern Diner

The Governor is a beautiful restaurant with a nice, crisp and clean interior that features tables that appear to be made from a light wood such as pine, clean subway tile on the walls, with concrete floors and both metal chair seating and booths. It is located in downtown Milford and has a little outdoor seating on the sidewalk when the weather is suitable.

I had eaten Reubens at The Governor in 2020 (once as carry-out and once in the dining room) and was impressed with their flavor. However, I had one during the summer of 2021 that I found odd, so we had to come back again to see whether perhaps it was just a mistake, or whether that was a legitimate sample of how their Reuben tastes this year.

The service was reasonable but not outstanding. We ordered the Governor Reuben and it arrived after 19 minutes—not a terrible amount of time to wait.

The presentation was nicely stated; the Reuben arrived on a small plate with a pickle spear atop the sandwich right where they had cut it in half. The rye bread that they used was thick and very hearty. However the bread was a little overly thick for the sandwich and I felt that it ended up being a little too crunchy overall.

The pastrami that was used was a reasonable substitute for corned beef and had a good flavor, although it was a little stringy and fatty. There was hardly any sauerkraut or dressing on the sandwich compared to a typical Reuben. I'm not sure why the Maple 1000 Island dressing was so sparing, so I really was not able to tell whether the maple flavor made a big difference. It did seem that the dressing had a mustard-like aftertaste which made it somewhat offputting. Even so, more dressing and sauerkraut would have helped the overall balance of the sandwich, especially when compared to the volume of bread contained in the sandwich.

However, the biggest turnoff for the sandwich was what they called the "Toasted Swiss." Toasted Swiss? This is what had turned me off the last time I was here. Apparently they feel it is appropriate to take a slice of Swiss cheese and then toast it until it becomes as hard as a brick. You can take corners of the piece of Swiss cheese and snap them off and it sounds just like taking a chip or a thin cracker and snapping it in half. Perhaps such things are all the rage for upscale foodies, but it tasted awful.

If you like having a flavorless, crunchy cracker made of Swiss cheese inside of your Reuben sandwich, then you will likely be delighted to know that The Governor can fill your craving. However, for me, I think I will pass on ordering the Reuben here until they remove the "Toasted Swiss" from their sandwich. Perhaps more dressing and sauerkraut might have softened the cheese somewhat and made it taste better.

My wife says that the Governor Tso Chicken Sandwich is delicious, so maybe I should look to another part of the menu if I return. Overall, I feel that the C+ that I gave the sandwich for taste was accurate. It had some good qualities, but they weren't enough to recommend to others.

While the Reuben, as presented, looks nice and most of the ingredients are good, it was light on sauerkraut and 1000 Island dressing. In addition, the distribution of ingredients on my Reuben was poor, with one half of the sandwich having almost no sauerkraut on it at all, giving the Reuben overall an inconsistent flavor. Some of the pastrami was quite fatty as well, and one portion was too difficult to actually chew through.

The "toasted Swiss" mentioned on the menu is a bizarrely hard piece of Swiss cheese that is incredibly hard and has an oddly unpleasant flavor. The texture is almost plastic-like, and in combination with the bread being overly-crunchy, it gives the Reuben a strange hardness.

There was additionally some type of odd mustard-ey taste to the Reuben. The taste wasn't entirely desirable, but it was not a major detractor either.