Midtown Lunch

I went to check out the new Dirty Bird To Go on Chambers St. when it was supposed to open on Monday, but alas, the windows were still papered up and it didn’t look close to serving fried chicken. (The opening has since been confirmed as indefinitely delayed). I surveyed my options nearby, and ended up at Birdbath Bakery on Church St. (at Thomas). I’d had an awesome chicken cilantro sandwich there soon after it opened and there were several other sandwiches that looked great, including a catfish variety, but then a turkey sandwich with potato chips and beer mustard caught my eye. I wasn’t entirely sure what beer mustard was, but it sounded promising.

My first disappointment with my $9 turkey/potato chip/beer mustard sandwich was (other than the price tag), the fact that when I opened the box there was no side salad as I had gotten with the cilantro chicken. Was this an oversight? Did they discontinue the side salad? I felt gipped. And yes, for the record there are times that I eat salad with my lunch rather than chips, fries or some sort of rice. Hell, in this case I would have been happy with a handful of chips or anything to justify spending $9 on a turkey sandwich.

The second disappointment was the sandwich itself. I was starving, and although there wasn’t anything technically wrong with it I thought there could be a little more of the roasted turkey or some more vegetables or something to flesh it out. Because the sandwich was premade the potato chips were well on their way to sog city by the time I ate them, and had mostly lost their crunch. The beer mustard tasted more like a variation on mayo, but it was tasty.

So basically, if you find yourself at Birdbath and are in need of a fancy sandwich, stick to the cilantro chicken or just make yourself a lunch out of the City Bakery cookies and call it a day.

Birdbath Bakery, 200 Church St. (at Thomas), (212) 309-7555