Would you like beef, pork, chicken or mixed meat? White or yellow cornmeal? Dijon, cranberry, course, sweet or hot mustard? Standard or footlong?
Hey I ordered a Cubano at a place in Laramie that had them on its menu, and they served it on a Kaiser roll! Other than that, it sounds better than the Panera one but…a Kaiser roll?
Panera’s fine if you don’t want anything more complex than a turkey BLT or a tuna on sourdough. At least their bread is fresh and good. My go-to lunch is a half sandwich and a cup of soup, and they do a perfectly adequate job of that. But it’s not haute cuisine by any means.
Just for an update, we had a lab come to detail me today and they brought lunch…from Panera. They brought us three different sandwiches but apparently went for the new ones because one of them was a Cubano. Usually my staff get first pick and I take the leftovers but this time I exercised executive privilege and took the turkey/apple/cheddar which would have been better on sourdough rather than cranberry bread (I usually change things when I order from them) but wasn’t terrible. In addition it came with a pickle spear that was a real honest to god sour pickle spear so I know they have them and could conceivably put them on a sandwich. The staff seemed OK with their lunches. Maybe I’ll get up the nerve tomorrow to ask if they think I screwed them over.
One corndog, dressed.
This is so apropos. I had a Cubano at Panera last Thursday and had the exact same reaction as you. Sweet pickles?? WTF? And the meat was sliced ham and sliced something else I didn’t recognize. I went to a comfort food chain restaurant here in the PNW (Shari’s) over the weekend and decided to have their Cubano for comparison. It was much better. Dill pickles, shredded pork, and the soup wasn’t too sweet like Panera’s squash soup.
Aaaccckkk! Just one from Sonic, please. Little packet of Sonic mustard.
If they don’t have Cuban bread, it’s not a Cuban, and I won’t order it, and nobody has Cuban bread. I’m just that picky.
I was going to quibble with this, but then I looked at their menu. They’re about $10 a sandwich? Seriously??? (Price check me, guys, but that’s the numbers I’m getting when I look online to order.) I guess I haven’t been in one in many, many years. I thought $5-$7 is a reasonable price for a sandwich, and while I am happy to make a sandwich myself, I love going to the Italian deli and getting a 9-inch for $7, because I don’t keep salami, capicolla, mortadella, and provolone around all the time, and I can’t be arsed to have all the veggies around all the time, and then processing them makes a mess, and I would also need to have access to absolutely fresh bread and all that. Fuck it, I’ll pay the $7 for the convenience. But I’m looking here and $10.79 for a turkey and avocado BLT? Holy crap.
The only reason I darken Panera’s door is ONE of the stores around here do the bagel Tuesday thing where they are half price. The other six near me never see me. I could eat for a week for what they charge for a sandwich.
They’ve been dead to me since they got rid of their one awesome veggie sandwich over a decade ago (I think it was called veggie delight or garden delight, something like that. It had the same name as one of the salads, which was dumb). Cibatta bread with onions, tomatoes, spinach, avocado, sprouts and maybe a couple other veggies. The default was with vinaigrette and gorgonzola but I’d sub feta. DAMN that was good.