I'm back in the salad again

So as fate and life would have it I'm working at Ogilvy again. I took a stroll down to the old stab and grab food court and discovered several new salads. Just when I'm out they pull me back in!

Margaret isn't working downtown formally anymore (see chicagoelevated.com for more on that) so the new salads will trickle in as she meets me for lunch.

Yours always with dressing on the side
John

Artisan Wine Cellar Salad of the Day 2

Margaret: Well, this salad from the little artisan panini place was DEFINITELY better than the last one. The thing about this salad was that it was kind of uninspired. I mean, we had some greens and some crazy kind of dijon salad dressing, there were some dried tomatoes and colby cheese. But the thing about this was, even though it was not a very exciting salad, the cheese was ridick. It was just these little baubles of colby cheese that were so rich. I always think I just love LOVE cheese, but what I'm finding out is really that I LOVE processed cheese. I mean, this colby was delicious, but it was really powerful cheese. I don't know, the salad was fine, my panini was fine, but as is apparent by walking into this wine and cheese shop, its the cheese that makes this salad float, and if you're not into fancy cheese, you're not into artisan salads. I liked it though, I'll give it a solid B.

John: We had to give the salad of the day a second run. What if the first day was a fluke? Well it wasn't. Artisan Wine Cellar is the bomb. Today it was spring greens, basil, roasted tomatoes, red onions and artisan colby with a dijon walnut vin. Tons of complimentary flavors going on here. The big star was the cheese, white crumbles of colby all over. It made the salad. I've got to stop talking this place up. The counter is too small the crowds the food deserves. Nothing will ever taste like plastic here I can tell you. Grab a sandwich and a Italian Lemonade and you've got the kind of lunch you can feel good about eating. Rock solid A.

FoodstuffsMake Your Own Salad

Margaret: Well, it's the moment of truth. It's all on the line, this is the place, this is the time...yeah, anyway. So FINALLY, its make your own salad day at Foodstuffs. I've done some complaining about FS, but they do have a lot of salad fixins! Alot. So, mine consisted of lettuce, carrot, broccoli, garbanzo beans, egg, green pepper, onion...I think that's it, with of course, the peppercorn ranch dressing. And you know what? It was good! Hell yes it was, because you know who made the effer! I got my salad dressing on the side and I'm glad that I did, I didn't like their peppercorn ranch, it was too ... vinegary or something. So yeah, it was a good salad. It still wasn't a GREAT salad and its because their produce just feels 30% dumbed down. The broccoli tastes like hints of broccoli, the onion was hint of onion...the only thing that tasted strongly was the yucky peppercorn ranch. So, I'm going to give it a B. Even though it was my own salad, that I made, I still didn't think it was all that great. Peppercorn ranch, whatever.

John: No line on our last FoodStuffs/SaladDaze visit. Of course. All signs point to this being the best salad they have to offer. Right? Well it was. Baby greens, goat cheese, mushrooms, red onion, tom, bacon, carrots, sunflower seeds and croutons all in pretty good proportion. The "make your own" really is the only salad to get at this joint. It takes the same amount of time as a "standard" menu item and costs the same (minus a meat up-charge) too. I gobbled this one down in like 6 minutes. The only bummer for the me was the lack of 1000 Island dressing. WTF? When did 1000 Island drop out of the top 10 dressings? I'll tell ya. When Ranch stuck its buttermilky nose in our business. Anybody remember the 70's when Ranch was just called "house dressing" and we were cool with the mystery of the whole thing? Before it became the go-to sauce for every whitebread fatty out there? Those were the glory days of the salad bar. 1000 Island and French ruled side by side with a benevolent hand. Oh 1000 Island you are so much more than "special sauce" or "that orange stuff that comes on a Reuben" - you are an institution. Hold all 1k of your heads high. What was I talking about? Oh yeah, B++ for the "make your own" at FoodStuffs, which has gone B.Y.O.1000.

FoodstuffsCaprese Salad

Margaret: You know, I don't know if it's just because we're towards the end of our salad eating, or that I'm so effing tired of this freaking cold, but I was truly annoyed with Foodstuffs today. We got the Caprese salad, which should have been great, mozzarella cheese (yum!), some basil, tomatoes, onion..these are all things I like. When we got the salad, instead of tomatoes our salad maker had put green peppers in instead. I even like green peppers, so I was willing to let it fly. But the thing about Foodstuffs is just really holding true, nothing has any taste but the salad dressing. It all looks good, big chunks of mozzarella, but when I ate just a piece of the mozzarella alone I couldn't taste a thing, and it was kind of gummy. I just think its annoying that they make us wait so long so they can "MAKE OUR FRESH SALADS" and their fresh salads don't taste like anything and then they put green peppers in one of their stock salads. They annoy me. Once we're done there, I'm done with Foodstuffs. Take that FS. D.

John: I will give you, any reader, $20 for every tomato you find in this Caprese Salad. $20. Maybe you'll make like $100 off me. Maybe not. Actually not. Cause there aren't any f'in tomatoes in this salad. Instead our genius server gave us green peppers. It it wasn't for the basil, this wouldn't have tasted like anything. When you omit the KEY ingredient in something you get an F. No amount of watery mozz will make up for your sins. F for your big fat fucking face Foodstuffs. Thank God we got egg rolls as a backup lunch. F.

Artisan Wine Cellar Salad of the Day

Margaret: Surprise! The wine/panini artisan store has salads of the day! One day you think you're done, the next day, something else happens to remind you you're not even close. Fleeting salads. So this "salad of the day" should have been called "yicky salad of the day." It came in a box, which is nice, I like salads in a box, there was also bread in the box, which is good, because I like bread, the rest of the salad is downhill from there. There were some leafy greens, a vinagrette dressing, fennel and bleu cheese. I took a bite without bleu cheese and it still really tasted like it. Blech. I handed the salad over to John and he said "yup, this really isn't your kind of salad with the bleu cheese and the fennel" and I said "you don't know how I feel about fennel!" and I took the salad back and had a piece of the fennel on its own and thought "oh, he's right, I really don't like fennel." So yeah. Blech. This is a big ole bleu cheese fennel mess. And, there was still too much salad dressing on it, lettuce is not supposed to drip salad dressing. D.

John: We just keep finding salads. Artisan Wine Cellar is a little wine/cheese/gourmet shop in the mart with a tiny little deli case. I've eaten their panini before and been very happy with their commitment to "doing it right" with good ingredients. So this week they added a daily salad, and since I'm sick to death of Foodstuffs - I couldn't be happier. Mixed greens, fennel, apples, bleu cheese and a red wine vin. YUM! This is easily the best bleu in the mart. Creamy with a bite that loves me long time. Hixx and I have been wedding reception shopping and if I could get a salad like this, we just might make to the altar. (sorry babe) The shop is on the first floor - riverside. Get there and get yours before this place gets overrun. It will be a new salad daily - but I suspect the quality will hold. A-

FoodstuffsGreek Salad

Margaret: I thought this salad might be fine, I'm not in love with Feta cheese, but as far as crumbly, smelly, b.o. cheese goes, this Feta is the best of the lot. And I was right, this salad was fine for me. Because this salad tastes like every other salad I've had at Foodstuffs. I really think they're stuff is so generic. This tasted just like the chopped salad with chicken breast, exactly the same. You can't taste anything in these salads but the lettuce and the dressing really. Again, I really liked the dressing...that is totally what they're doing, they're making generic salads with delicious dressing on them. Fine, totally edible, but uninspiring. C.

John: BLAH BLAH BLAH. This salad tastes just like most of the rest from this joint. Here's why. Take TOO MANY ingredients and chop them together. You'll get the same salad again and again. Why does all garbage smell the same even when its made up of different stuff? Same reason. It was as good as it was forgotten. Could have been a C if it hadn't taken forever. C-. BLAH.

FoodstuffsCalifornia Dreaming

Margaret: California Dreaming my ass. My idea of California Dreaming is San Francisco on a beautiful day, some hippies give us some of their sweet stuff and we go hang out at the park and eat delicious fruit. Foodstuff's idea of California Dreaming is all things that don't go together. This salad had walnuts, cranberries, tofu, blue cheese....yuck. All the things I'm not into at all. I had a couple of bites of the spinach and that was okay, the dressing was tangy enough, it just was not good. I don't know what's up with California, but their salads suck it. I'm giving this one a D. Because I really could only eat one bite.

John: I'm a big fan of "California" style salads with their nuts and berries. Target has a great one I used to get all the time when I worked in the burbs. The Foodstuffs version is "pretty good" overall. I got it tossed instead of chopped - because spinach turns into weeds once you chop it. That idea was both good and bad. The spinach was GREAT but the tofu was left in big ol chunks. Sort of a 6 of 1 - half a dozen of the other kinda complaint. I really liked this salad. Its the first one from FS with an actual POINT OF VIEW. I knew what I was eating and I knew it was good for me for a change. The rest of the FS salads all just taste and look so similar. Once I'm free from the bonds of this blog I will get this again for sure. Solid A-.

FoodstuffsThe Chop Ten Salad

Margaret: Happy New Year! Who would have guessed when we started that it would propel us to 2008 huh? Crazy huh? Yeah? Huh? So anyway, nothing has changed in 2008 for the Foodstuffs, I'll tell you what. It's still slow, it's still too crowded, the people who work there are still painfully nice while trying to manage the too long lines. Today we got the Chop Ten, filled with all kinds of goodies. There were green peppers and corn and edamame (my new favorite salad topping I think) and broccoli and cukes, all kinds of things. And then there was the honey dijon or some kind of dijon mustard. And you know what? The salad tasted like dijon mustard. I can't figure it out with Foodstuffs, it all looks good, fresh and so many things in the bowl, and then when you pop a bite it all just tastes like lettuce with dijon salad dressing on it. My control group was the artichoke hearts. I love artichoke hearts, but sometimes they are just so pungent and tangy I can only eat little bits of them. The artichoke hearts in the Foodstuffs salads are like, 20% of what they usually taste like. I don't know, I mean, it was a perfectly good salad, but its not outstanding. There is something missing about Foodstuff's produce, like...taste. B-

John: Why wasn't today's salad an A+? I can't tell you for sure. Everything was in place. I think that although the veggies are "fresh" they aren't "freshly cut" and that makes all the difference. You'd think that with 10 ingredients that I could taste at least one once. Nope - every bit was the same. Until I dumped the dressing on the last bit. I think that the salads are FS are tailored to "dressing whores" and can't really be enjoyed without a cupful. I give you a C+ for the time and cost that don't seem to be playing out.

FoodstuffsChinese Chicken Salad

Margaret: Hmmm....Asian salad. So popular here in the Mart. Anyway, I thought this was pretty good. We asked for the dressing on the side and they did put it on the salad, but...alas, we ate it anyway. There really was too much dressing, but the salad was good! It had good decent chicken chunks, it had BROCCOLI (I swear people, it's the little things that make me happy), edamame, green peppers, cucumbers, all kinds of good things. The bowl is so big, John and I shared a salad and ate it for almost our whole lunch hour. I think this is the best salad we've had so far there, it just seems like Foodstuffs is kind of getting their act together. It's still on the expensive side, but if I have to pay extra for broccoli, then it is extra well spent.

John: When we walked up today the line was the same size as everybody else. Thats a good sign. Foodstuffs still has some growing pains to work out but its getting there. I'm a big time lover of the Asian salad. This one was GREAT! Romaine, edamame, red onion, broc, cuc, peanuts, carrots, grilled chicken and mushrooms all tossed in a light peanut vin dressing. There was actually so much salad that they couldn't shut the container. Its kinda pricey but worth it. Once this place settles in (and gets rid of those damn video menus) they are going to be great. For the fresh and yummy - A- for you Foodstuffs. You are welcome.

FoodstuffsChopped Chicken Salad

Margaret: Okay okay, we're doing a little better at the Foodstuffs. The wait was a lot shorter this time around, the poor everyone there has kind of a problem with ordering a salad AND something else from the "sausage" menu, but all in all, s'not bad. My only other complaint is the screens with the menu on them. The screens keep changing all the time, so you can never look and just decide on a salad, you have to reach way up front and grab a paper menu to decide what you want. It's really annoying. Anyway, today we had the chopped salad with chicken breast. I liked it pretty well, it covered a lot of bases previous salads don't...for example, broccoli. Such an easy thing to put in a salad, but I think that this may be the first salad we've had with broccoli in it. I LOVE broccoli, and it really smartens up a salad, how can this be the first one I've had? The chicken was still processy, but less processy than some others. I thought the vinagrette dressing was fine, but would have preferred a Ranch. But I think there's some good things on this salad. I liked it fine, honestly, its better than most. B. Solid B.

John: I'm just not feeling the groove of this place. This just seemed like stuff in a bowl with a little cup of brown poured on it. $7.99 makes it the most expensive non-vomit-sushi-salad salad in the mart. Whats killing me is that everything in the bowl is fresh and great. Why then doesn't it taste like anything? Crappy crappy dressing. Thats what it is. I still feel like there is a shot for the "makeyourown" to be good. C me in line at Foodstuffs.

FoodstuffsBLT Salad

John: Foodstuffs is really just a 'lil Au Bon Pain. Too bad. Where to begin? I'm sure that once the "newness" wears off the lines will get smaller - but today it was a full half hour between the time we got in line and the time we sat down to eat. HALF AN HOUR! You can't do that to people who only get 60 minutes with travel time to eat. But its new and therefore being overwhelmed by people looking to try it and I can look the other way. The workers were moving at TOP speed the entire time and the wait didn't have anything to do with them. Our "Salad Artist" was great actually. The salad itself was also just so so. It reminded me of the Pazzini Chicken Salad. All the required ingredients were in the bowl, but it didn't seem like I was eating a salad. More like scooping things out of a bowl into my mouth. I already have my first tip for you readers - get it tossed with dressing on the side. Our chopped salads were more mashed than chopped - and the lack of a step will save you time. This place may turn out to be awesome. Maybe not. Today was a not. For the time and the lack of WOW, I give you D.

Margaret: Well well well, Foodstuffs huh? Sausages and Salads huh? Mkay, I can jive with that. I can even jive waiting way too long to get a frickin salad, because, well, its your opening week. I understand that things aren't going to run so smoothly right now. That's okay. Plus, the TWENTY minute wait for our food allowed us to meet other wonderful salad eaters as well.I actually think Foodstuffs could be the new meat market of Chicago, you never know where your next boyfriend is coming from. So we decided (I decided) on the BLT salad. Simple, easy, delicious...or not. Something was terribly wrong here. I'm not sure if it was the croutons, or the bacon, but something tasted funny. not funny like spoiled food or anything, but funny like they spiced something wrong. First salad, and already I'm leery about ordering the next seven. But I do what I have to do folks. I do what I have to do. D.

Just when I thought that we were out they pull us back in

Looks like we are going to have to postpone the World's Largest Salad Blog Photo. Why? Because FoodStuffs just opened in the old haunted Great Steak space. Suddenly we have 6 salads to go. Will Potbelly's get de-throned? Who can say? Oh yeah - us.

It ends with a single forkfull

"Over the next X days and weeks my sweet lady Margaret will be eating and reviewing every salad available for lunch at Chicago's Merchandise Mart. Rough estimate is somewhere in the neighborhood of 45 salads so we better get snacking. Why no review today? I'm having a last meal. McD Surf and Turf (Big Mac and Filet O'Fish) with an iced tea." - May 2007

The world was a different place then. Anna Nichol was still alive and Bush was still in the White House. We were so young weren't we? God you had a great butt. Who'da thought we'd find ourselves all grown up so soon. Pass on what you've learned and enjoy retirement - the salad days.


Loyal readers or as I know you call yourselves "Lettuceheads"

Please join us a week from today (Dec 14th) at 1:00pm in front of the Potbelly's in the Merchandise Mart to celebrate the "winning" salad THE CHICKEN SALAD SALAD.

Everyone who joins us for lunch that day will be eligible to be in THE WORLDS LARGEST SALAD BLOG READERSHIP FULL-COLOR GROUP PHOTO EVER. And that's salad history folks. Hope to see you there.

Starbucks Vegetable Vinaigrette Salad

Margaret: I think Starbucks salads are actually pretty good. When you've been around the salad world like I have, you can start to see how everything is going to go before you even open up the package. Today's salad sounded fine until I got to the word "mint". Yeesh. Is it me? Mint in my salad? I suppose its not THAT odd, but mint and feta? Mint and carrot? Mint and pepper? Mint and me? No. As far as I'm concerned mint is for two things, mint chocolate chip milkshakes and Frango's. And peppermint patties. Okay, mint and chocolate. I really did like the "Champagne vinagrette", I thought that was delicious. The veggies were fresh, the carrots tasted like carrots (and mint), the cukes tasted like cukes (and mint) and the red pepper tasted like red pepper (and mint). And again, the package is deceiving, it looks like a small salad, but its really not, there's a lot packed in those little bowls. So, I'll give this one a C, if there was no mint, I would have given it a B probably, but if you like mint with your veggies, you are strange, but you will also like this one. C.

John: This is more like veggies in a box than it is a salad. I liked how fresh everything was and the cham vin was great. My big problem with this one was the "base" of the salad. The box said "minted bulger" which I read as "Tabouli" or thereabouts. It really was just "minted bulger" in there. Its like they tried to cheap out on the other Tabouli ingredients and hope nobody noticed. The flavor was just too singular and strong to enjoy. For me this was another half/half salad. Half good - half processed and corporate tasting. For $5.25 you can do better folks. C- (would have been an A- with Tabouli)

Tokyo Lunchbox Sashimi Salad

Margaret: Well, I'll admit that John and I went back and forth for a minute regarding whether I had to eat this salad. I really don't like sushi. I don't like fish anyway, so raw fish products are not my thing. It's the one thing I'm pretty staunch about not trying, the few times I have tried sushi it tastes like salty assfish. So...we went back and forth a bit, but this is OUR salad blog, and there can't be a salad that just one of us tries, so...I tried it. Lo and behold it tasted like salty assfish on lettuce. I had a whole huge mouthful, with a little bit of everything on it, the most honest mouthful I could have, and I was pretty close to spitting it out. The first thought that went through my head is when the lunch lady on Survivor had to eat those just underdone birds a few weeks ago. I held the salty assfish in my mouth, tried my best to be open minded, and then shoved the entire mouthful down with the biggest swig of Diet Coke anyone has ever had. So, needless to say, this salad was disgusting. F. FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

John: Now Johnny likes nothing more than a good Japanese Tuna Salad that takes the flavors of my favorite items and gives them to me in a new form. I'll let you know when I find one. I, like many of you, am a sashimi/maki addict - if there was a spicy tuna faucet I'd put my lips right on it and gulp. I have never been so excited about a salad going in and so very very disappointed in the end. This was bad bad bad. Warm sushi rice, frozen lettuce and tuna, a busted up crab stick and finally what seemed like spicy ketchup all for $11. This is easily the worst salad in the mart while also being the most expensive. Tokyo Lunch Box - for breaking my heart you receive the ultimate shame - an F-. Yup. It hurts me too but this is tough love.

Chicago Pita Grilled Chicken Salad

Sorry about the delay. Somebody got her camera stolen in Vegas.

Margaret: This is by far one of the best salads at the Mart, if not the best. Seriously, I'm not messing around. I stopped smoking a week ago and there is no room for messing around in my life anymore. So you know that what I say today is the absolute goldarn truth, because my capacity for blowing smoke (or sucking it) is now gone. And this salad, is delicious. The chicken is so good. And its even warm, which in previous salads has made me hurl. But this chicken is so good, its real chicken, its warm, its delicious and there is plenty of it. There were also some fresh cukes, mushrooms, green peppers, tomatoes...and a yummy creamy italian sauce. This is the kind of salad you could eat for a meal and not be starving or feeling unsatisfied after, its a real meal. And once again, the service is great. I love this salad. A+

John: Going out with a bang! Only two more salads left and I was starting to wonder if anybody else was going to hit the top 5. Well, REAL FOOD is a great way to do it. This was a really good honest salad. Best way to describe it. If the pitas were hot this would be an A+. Instead it just gets and A. YAY GREEKS!

Starbucks Asian Salad

Margaret: Well, yay for the asian salad from Starbucks huh? It looked good going in, but John and I are too smart for that now, we know looks can be deceiving. But this looked delicious...the chicken, like yesterday, was very good (um hello? McDonalds?) and the rest of it was yummy, all kinds of little gifts in there with a tangy Asian taste, and you know, that's sort of what it felt like too, like getting a little present. The container is deceiving too, it looks like a small salad but its really packed and the bowl is deep. I liked this salad and glad that Starbucks showed us they could do it right from yesterday. I'm going to give it a B and not an A, and here's why...although I thought the salad was quite good, it was so tangy that I couldn't really see myself eating the whole thing. A few bites were enough for me, so...B.

John: Don't let the beige on beige on beige of this photo fool you! This was great. Edamame and black sesame seeds at a coffee shop! YUM! Its as good as the California Pizza Kitchen Thai Salad - and thats saying a lot! Everything was crunchy - everything was tangy. I like this salad as much as I hated yesterday's. If you are "on the go" and want to grab some food at Starbucks - grab this - it eats like a meal. A+. Really. Yes A+. I will eat this again and again until it gets cancelled by the bucks.

Starbucks Fiesta Salad

John: It may not have lettuce - but its labeled "salad" so away we go. Really tasty chicken strips top a mix of fire roasted corn, black beans and salsa. The chicken is awesome. Thats where the yummy ends. The bulk of the salad is composed of cold roasted corn. Cold corn. Who eats cold corn? If you took a room temp can of Green Giant Nibletts and dumped cold salsa on it - you'd have an exact duplicate of this junk. Really. There is no way anyone can eat this for lunch and feel good about what they just had. NO WAY. Too many calories in corn (320!) combined with a mushy mushy mouth feel make this an easy D. If the chicken had sucked it would SO be an F.

Margaret: It was the best of salad times, it was the worst of salad times. Pardon my waxing, but this salad so accurately fits the bill. So yeah, first bite of the salad was of the chicken on top. Grilled chicken, and to my surprise, it tasted like actual chicken! It was good, it wasn't chewy and gross, and I thought, "Yip!", finally someone got the chicken right. And if Starbucks can get a couple of pieces of frozen/grilled/whatevered chicken right, why can't everyone else? (I'm looking at you McDonalds). And then I dug into the mish-mosh that was the rest of the salad. And it just tasted like mushy mexican food. The taste was okay, I kinda liked that, this one had a texture problem. So even though I liked the taste okay, and the chicken okay, there was something about the rest of the salad that made it hard to swallow, like peas...you have to push them to the back of your mouth and wash 'em down with water/beer/vodka, whatever. This was the same, just something that made it really gross to finish, and I sucked down a lot of Diet Coke getting the corn mosh down my throat. So..it was okay, but almost inedible...C.

Au Bon Pain Garden Salad

Margaret: Okay. Fine. This was a perfectly good salad. Which is really annoying. Why? Becuase that means that Au Bon Shit knows how to make a perfectly decent salad. Granted, there was way too much dressing on it, but that's just become ABP's signature now. It's like how my signature is to do everything perfectly. Right? Right. To my surprise, the salad had sprouts on it! SPROUTS! I love sprouts! We've had almost every single salad at ABP and they put sprouts on ONE salad? If you have sprouts people, use the sprouts. Don't sit on the sprouts. Use them. People like them. Sheesh. I don't know, it was a fine salad, one of the better ones there. But it wasn't fabulous either. I'll give it a B-, the minus is for the fact that just walking into Au Bon Pain puts me in a bad mood. Crowded, unorganized and expensive. But hey. I love a good sprout.

John: Unremarkable. Yet I must remark. Lettuce sprouts tomato and cucs for just over $5. For that price I expect at least one fun ingredient. Here we go. The cucs made the dressing wet. The sprouts soaked it up and made it dry. So this salad was somehow wet and dry at the same time. So I give it an A and an F. I can't wait to not have to eat at Au Bon Pain ever again. C.

Potbelly's Veggie Salad

Margaret: Well, my head is as jumbled as my salad today. The Potbelly's vegetarian salad is just...too much. In the words of Mr. Mies Van der Rohe, "less is more." And this is very true in this case. Yes, there are lots of yummy things on this salad, artichoke hearts and chick peas and red peppers and they're all very good, very good. But I just think its too much. It doesn't all go together, it all gets too messy and ends up tasting like nothing all mixed up like that. I mean, its still miles ahead of most salads, but honestly, I could have done without maybe two of the ingredients. Granted, she asked us if we wanted "everything" on it, and of course we said yes (its like how Morgan Spurlock always had to supersize if they asked), but ... meh. I'll give it a B-, its still good, its just not great.

John: I was ready for this. Like some sort of "last hurrah" that we were saving for the end (we are so close) as a treat. Well I'm nothing but disappointed in this one. It took me a bit to figure out why I wasn't enjoying every bite like the other Potbelly offerings. Here's the trick with this salad - too many "preserved" ingredients. Chick peas, artichoke hearts and roasted red peppers ALL OUT OF JARS. There was just too much of a wet brine flavor to enjoy this. My dressing went runny right away. Potbelly I'm going to use a tone I normally save for speaking to McDonald's so be ready. YOU NEED TO THINK THESE SALADS OUT A LITTLE. Where was the carrot? Absent. Why? Because Potbelly doesn't put carrots on sandwiches. And if it doesn't go on a sandwich then there isn't any place for it at a sandwich shop. Thats why this salad fails. The other three (lovely, lovely and lovely) all mimick a sandwich on the menu. This is just handy toppings on lettuce. Thanks for trying. C+.