Pump’s “Street Meat” is a Terrifying Taste of a Healthier Future
I see a trend developing here. A few months ago I was enticed by “chinese crunchy things” and “Thai peanut sauce” into trying something at Just Salad for the first time, and more recently Pump started offering their healthier version of “Rafiqi’s street meat”. Like the Thai crunch wrap at Just Salad, it was enough to get me to enter a place that I would have never considered eating at before. Clearly it’s a smart marketing strategy. How else are they going to expand their business? They already have the mindless, boring, Midtown masses eating their “healthy” less flavorful lunches (I don’t care what they say, fat=flavor people), so the only way to get to us (the real eaters) is to offer stuff like this. And what can I say? I couldn’t resist.
The new Pump is completely redesigned from the older locations, with a menu and set up that is more Chipotle than Lenny’s. You move along a conveyor belt picking a protein, a delivery method, and condiments. But there are a group of 9 pre set options, one of them being the Spicy Dilligan- which is brown rice, spicy bison, cucumbers, tomato, pepper and onions, yogurt dill sauce (white sauce), and a “hot” hot sauce (red sauce). The first semi-disappointment is the “Spicy Dilligan” is not a platter, it’s a wrap. So the direct street meat comparison loses a little bit in the transition. They make platters, so I’m guessing you can order it as a platter if you press the issue (or just put it together yourself on the conveyor line), but when I asked, they didn’t offer… so I just took the wrap.
Unsurprisingly, the bison meat was dry and lacked the strong flavor you get from gyro meat (is Pump low sodium as well?) But the hot sauce was very hot (as advertised.) And overall the flavor wasn’t terrible to the point of not being edible. It just tasted like a low fat, low salt, low flavor version of the real thing. (With the hot sauce being the one saving grace.) But that’s the sacrifice when eating food that’s been engineered to be healthy. There’s a reason street meat tastes good, and it has nothing to do with carefully crafted recipes with quality ingredients. It’s about grease. And fat.
Oh, and the wrap (which admittedly is filling because of the brown rice, and bison meat) costs over $9- or as I like to call it: “a big kick in the balls”. Clearly I will not be added to the list of regular Pump customers anytime soon, but like the Thai spicy crunch wrap at Just Salad, I will say this. If I was forced by co-workers or friends into a situation where I had to eat at Pump, I could resign myself to the lunch a little easier knowing at least I could order this thing and be mildly satisfied. But if I ever start talking about replacing XPL w/ the Spicy Dilligan in an effort to “get healthy” or “lose weight” you have permission to shoot me.
The Spicy Dilligan is available at these Pump Locations:
- 52nd btw. Lex+3rd
- 275 Madison (nr. 40th St.) 212-697-7867
- DOWNTOWN LOCATION: 80 Pine St. (at Pearl) 212-785-1110
Posted by Zach Brooks at 11:45 am, January 8th, 2010 under Pump Energy Food.
29 Comments | RSS comments feed for this post
29 Comments
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Judging by your picture chuck you wouldn’t know what healthy was if it hit you in your 2nd chin.
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Spoken like a true uneducated, unemployed, unhappy New Yawk City denizen, “Formz” — LOL!
Fresh arrival here in the USA, are ya’?
Carry on, ‘judge’, ROFLMAO.
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NYCGuy: Good thing you’ve been around for a while, or I (and others) might start screaming “shill”! ;^)
Formz: It’s not just exercise, but people should also watch intake of simple carbs (sugars, etc.) even moreso than fats. Why? Because your body converts those carbs to fat, even more easily than it digests fats themselves. It’s not like the fat you eat just migrates into your body. You can lose weight and reduce body fat by reducing intake of simple carbs–even while eating fatty foods. Really.
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Healthy street meat as useful as diet soda.
Live or die, and if the former isn’t teasing the latter you’re not doing it right.
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I tried Pump once. Nuff said.
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The only thing worst than fat and an unhealthy lifestyle…is being proud of said fatness and unhealthy lifestyle…ughhhh
Stop ripping on The Pump; the place is actually very tasty! The turkey is moist and the bison meat has a little zip to it! The hummus is quite good; and that is hard for me to say since I’m part Lebanese!
Is this a forum for indigestion?! Though, I admit I’ve found some interesting spots from this forum –> especially Naya Express –> excellent and fresh/healthy!
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Last month I stopped in to check out their menu and the guy gave me 4 or 5 coupons for a free lunch at the new location. I went over there and got my free lunch and free iced tea. took one bite threw it out, went downstairs to buy a new lunch, and gave away all the other coupons. I mostly eat health food but that was disgusting. I applaud their effort to make healthy food but the food is weird and tastes like garbage.
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I tried it today and I have to say it is much much much better than the usual food at Pump. Instead of roasting their meat until its dry as cardboard they simmer it has some juice in it. Of course, it taste a lot better if that juice is melted fat, but their healthy version will do just fine… It allows me to rationalize a fattier meal for another day.
In my attempt to be healthy, I am adding it to my rotation to counterbalance everything else I eat.
A ‘healthier future’?? In New Yawk City??
Ain’t gonna happen. And what’s with the persistent, disgusting, infuriating ‘pop-up’ ad bullshit covering the ‘sign-on’ screen and making me want to throw my new computer on the frickin’ floor??
GEEZZZ