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.