Comments Come True: Booeymonger's Pita Pan

Eating my way through your advice, an ambitious list of vegetarian sandwiches from 24 different restaurants. More Comments Come True.

Everywhere that Pret a Manger‘s avocado pine nut wrap succeeded—creaminess, simplicity, abundant avocado—Booeymonger‘s Pita Pan failed. And it even picked up a bad trait from the last-fucking-resort veggie sub from Potbelly’s. Let me explain.

The Pita Pan looks good on paper:

Mixture of salad veggies, muenster cheese, alfalfa sprouts, mushrooms, avocado, fresh spinach, tomato and house dressing in whole wheat pita bread.

And, at $6.25, it plays in the normal price range for wraps. Unfortunately, the mixture inside the wrap doesn’t play nicely together. Raw button mushrooms anchor the wrap, both dominating the other fillings and sinking any possible triumph. The mushrooms taste of nothing. I think it’s about time we declare the raw button mushroom a completely unacceptable item for inclusion in just about anything (see Potbelly’s Comments Come True entry).

From what I could find, the “mixture of salad veggies” included a few carrot slices and a slim cluster of raw broccoli. Hardly offensive, but nothing special. Of course there could have been more avocado, but what couldn’t use more avocado? Slices of muenster provided a shimmer of interest, but couldn’t outshine the rest of the sad wrap. With a lack of any real sauce, I doused each bite in spicy mustard. The condiment continually saves many poorly constructed sandwiches.

What made this lunch journey all the more difficult sat across from me, mocking me with its crusty bread and melted cheese. “Always solid,” my boyfriend described his favorite Booeymonger’s sandwich, the Patty Hearst. “It tastes exactly what turkey, cheese, bacon and Russian dressing would taste like…delicious.”

My boyfriend has a point. A few simple ingredients, known to love each other, create a winning end piece. Booeymonger failed to add a sauce, failed to simplify and failed to add enough avocado. Fail.

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