The Frugal Gourmand

Quizno's Flatbread Sa... don't make me say it

Day One of the "experiment" was today, January 16. For the roughly lunch-time meal (some might call it "lunch"), I went over to Quizno's to check out the new small flatbread sandwiches they have. And yes, I refuse to call these things by their official name because I hate it. The cutesy-poo mispronunciation is bad enough - then you cut the word in half and end it with the even cutesier "ee" sound? God. No. Awful.

The sandwiches themselves are not awful, however. There are six varieties including the two new lower-calorie ones, though only the original four were on sale at this particular Quizno's. Either way, they were only two bucks each, which isn't a bad deal - it's comparable to the McDonald's Snacker, except better (albeit a bit more expensive as well). I don't really dig on bacon or the many Italian sandwich meats, so I went with the Bistro Steak Melt and the Sonoma Turkey. Two of the flatbreads wasn't bad for a light lunch (okay, a "light" 620 calories, but that's not too bad for the larger of two mid-day mealettes). The Bistro Steak Melt definitely takes the cake between the two; the peppercorn sauce added a nice amount of flavor without being overwhelming, and the warm steak-and-mozzarella combination at the center was good. The flatbread is also a nice delivery system; the pieces I had were warm and chewy, and they held the sandwich's contents well.

The turkey wasn't quite as good; it was fine, but between the pepper jack cheese and chipotle mayo, I found the spice-to-flavor ratio to be a bit on the high side. There wasn't much to taste but turkey and hotness, and that's passable but undistinguished to me. Again, however, the flatbread worked well. My only other complaint was the tomato pieces sprinkled across the top of both sandwiches (along with lettuce, which was fine), but that's just because I didn't know it was coming. I'm sure I could ask for them to be left off in the future, and anyway they were thankfully easy to pick off.

Bistro Steak Melt: 8.5/10
Sonoma Turkey: 5/10

At 3-ish, I went to Ponte Fresco, which for a while a number of months ago (just after it opened) I frequented to such a degree that several of the staff knew my name. Ponte Fresco's problem is it's on the expensive side - their basic products are salads where you pick all your toppings and they chop and mix them for you, but they charge by the topping, which means you can get to eight bucks pretty quick, a bit on the high side for just a salad - and the soup is no exception, as a small costs $3.45 pre-tax. The upside is that it's good soup. I had a nice, rich beef chili there the other day, and today I went for the spicy chicken enchilada. A solid, creamy broth is filled with chunks of chicken and various vegetables (red peppers, black beans, corn - wow, is any of those technically a vegetable? Whatever), and you even get free tortilla strips sprinkled on top. Ponte Fresco doesn't have nutritional info on their website yet - this is their first mainland US store after years in Puerto Rico - so I can only guess at the actual health value (or lack thereof), though I'm guessing that the creamy base rules out low-fat. (Still, how bad can a "small" anything really be for you? At least there's that.) But it's quite tasty - it lives up to the spicy name (the top of my head beaded up with sweat) and there is no skimping on the ingredients within. Yeah, it's too expensive, but it's a lot closer to getting what you pay for than you would at most places.

Spicy Chicken Enchilada Soup: 8/10

posted by Flax @ 8:22 PM