Not Really Awesome

As I mentioned yesterday, I had a lunchtime conference call and a two-part lunch. During the first part, I grabbed a chef's special sandwich from Pret (sadly not the holiday sandwich; are they doing that this year?) and "Pret's Awesome Potato Salad" (yes, that is its name).


Underneath an airy layer of arugula (which didn't really add a lot), I delved into the potato salad. I am a big fan of potato salad, as it's my favorite among the usual 3 picnic/deli salads (potato salad, mac salad, cole slaw). I have tried a lot of different types of potato salad and wondered if this one really would be "awesome."


Pret's version consists of red potatoes, mayonnaise, Greek yogurt, red onion, celery, dijon mustard, sea salt, dill and black pepper. It was OK. It was creamy, the potatoes were just soft enough, and there was some crunch from the onion and celery. But I have had better potato salad. One of our favorite potato salads of all time came from the Dominicks grocery store in Chicago. It was a dill red potato salad, which is what this sounds like it should be from the ingredient list. But the Dominicks one had a lot more dill and other flavoring, while this one was mostly creamy potato with some vegetables. I didn't actually taste any dill here, just black pepper.

Was this bad? No. But was it awesome? No. I think you really take a risk when you call a product "awesome" because it raises people's expectations (and justifiably so). They expect it to be amazing, and when it's fine but not incredible, it's kind of disappointing as it falls short of its name. I think I would just name this "Pret's Creamy Potato Salad."