Midtown Lunch

Our friendly neighborhood Swich (83 Maiden Lane) reopened last week and before too much time went by, I wanted to make sure I got in there to see what the revamp was all about. After all, it really wasn’t open all that long before they shuttered up, announcing they’d be back shortly with a new sense of style and self-worth. Now with their fancy new awning, they’re back to show us what they’ve learned on their little spring break. Let’s see what they’ve got, shall we?
As before, they’re menu is on the gigantic chalkboard on your left immediately after you walk in (as you can probably see from the picture above). They’ve got a lot of options, most of them going for $7.35 and all of them centered around whatever you might choose to be the central ingredient. Options included grilled chicken, roast beef, turkey, ham, or veggies. They’ve got salads as well, but we’ve chosen to ignore that particular aspect of the menu. In case none of those really appeal to you, they’ve also got their signature sandwiches which tended to have a little more creativity than the rest and also featured the only non-macromenu featured protein, line-caught tuna. Wanting to get a good sense for what I was dealing with, I went with the buffalo chicken-esque Hotpants sandwich, their supposed bestseller.

If you went to Swich before the break, forget all that. The new Swich is all about building your own sandwich and most will use the pre-designed sammiches on offer. Here’s how it all goes: first, choose your bread. You’ll get a choice of whole wheat bread (like your standard homemade sandwiches), 7 grain (a little more a la Subway), and ciabatta. Both the 7 grain and the ciabatta can both be supersized so that your meat doubles for $1.84 more, which led me to ask, “who the hell comes up with these prices?”

Next came the protein, in my case the grilled chicken. The guy making my sandwich loaded it up, let me tell you.

Then came the blue cheese, which he also loaded my sandwich up with. This would probably be where I’d cut back a little bit. The cheese wasn’t that strong, but I still managed to get some really cheese bites. It’s a fix that’s as simple as asking for a tiny lil bit less cheese.

Buffalo sauce came next, along with the option to load up on their additional toppings. My choices included sprouts, onions, lettuce, tomato, cucumber, carrots, and sweet peppers. I kept it simple though and added only onions, lettuce, tomato, and a few good shakes of tobasco sauce.

Voila! There she is, my masterpiece.

With a bag of their sweet potato chips on the side (because I’m in love with them), the total came up to almost exactly 10 bucks. Kind of expensive when you compare it to Subway’s $5 foot longs, but this ain’t Subway, mon frere.

The sandwich was very good, though, as I mentioned before, had a few blue cheesy bites. Even with the tobasco sauce, it was still more about the flavor than the spice, though I did feel my brow begin to dampen as I popped the last bite in my mouth. For those of you discouraged by the healthy label, this place presents, you’ll be happy to know that there was a decent amount of red grease escaping from between the two pieces of bread I held in my hands. And I’m not sure if it was the density of the bread or the amount of meat on the sandwich, but I walked out of this place full. Before I was even done with the first half of my sandwich, I was beginning to question whether or not I should even dig into the other or just hold onto it for a midafternoon snack. I ended up eating the whole thing (not that surprising), but I was definitely in the mood for a nap an hour later.

Final verdict though is that the new Swich is definitely worth checking out. They’ve still got a few of their staple sides like the edamame and the homemade potato chips which helps to maintain the consistency we became accustomed to in the early Swich days, but they’re also kicking it up a notch with the redesigned sandwiches and how you construct them. It’s definitely worth a try, if only to load up on those delicious sweet potato chips.

Swich Wholesome Sandwich Company, 83 Maiden Lane (at Gold St.), (212) 809-9800

Related:
A Hidden Bargain from Swich