Saving The Earth One Chicken Cilantro Sandwich At A Time At Birdbath Green Bakery

Tribeca seems to be a magnet for a certain type of bakery/ lunch spot hybrid, especially the farther north you go in the neighborhood. That’s why I wasn’t too surprised when Birdbath Bakery opened the latest in its continuing expansion of “green” stores on Church St. (at Thomas) late last week. I had been meaning to check out the SoHo location that opened not too long ago, strictly for the chicken cilantro sandwich which had been recommended. But thanks to my procrastination, I didn’t even have to take the subway! Find out what a “green” bakery looks like, after the jump.


I was there the second day they were open, and umm…let’s just say that toddlers and people disgruntled by the fact that they didn’t yet take AmEx cards were also checking out the goods. They had three sandwiches on offer, some soup and a bunch of cookies and other baked goods to ruin your appetite.

I ordered that chicken cilantro sandwich ($7.50) and a chocolate chip cookie ($2.50), which came out to exactly $10 including tax. The sandwich had slices of what I think were provolone cheese both on top of the chicken and between the two layers, which would have been great if it was fully melted. Instead it was kind of rubbery, but that could have been because I walked for about 5 minutes before finding a park bench to eat on.


If you are a cilantro hater never fear: I couldn’t even really taste the cilantro that I’m guessing was in the herb oil mixture on the chicken and cheese? There definitely weren’t giant sprigs of cilantro.

And now let’s talk about the oil (the orange on the bread in the above photo), which was kind of like a pesto but tasted a little like the flavoring on sun dried tomato Wheat Thins. It was delicious and propelled this sandwich into kick-ass territory. Since this is a bakery you would expect the bread to be pretty good, right? Well, it was, especially with the crisping it got in the sandwich press and with the oil soaked into it. The chicken was in white meat breast form and there was plenty of it.

Other sandwich options (which they tried to sell me on without even mentioning the chicken cilantro) were a hippie-looking veggie sandwich and one with smoked chicken.


The salad was basically giant leaves of lettuce, as in it wasn’t even chopped up. I ate it anyway to make myself feel more healthy. It’s pretty nice that they throw that in without charging you more and it makes the price of the sandwich seem even more reasonable.

Surprisingly, my least favorite part of lunch was the cookie. Before you start judging me, it was mostly due to personal preference as it was really crunchy and had an extremely buttery taste. I’m more in the chewy cookie camp, and plus this thing was huge! They do have other baked goods that were mostly between $3 and $4.50, but that was too rich for my blood.
THE + (What somebody who likes this place would say)

  • I feel like I’m killing the earth less when I eat here.
  • The sandwiches come with a salad that makes me feel healthy.
  • Three words: chicken cilantro sandwich.

THE — (What somebody who doesn’t like this place would say)

  • They don’t have a lot of lunch choices.
  • If you want anything other than a sandwich you’re probably going to break $10.

Birdbath Green Bakery, 200 Church St. (at Thomas),

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