Take-out salad

One of my absolute favorite things about living in NY is the "salad bar" at most of the delis (which are pretty much at every corner, at least around us). It is, hands down the best, fastest, cheapest take-out that fits everyone's taste. Well, I guess it fits everyone's taste if you like salad, but in our household we're 2 for 2, so it works out.

So here's the deal. You walk in to the deli/salad establishment, there will be a big long counter and at various places along the counter you can order different things: slices of pizza, sandwiches, coffee, and, the salad. In front of the salad ordering section there is a big pile of containers filled with various lettuces (romaine, spinach, spring mix, etc...). You simply grab a container of lettuce and hand it to an available person behind the counter. And here's where the magic begins. In front of you (behind glass) is a colorful array of every salad topping you could possibly imagine. And so you start picking, whatever you want. If you want a caesar salad, then you pick the appropriate things (chicken, croutons, parm, and caesar dressing), but we're never traditionalists, we just pick out whatever floats our boat on any particular day. Then, to complete the masterpiece, you pick your salad dressing and they toss it all together for you, so each nugget of goodness is perfectly coated with salad dressing. Seriously, how could this be better? Oh, except for the price - last night I went for turkey breast (real chunks, not deli sliced), avocado, broccoli, roasted red peppers, blue cheese, chick peas and ranch dressing, and the total? $8. And it's not like you get one little piece of avocado, there was probably an entire avocado in there plus the huge hunks of turkey and cheese and everything. The salad always ends up weighing like 10 pounds (you pay by ingredient, not by weight). Just how it should be, more goodies then lettuce (or in my case, spinach).

I think this type of "salad bar" has really started to catch on in corporate cafeterias, at least in all of my interviewing I've seen them a lot. It's brilliant. Jeff and I dream of opening something similar in Ann Arbor (and now that I've shared this, I'm sure all 2 of my readers are going to do it first and we'll miss out on the awesome opportunity, but alas, that's the risk I'm willing to take, and I'll hunt you down and take a cut of your earnings, you forget, I went to business school).

I'm so very addicted. Thank goodness we have two great places within about two blocks from us (one is just about across the street), so it's never far. Columbus Gourmet is our favorite (for two very simple reasons, they take credit cards and the counter is the right height so you can easily talk to the person behind the counter to pick out your toppings). Check out the menu online, pretty frickin' awesome. Lenny's is our second choice, but it is closer.

So, clearly I did not cook last night. It was salad night at our household, which has the added benefit being able to wake up this morning to a clean kitchen with no dirty dishes. Which is always a treat, I didn't have to move any pots or pans out of the way to get to the cappuccino machine. I'm spoiled! But a salad is a fantastic meal even if you make it yourself, and easy too, another one of those "empty the refrigerator/pantry" meals. Throw in whatever looks good, even if its not traditional (definitely use those spiced nuts that you should have made by now). Easy and great!