I Have My First Favorite Salad Of My Life. And Now I'm A Grown-Up.
I like salad, I've just never loved one single salad before. Like, I'll hit a Niçoise every time it's on a menu and that spinach and strawberry thing really does it for me, but no one salad has ever made me question my commitment to my lunch-partying ways. Until I met the District Cobb salad from Sweetgreen, which we've profiled and plugged until there could be no possible doubt in your mind that this is the place you want to get your roughage. That salad's making an honest woman out of me.
And now, a tribute:
Twice a week or so, Assistant Contributing Editor George Embiricos treks several blocks through polar vortexes, rivers of slush, long stretches of sneaky black ice and other signs of impending spring (yes?) to brave the endless line at Sweetgreen for a salad and a veggie juice. He always asks if the other editors want anything. Frequently we do. I know what Richard gets. I know the juice Matt likes. And I straight up tweeted at Sweetgreen the day I opened my Cobb salad and experienced...just, ruinous perfection. They tweeted back. I bought these Cobb salad press-on nails in honor of the whole thing. So thank you, George.
The District Cobb is a combo of shredded kale and romaine with spicy organic chicken, goat cheese instead of blue (fine with it) a bunch of Cobb-appropriate vegetables, so much avocado and no shortage of bacon with an agave-Dijon vinaigrette. This is so not the lunch place where you plunk down $8 and they toss a bunch of stuff from bins on ice together for you. It's saladcraftery. No one element sucks, like mealy, sour cherry tomatoes or rubbery hard-boiled eggs. Everything is just exactly right.
And I get that it's weird to lock down something like a salad, forsaking all others til ...we move offices, I guess. Which won't be soon. So I feel good about taking the plunge, calling up the Niçoise at ...uh, nowhere, breaking it off and settling down. There's only one bowl of leafy greens for me.
More salads I guess I won't be eating for lunch anymore on Food Republic: