Airing of Grievances: You Are a Loser For Not Eating the Walgreens Sandwich!
All grievances are valid, even when they are aimed at yours truly…
Photo courtesy of Blondie and Brownie
I was hoping that my post about not eating the sandwiches at Walgreens after being dared by a reader would elicit sympathy from the Midtown Lunch commenters… but clearly not. I thought turning my nose up at shrink wrapped sandwiches, shipped from Massachusetts to giant pharmacies would increase my cred- not destroy it! Boy was I wrong…
You buy food from anonymous unlicensed people standing on the street selling shit illegally that they made in their home with no idea about the sanitation, storage, source ingredients or skill….people who just randomly show up on a sidewalk every now and then with a stack of styrofoam containers…..and you balk at sandwiches made by a company that is accountable to health inspectors and other governmental agencies, giant corporate customers (Walgreens in this case) not to mention shareholders/investors. ???????????? Obviously a company can screw up just as easily as an individual, but your risk/reward paradigm has gotten severely messed up. -Ben
Yes! Exactly! In fact, when you consider what the Government allows our corporations to get away with-and conversely, the hoops they force street vendors to jump through- I am much more comfortable eating street meat. Not to mention, I didn’t welsh on the dare because I was afraid of getting sick, I welshed because the sandwiches had no chance of being something Midtown Lunch readers would want to eat.
Or so I thought…
Both Wined & Dined and Blondie and Brownie capitalized on my moral outrage failings as a self-proclaimed fat man, and tried the Walgreens sandwiches for themselves- to much fanfare in the comments:
You’re good ppl by me. That turkey sub doesn’t look bad at all. And for 4 bucks, that’s a steal. The burger looks weak, and I know you only bought it for shock value, but a job well done. We can chill anytime. You’ve got yourself a new fan.
Zach, you are on thin ice. Step up to the challenge and reclaim some dignity. When I first saw this site, you totally transformed the way I think about midtwon lunch. I never once tried Street Meat and now I eat it 2-3 days a week. Biryani Kart and Kwik Meal are my favorite places to eat. I get Indian buffet and food from a news stand because you told me to. There were two mottos: lunch under $10 and have an open mind.
Restore our faith in you and eat a sandwich. Please, for the sake of midtown-lunchers everywhere. I’ll gladly come with you for moral support if you want. Sincerely, DougieC
Dougie C, how did we let it get to this point? Were there signs that something has been wrong for awhile, or was it just a switch that turned off inside your heart? Damnit, I should have just eaten the damn sandwich…
Wait… no! I don’t feel bad… I didn’t not eat the sandwich because I was scared. I didn’t eat the sandwich because it was assembled and produced by a company outside of New York, and shrink wrapped before being shipped to Midtown. What am I saying is, these sandwiches would survive a nuclear holocaust. There was no way this was going to be a legitimate Midtown Lunch, and to even mention them in the same breath as Biryani Cart or Kwik Meal is terrible!
Shrink wrap is where i draw the line people… I think it takes these sandwiches even out of the 7-11/gas station sandwich category, and makes it more like a frozen dinner or something. Should I start writing about Stouffer’s, if they are sold in Midtown delis? Is there nobody who will sympathize with my decision!
I’m sorry if I’ve let you some of you down… but lucky for you, there are other blogs that seem willing to take up the “gross pre-packaged sandwich” beat! Sorry, I just can’t do it. (Gross pre-packaged Asian food, maybe. But sandwiches? No thanks.) Hopefully I won’t have to turn in my ‘fat guy’ membership card. Could I redeem myself by eating a Tad’s Steak, sandwiched between two fried fish sandwiches from the Kim’s Aunt Kitchen Cart? And then we can never speak of this again. I’ll even drink the saran wrapped wine, if it will make you love me once again…
Posted by Zach Brooks at 11:30 am, January 23rd, 2009 under Airing of Grievances, Dare.
64 Comments | RSS comments feed for this post
64 Comments
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it’s more bullshit boston/new england terminology
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The point of this site is identify food we WANT to eat not HAVE to eat.
As discretion is truly the better part of valor, not eating a Walgreen’s prepackaged sandwich was the right decision.
We read this site to discover new, cool things to eat in Midtown. The most a Walgreen sandwich lunch would have yielded to us is a bland confirmation that it was edible – i want more groundbreaking information than that… -
I sympathize with you Zach. Growing up here, I’ve had my fair share of street meat. But the one and only time I’ve had serious food poisoning was funny looking take out chicken from a restaurant. At the time, I thought, “could it be worse than street meat?”. Next thing I know, I was bedridden for a week. So now I have boundaries that I will not cross. I can’t fathom the thought of not being able to eat for another week!
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Hey Zach,
I fully agree with your logic on comparing a Walgreen’s sandwich to a Stouffer’s Lean Cuisine. Keep eating food made by NYers, for NYers.
My one comment on this topic – Midtown needs a WaWa, their hoagies are great. -
This is hilarious. haha
But one quick note between eating food from a strange lady selling on the sidewalk versus shrink wrapped sandwiches.
It’s a lot easier to discount sanitation than you might think. What’s more salient is whether the food “looks” tasty. Absurd thought but it’s true. This is why we can scarf down caloric monstrosities from Hardees and not think about cardiac arrest.
I’m sure NASA astronauts eat super clean food up in space but one look at that thing and you’re pretty sure you won’t want to eat it as much as food from a Halal cart.
So Ben has it all wrong.
The other thing is… dude, Zach… you shoulda at least purchased one and taken ONE bite. Come on! I thought you’re a blogging super star! You hang out with world class mixologists and you chicken out on a sandwich? I thought I knew you…
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I am the ben from the post and I’m still a little disappointed. To clarify though, I wasn’t talking about licensed street vendors. I was referencing the unlicensed ones that Zach posted about and sold food like a drug deal on the sidewalk. The Walgreens sandwich was probably going to suck, but there was a chance it wouldn’t and we all would be a little richer for having found out that in a pinch you can get a a decent sandwich, or bulkie, at Walgreens. Even though it did end up sucking I thought it unlike Midtown lunch to not at least try. That’s the aspect of this site that I thought was left unfulfilled by refusing the dare.
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The reason I started checking out this site was to get a new perspective on midtown lunch. I used to frequent $8 non-descript sandwich delis, Chipotle, and *gasp* Europa Cafe.
After getting on this site, it was like I took the red pill in the Matrix. There was no going back. All the wonders of this city were illuminated in this site. I felt like no stone was unturned, no street meat uneaten. I started eating foods I’d never dream of touching a year ago.
The issue now, the whole crisis of confidence (or the Walgreens Dilemna) is that, I feel like there are now things that you might be foregoing for no legitimate reason. So its shrink-wrapped. So what? Before I read about Biryani Cart on this site, I passed by it everyday laughing at the people who dare eat from that dirty cart. Now I know better.
My qualm is that you’re treating Walgreens just like I treated Biryani Cart. I was sure it was awful and gross and probably some form of rodent. My eyes were opened by you. I’m not trying to argue that Walgreen’s sandwich is going to be some great find, but if we can’t trust you to give it a try, how many other eateries might you be shunning for the same reason? How many potential cheap eats are getting left off your list?
Just eat the sandwich. It will not kill you or make you sick. Your stomach is the stuff of legends. It will put an end to the Walgreens Dilemna of 2009 and let us get back to trusting you with absolute faith. Do it for us, but more importantly, do it for yourself.
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@Yvo: Thank God he’s dead.
I’m finding it interesting that some people want you to eat it because it’s in Midtown, yet some don’t want you to try it because it appears (and is) vile. It’s like “you said you’d eat anything” vs. “this isn’t good food, don’t eat it.”
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Just eat the bloody sarnie!!!
Jesus fucking wept man.
I know you’re a new dad…but Harry will have to live with the shame of this if you don’t.
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If Ben thinks giganto-corporate food is safe just because it’s made by companies accountable to shareholders, somebody better tell him QUICK to watch out for those nutter-butters. And spinach & ground beef & …
I’m totally with you zach in your decision to pass up the shrinkwrapped walgreens sandwich, but my logic isn’t that it’s shipped from out of state but rather that it’s NOT FOOD. To my mind: made by hand = food; made in a factory = not food. Yea I know it’s pretty blurry math, but in some cases, like sandwiches in a walgreens, the final outcome seems pretty clear.
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Zach, you are a PUSSY.
Eat the effing SANDWICH already!!!!!!!!!!
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Towards the end of his career, John Holmes had er….potency issues as well
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Zach,
I’m with you on this. Midtown Lunch is supposed to bring us cheap AND good food. The sandwich is cheap, but it doesn’t look good nor tasty. Even looking at the other sites, neither had good things to say about it.
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I think the underlying point Zach is trying to make , and pardon if I got it all wrong, is that a “midtown lunch” should be sourced from local ingredients and/or prepared by local people. I think if either criteria cant be met, it should not be considered mid town lunchable if it is under $10.
Cryo packaged sammiches dont count. Have some pride in our local food service and what goes into what we eat.
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This is the best quote:
unlicensed [street vendors that] sold food like a drug deal on the sidewalk.
Street food is like a drug! A delicious drug!
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Sorry, Zach, unpersuaded. And just a little disillusioned…excuse me, I’ve got something in my eye here…I stop working in Midtown and you let your castiron stomach go…
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I won’t hold it against you Zach! I agree that it is not a proper lunch—. This site isn’t about “what could I dare Zach to eat that could be found within the ML Boundaries?” At the same time, by declaring you won’t eat it, you certainly have unintentionally thrown down a ML Gauntlet—-especially when you compared it to eating poopy! After my freshman yr of college, back in 1993, I had a friend come back who had just got into a frat, and he said after initiation into his frat, he could eat anything. I told him i’d pay him 50 bucks to eat a piece of my poop on a cracker, if he chewed it for 7 seconds without any chaser for the 7 seconds. He ate it, and I paid up! I also was on the floor of his house, convulsing with tears of laughter for a good 2 hrs after he swallowed the poopy!!!!! EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!
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Give him a break! It is a healthy sign that he is able to refuse SOME food. Hang in there!
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Can we please have Mamacita drunk in a Bar/Pub review please.
I want to see her stuffed spuds this week.
Blondie: I hope Johnnie doesn’t hear you, he might faint at being called a whiskey lol.
W&D: There are quite a lot of NYY fans out there who deserve to be poisoned.