Sure, I’ve been acting like things are swimming along the same as usual, but my friends, I’ve been holding back. The truth is for the past month I’ve been busy carrying on a passionate secret lunch hour love affair with a certain chain of midtown sandwich shops.
How did Pret a Manger, a UK-based company nurtured by McDonald’s that’s expanding at Chipotle speed capture my heart? Especially in a part of town clogged with ‘Wichcrafts and Cosis, with the ever-interchangeable, always forgettable Metro and Europa Cafes? I typically resist analyzing the magic too closely during the honeymoon phase but inevitably my nerdy nature takes over, poking for correlations in my lumbering, love-drenched brain. On examination it seems this place has my needs nailed down to a science.
Clearly the marketeers at headquarters recognized the impulsive, impatient, non-comittal, germaphobic, health-conscious luncher with a sweet tooth. Pret a Manger has takeout portions positioned temptingly near the door, ushering one inside along a wall of freshly-made salads and sandwiches. Everything is neatly boxed, all ingredients are clearly labelled, and I’m free to pick up, examine, and put back; I can even buy half a sandwich if I’m feeling porky. I never wait in line to pay more than twenty seconds, which is about the limit of my line-waiting patience, and which passes in an eyeblink as I ogle the sweets arrayed along the registers.
But even more curiously, Pret a Manger seems clued in to my less obvious desires. What healthy-seeming pseudo-vegetable does Sara hanker for endlessly (avocado–and they always have something with avocado). What all-natural sugar-charged beverage did she comfort herself with in college (bottled raspberry smoothies). What no-guilt treat does she find irresistible (individually packaged mini brownies–I simply won’t allow myself near a normal-sized brownie). The trouble is, after a week of seven-dollar egg salad sandwiches, accompanied with peach iced teas, blueberry-pomegranate yogurts and bite-sized brownies, I’m staring at the lining of my wallet, realizing that THIS is where the money’s been disappearing to.
It’s a total buzzkill, but I’ll go back. I mean come on, there’s a Pret a Manger one block from my workplace. And in love and lunch, proximity is key.
Find yourself some Pret a Manger lovin.
I gotta agree with my grandmother on this one: cooking for yourself is a waste of time. My culinary education pretty much stalled after my one breakfast sandwich attempt, which turned out ok, but my home-cooked sandwich could not equal the greasebombs I was savoring at rock n’ roll dive Deli Haus (RIP), gracefully crafted by sweating short-order cooks with inked forearms, served with a side of German fries, and a Guinness float, and the Kinks, or the Misfits, or the Clash on the cranky sound system.
These days, I’m a little more health-conscious. So if (like me) you don’t grocery shop, and your cupboards stay bare except for an emergency box of Ginger Lemon Cremes and the occasional orphaned ketchup packet, you can certainly find stuff to eat in the city, but you need a friendly everyday place that’ll feed you without making you fat or broke.
This, in a nutshell, is Bite’s raison d’être–reasonably-priced food, fresh ingredients, fast takeout service, and a low-key atmosphere in which, on a weekday night, you don’t feel like an asshole grabbing a table for yourself and a reading a magazine from the wall. The food mainly sticks to the soup-and sandwich variety, and relies on Middle Eastern and Italian flavors. Standouts are the eggplant pesto panini with fresh mozzarella ($7), the Middle Eastern vegan sandwich with hummus, tomato, eggplant, and roasted pepper tapanade, served on a baguette ($6.50); or the Nutella ciabatta with banana ($4). I frequently hit up the soup-and-half-sandwich combo ($7), with a decently-sized side salad ($3.50).
On my first visit, the suspiciously friendly counterperson chatted me through the menu, and then shocked me by casually remarking, “Hey, since it’s your first time, here’s a piece of cake.” On arriving home, I thoroughly examined the poundcake-looking thing for some sign of staleness, then gave up and took a bite–a moist, buttery bite of free cake from my new favorite sandwich place. That’s how they hook ya, I guess.
Bite has seating in the location at 211 E 14th St. at Third Avenue
Mon-Sat 8am-12pm, Sun 11am-9pm
There’s also a charmingly wedge-shaped takeout counter at Lafayette & Bleecker St.
Mon-Fri 8am-8pm, Sat-Sun 12pm-8pm
Well the big news to kick off ‘08 is that after a crazy month of job-hunting, amongst other unsnacky things, I’m no longer recently-laid-off, I am newly-hired! So from the freight elevators, mannequin stores, and sidewalk plant shops of Chelsea, I’m bouncing back to the black glass skyscrapers, tourist clots, and corporate cafeterias of Midtown. Some things remain the same: I’ll still be tinkering with the webernets, but this time in the magazine world.
Lunches I will miss, in no particular order: honeycrisp apples from the Greenmarket, pretzel croissants from City Bakery, coffee from Blue Dog (and thank you to the adorable bespectacled boy who would pour my daily medium black coffee without my having to say a word), fresh mozzarella slices from 33 Brick Oven, sweet corn relish hot dog and fries with garlic aioli dipping sauce from F&B, and gruyere + avocado burger with sweet potato fries from brgr. Chelsea, I hardly knew ye. But at least there’s still Midtownlunch.