Carve

Since we spend so much of our time moving these days, we don't really have much time to spend on cooking.  Lately it's been a lot easier to just order something for pick-up on Seamless and get the order on the way home from work.  Yesterday I decided to try ordering from Carve, a place on 8th Avenue that I always thought was known for sandwiches but apparently also has salads and a big pizza presence, for dinner.

One of the sandwiches was a wrap - the Chicken San Juan - which (according to the menu) contained grilled chicken, cilantro (didn't taste or see any cilantro), red onion, hot pepper (jalapenos), green cabbage and guacamole dressing.



This ended up being the sandwich we liked better.  The grilled chicken was good and not too dry, the onions were plentiful, the guacamole dressing added creaminess, and the jalapeno peppers definitely packed a punch.  It was a refreshing (and somewhat healthy) wrap.

The other sandwich we got was one that really interested me and which I had seen recommended by a few people online - the Fourth of July Picnic sandwich.  The Fourth of July Picnic sandwich contains (according to the menu) 15 spice crispy fried chicken, grilled corn slaw, and bourbon barbeque mayonnaise on a Tom cat baguette.  I thought this would remind me of Certe's Uncle Sammie that I liked (mostly because of the corn slaw in the description), but it didn't quite reach that level for me.


The baguette was good. Sometimes I worry with baguettes that they will be too hard and crusty and make sandwiches difficult to eat, but this bread was good.  The chicken wasn't bad, although I didn't sense the complexity of 15 spices and it tasted really unhealthy because it was fried.  It also seemed like there were fried onions in the sandwiches, which tasted good but are also really unhealthy.  As for the corn slaw that I was looking forward to, it was actually cabbage like a cole slaw and no corn.  I guess the menu just had a typo?  The sandwich wasn't bad but we really preferred the taste of the San Juan.

It was a successful trial at Carve.  The sandwiches weren't extraordinary but they were a solid choice and not too expensive (about $8.50 each).  It's always nice to find another dinner pickup option other than the fast casual standby of Chipotle!

Carve is located at 47th and 8th in Midtown.