Friday, February 27, 2015

The Victoria

Earlier this week, Seamless ran one of their special discounts, giving you 15% off any order of $10 or more. I've been using Seamless for almost 10 years now (wow...), and even though I cook a lot more these days, I'm still tempted by Seamless with hundreds of restaurants at your fingertips, especially when they run these discounts. They're evil geniuses though, getting me to spend $12 (post-discount) on lunch when I could eat at home for less than $3 and normally don't buy lunch outside for more than $10. It was cheaper than it usually would be ... but it's still more than I would normally pay. Evil geniuses, I tell you. They know just the right psychological buttons to push.


Anyway, I decided to use the discount on City Sandwich, a Portuguese-inspired sandwich spot in the neighborhood that we've been to a bunch of times and last wrote about during the World Cup challenge. They're on the pricier side for sandwiches, probably due to their quality ingredients, so we don't go that often. Perfect for a coupon deal, right? I figured I would run to the store, buy some groceries, and then swing by and pick up my pre-ordered lunch, quick and easy so I didn't have to miss too much of the Barça game. 


I decided on the "Victoria sandwich combo" in the daily specials section, which came with the Victoria sandwich, a cup of soup, and a bottle of water for $13.50. Again, more than I would usually ever spend on a weekday lunch just for me, but ... discount! In trying to decide what to get, I was especially interested in the combo because it came with a cup of soup, which is normally $4.25. The choices were a tomato and spinach soup or a roasted cabbage and carrot puree soup, which was also prepared with caramelized onions and Italian sausage. It wasn't really a choice for me. With those ingredients in the list, I was always going to choose the cabbage/carrot soup option.


Everything in the soup appeared to be pureed, except for the Italian sausage, which were crumbles instead of slices as I had assumed they would be. The soup was delicious. The combination of the roasted vegetables with the caramelized onions and sausage was great. I would get this soup again. Best part of lunch for me.


The Victoria sandwich usually contains chicken breast, tomato, kale, garlic, sauteed onions, melted mozzarella, and olive oil. When I got there to pick up my order, I signed the receipt and noticed that it said "no kale" under the sandwich. I was a bit confused, as I had never said "no kale," but had only specified "no broccoli" on the order as I do for every Seamless order for food allergy reasons. I was in a rush, so I didn't want to deal with it at the time, and just figured I'd go without the kale if they really left it out.

I imagine that what happened was they saw the no broccoli written down, and out of an abundance of caution, left out the kale since they are very distantly related or are the same color or both vegetables or who knows why. I've had it happen before where a place will call me when they see the note to make sure some other ingredient is okay, and that's fine, but this is the first time I've ever gone somewhere and they've just left out something completely different. I appreciate them taking note of what I wrote, but I wish they had called instead, because I eat a ton of kale and I was really looking forward to having some greens in the meal.


As for the sandwich itself, it was fine, but definitely was missing the earthiness that kale would provide in the sandwich. It made it a little more boring without it, to be honest. I could probably put together something at home with chicken, tomatoes, onions, and mozzarella that would come pretty close in flavor to this, and when I order out, I usually try to get something I definitely can't make at home. The one thing I don't have at home is the amazing bread they always use, and that was no different this time. The bread was still great. The stuff inside was just a little lacking and made me wish I had chosen a different sandwich. The one we had during World Cup was much tastier.

Overall, it was a good (but expensive) lunch and the soup was fantastic. I wonder when the next Seamless discount day will be...

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