Cuisine: Salad
I have become a creature of habit. I walk from my office and see the ten or so other options in the immediate area (some being trucks and stuff), but still just walk into the Just Salad and order my same boring-ass order. It’s consistent. It’s a salad. It’s boring.
But, hey, at least I special order to make it… special. I’m not having any of that cilantro devil’s weed in my Thai Crunch salad. No way! Granted I stand in the occasional short line with a bunch of other homogenous office workers — in a downtown NYC, not like a Midtown or suburban office park kind of way — staring up at the big board of other salad varieties and bowls and stuff and I still default to my regular order. I mean why would I switch? It has crunch and some protein and a peanut-related dressing that could honestly make a bowl of bat guano pretty tasty. Plus the thing is like 300 calories, 250 of which I probably burn chewing the thing.
Is it a gourmet salad? No, not at all. Do they charge you as if it is? I mean at fifteen bucks for what amounts to a bowl of lettuce, a few shreds of carrot, seven fried Chinese noodles and a small cup of chicken chunks it certainly feels like it. But I suppose it’s cheaper than sitting down at a restaurant and ordering something more composed and considered. I can’t pretend I wouldn’t be more satisfied wolfing down a Chipotle bowl or something, but one can’t eat that brick on the regular without wanting to take a post-gorge nap in the server closet. So, sure, I don’t feel great about the value, but I feel better as a human being and eater of things. Take it as you will, but Hipster Mom would say I’m getting my roughage, which I suppose makes it healthy. Side note: I’ve never written out the word “roughage” before, but would have sworn it was spelled “ruffage.” Thanks Just Salad for expanding my mind.
325 Hudson St. (at Vandam St.)
(866) 673-3757
justsalad.com