Breakfast Sandwich #99 - Starbucks aka Maybe You've Heard Of It

Sandwich: Sausage, Egg and Cheddar
Location: Starbucks (East Washington Ave.)
Date: September 12, 2017
Cost: $3.45

I think Starbucks is the last national chain for me to visit in the Madison area. I hope so, at least. I need to be free of these chains. There are a few local places I've been meaning to get to but time has not allowed and Starbucks was an easy stop before work. I needed to put this notch in my sandwich belt so I could move on to actual cafes and restaurants. Please God - do not allow Arby's to start selling breakfast sandwiches in the Madison area.

So, there I was at Starbucks. The line for the drive thru was predictably long at 8:15 am but I was planning on going inside anyway. I didn't want to lose whatever freshness the sandwich might have had by waiting until I got to work to eat it.

They have several choices of breakfast sandwich. I had no idea. I guess I don't go to Starbucks very often. I was in the mood for sausage so I didn't think about it too much. (Also, I've been making bacon-based sandwiches at home lately but not writing about them as they aren't really lab experiments. I haven't been pushing the sandwich envelope, just making simple, tasty sandwiches. Pro tip - if you're going to cook your chicken egg inside a Mason jar lid to get that "perfect puck" egg, use plenty of non-stick spray or your egg will stick to the lid and it tears the edges apart and it looks like it's been nibbled by vermin.)

Kinda sad looking.

I didn't have a knife so this was cut with my incisors. It was not nibbled by vermin. 

The Sandwich - Sausage, Egg and Cheddar. These sandwiches come out of sealed plastic bag so while you have several choices you don't have any options once you have made your selection. Starbucks isn't really a food place - everything comes out of bag from a kitchen factory somewhere. For all I know this sandwich was assembled by robots. The chicken egg was exactly what you expect for a pre-packaged sandwich (if you're new to this blog that isn't a good thing.) The microwave setting melted the cheese perfectly - kudos to the Starbucks lab technicians who tested that down to the microsecond. The sandwich was nice and hot. The sausage was actually pretty good. It hit the spot I was hoping it would. Despite being microwaved the English Muffin held up fairly well and wasn't soggy. This is by no means a messy sandwich so it really didn't have it's mettle tested, but it worked.

The Result - 2.75 Breaking The Chains out of 5 Breaking The Chains. This sandwich was fine. It was OK. It was actually tasty in some ways. I can see how it would tide you over until lunch if you're on your way to work. But, it's a $2.75 sandwich masquerading as a $3.45 sandwich. That's not cutting it for this reporter. I swipe left. (I'm going to assume there is a sandwich blog out there where the reviewer either "swipes left" or "swipes right" on a sandwich and that is the review. I'm not going to Google it. You go ahead though. If that doesn't exist it seems like a perfectly good idea for some snarky millennial to pursue.)

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Breakfast Sandwich #71 - Panera Bread aka I Think I'm Done With Chain Restaurants

Sandwich: Sausage, Egg & Cheese
Location: Panera Bread
Date: November 19, 2016
Cost: $4.29

I had never considered what the word "panera" meant until now, but it turns out it's a Spanish word for "bread basket", and it's a lot more fun to say it with a Spanish accent.

Pronunciation aside, I've been meaning to get to Panera for well over a year. I wasn't specifically avoiding it but didn't have anything motivating me to go there.

Saturday morning I was running errands with a hungry belly and when I saw a Panera I knew the time had come. I actually had already passed it when I put the thought together and had to turn around and go back. That turned out to be more effort than it was worth.

Kind of sad looking.

Sadder yet.

The saddest.

The Sandwich - Sausage, Egg & Cheese. They have a handful of different sandwiches they offer but they don't offer different types of cheeses and breads when you're ordering. Perhaps they will change it up if you ask. I wanted something other than bacon and this one sounded like a decent choice. As soon as I took a good look at it I had a problem - all the contents were shifted to one side. It screamed of a hastily prepared sandwich with which love was but an afterthought, if not completely absent altogether. I didn't like how it made me feel, emotionally. Now, I did order this sandwich "to go", so it's possible there was some jostling after I left, but I don't think so. Everything was squished together rather tightly and it doesn't seem possible that a short car ride shifted the innards of this sandwich that much. As is the case with all mass produced chain restaurant breakfast sandwiches, the chicken egg was not runny. This could have used more cheese despite the description of a "thick slice of Vermont cheddar". The sausage patty was adequate, not overly salty or grisly, and the bread was OK. It had a nice crunch to it.

The Result - 3.5 Generic Chain Sandwiches out of 5 Generic Chain Sandwiches. The biggest problem with this sandwich was that it came across as just some stuff they threw together and put in a bag. You remember when you were a kid and it was your birthday and that one relative gave you a toy that you could just tell they picked up at the drug store on the way to your party? That was this sandwich. I got about halfway through the first part of the sandwich and there was nothing left except the bread. The rest wasn't bad, but it wasn't particularly good either, and overall it just had a meager feel to it. 

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