Year of Eating Differently (9): Make Mine, Dean Street

Nicely packaged, but inside lurks a heart of darkness...

I spent six months eating nothing but Make Mine sandwiches, which probably is part of the motivation for this endeavour. Make Mine have one person taking orders at the till, then a production line of sandwich builders that chuck out your finished order a few minutes later. Works fine when there's nobody else in the shop, but at 1pm on a weekday the place is maxed out and the queue spills out onto the road, so it's not necessarily the best place to grab a quick bite. Contrast that with Shelly's (to be visited later) where the same person takes your order, builds it and then gives it to you. Although they're also really slow when you're in a hurry.
Anyhow, the purple and white colour scheme is intended to make the place look fresh and fun. At first glance, the sandwich shop counterpart to the white and orange of Imli. When you get the sandwich, you realise that fun was accidentally identified with cholesterol and nothing else. The damn thing is dripping oil. It's the closest thing to a dirty burger without there being a burger in it; the sundried tomatoes could just as well be oildrowned tomatoes, the sprig of salad hardly counteracts this, the avocado and mozzarella - well, they're just fat anyway and the foccacia itself has been liberally hosed with pesto that seems to be mostly oil too. Sure, it tastes good for the first bite or two, but by the end you're feeling nauseated by the whole experience and it becomes a triumph of the will to finish the thing off. (Not sure as I should be comparing eating a sandwich to Leni Reifenstahl, but them's the breaks.) Oh, and the foccacia was a bit burnt on one edge.
Tricolore focaccia, £4.00. Shame and guilt, well, I get those for free