It seems a little odd to be writing about a sandwich restaurant chain, especially one as ubiquitous as London’s EAT, but the current chaos at London’s Heathrow airport reminded me of my own recent travels through that airport, and how much I appreciated the decent meal I had there.
The model is a familiar one – sandwiches, salads, drinks, etc. in a serve-yourself cooler (the kind you might imagine in a 7-11, I suppose.) The difference is that the sandwich I had was fresh and was made with crayfish, lemon, and rocket. Amazing ingredients for a fast food joint, and pretty tasty, I will admit.
Better still was the soup. At first I was a bit confused by the small round cartons in the cooler unit labelled as such, since they appeared to just contain salad and other dry ingredients. However I soon realized you had the soup stock added at the counter, thus saving noodles, basil, bean sprouts, gyoza and other tasty ingredients from getting soggy and mushy. Brilliant. At the counter I was also asked if I wanted chillies added to my Hoisin Duck Gyoza soup. Sure!
I only regret that I didn’t think to snap a photo of the meal before I ate it. So here’s a photo of the packaging. It’s just that honestly, I didn’t expect to want to write about this meal. It was that soup that pushed things over the top for me. I’d had their sandwiches before and found them quite good, but the soup! The soup! That was just clever. It made me mad, though – and I guess my anger is what is really driving this review – mad that the equivalent sandwich chains (yes, I’m looking at you, Bread Garden) are just so cruddy in comparison. Luckily, we have some pretty fine independent spots, but if a chain as big as EAT can serve up decent food in its approximately one billion locations across the city, shouldn’t Vancouver’s chains get off their duffs and step it up a notch?
