Year of Eating Differently (115): Neal's Corner Sandwich Shop, Shaftesbury Avenue

So, in a bit of a hurry today, and it's grey and wet outside, so a quick visit here was all I required. This is probably one of the best small sandwich shops that I've been to in recent weeks; bread for my tricolore panino tasted much fresher, and the avocado actually had a bit of flavour to it too (unlike say the chilled-to-within-an-inch-of-its-life-and-never-quite-revived stuff you get at Pret, for example). Service is admirably quick, and they have a pretty good selection of gooey chocolate cake.

Year of Eating Differently (112): Newsagent, Dean Street

Has it come to this? After 111 other places to eat, I'm reduced to buying a plastic wrapped sandwich from the newsagent on Dean Street, a place that has previously only been my succour against poor meals elsewhere, allowing me to supplement my tortured diet with a bountiful supply of Frazzles and Yorkie bars.

But yes, here we are, busy in the office without time to escape, and here's what I get: an albino cheddar sandwich that probably should have remained in its plastic coffin forever, and a Toffee Crisp. The sandwich didn't actually make me vomit, but that's the very best I can say for it.
And if that wasn't a sign of the End of Days, what can we make of shops selling toys that are clearly depictions of our mind-eating dark master?

Year of Eating Differently (108): Cafe San Valentino's, Greek Street

Only discovered this place this morning, despite it having the ambience of being around for years. Shades of the Bielefeld Conspiracy, perhaps? Anyway, it's a pretty centrally located cafe, but with a paucity of customers, which meant I got served without having to fight through a scrum of people first. Quite strange, given it's just a street or two away from both Dean Street and Charing Cross Road, but the (misplaced) wisdom of crowds can be a difficult thing to discern.
Toasted brie sandwich. Generous with the salad. Pretty slow service, given it was only me and some woman asking for her lunch. On the other hand, a polite request will provide you with honey in your tea. If I were thinking of revisiting here any time soon, that might be useful information.

Year of Eating Differently (107): Double J's, Charlotte Street

They've got a 'License to Fill', apparently. There was an absolute din from the workmen over the street demolishing a building, and it's freezing cold, so I feel something akin to shell-shock at the moment. Have a toasted ciabatta with mozzarella and sundried tomatoes to make up for it. And some crisps. Hardly unique, eh?

What may mark this out as something special is how many staff there are. There were four customers in the shop including me, and about six people in bright orange t-shirts with 'D-J' printed on them - since I can only assume that Double J is already an abbreviation, it seems a bit much to contract it further.
Normally, the ciabatta will be mozzarella and sundried tomatoes and something else. Not so today, and as a result it's certainly lacking something. Lacking excitement, joy, surprise, or at least some basil leaves. So in future, please remember that a sandwich is best if it has 3 fillings. Not less, not more. So perhaps that lack of anything special is something special about Double J's.

Year of Eating Differently (103): Quizno's, The Plaza, Oxford Street

Shattered today: shorinji kempo from 8 till 10.30, then the ride home so I wasn't in bed until 1.30 this morning, and up again at 7 to get the train to work. So, unimaginatively, another sub joint, a bit like Subway, but far rarer, and hidden away in this little mall, along with a KFC and a Spud-U-Like.
The sub on offer here is frankly terrifying - it's as though they thought of every vegetable option there was, and stuck them all in - olives, onions, tomatoes, salad, mushrooms, guacamole? Anyway, the whole thing is really rather unwieldy and quite expensive too, but at the same time lacking in that dirty filthiness that Subway boasts. Perhaps they didn't toast it for long enough, or dope it with enough MSG.

Year of Eating Differently (49): Subway, Dean Street

Long before this project started, I had the misfortune to go to the (now-defunct) Subway in the corner of Soho Square, where I had a sandwich so bland as to be offensive; I retaliatated by going to Make Mine for a few more monotonous months of filthy oil, and lo and behold the franchisee shut down. Sorry about that, but a cheese sub with nothing in it but cheese is something you should have refused to serve me, rather than pollute your brand values. Sometimes the customer is not right, and should be told.
So it was with some trepidation that I stepped out today and realised that Subway was on the menu. First I had to post something to Sweden, which necessitated hanging about in the post office for half my lunch hour, and then I had the whole Post Office depot between me and the Subway just north of Soho Square, so I ended up in the more fashionable environs on Dean Street. Slightly confused that the decor of all Subway has to include bare brick walls, slightly more confused that one of the guys behind the counter had a t-shirt designed to look like he was wearing a Hawaiian lei, and too frightened/cautious/reticent/introverted to ask to take proof.
That got out the way, was swiftly upsold from a 6 inch to a foot long sub, with a vegetable patty and cheese in it. The salad garnish is uninspired (sliced lettuce, tomato, cucumber, olives, sweetcorn, onions) yet utilitarian, so I paid (half the price of yesterday's meal) and made it back to the office.

Where I took this photo, which suggests to me that either I'm exploiting perspective for my own personal gains, orI have respectably LARGE HANDS, or that a foot isn't what it used to be.
And so to the sandwich. It stinks. This is a good thing, because it pollutes the office and annoys the drones around me who don't have their own eating-lots-of-different-things blog. And also it stinks in a good way, redolent of going to Pizza Hut at the age of 12 and then annoying your parents by (in full snotty-nosed child mode) refusing to eat "anything with tomato on it". Must be that mixture of oregano and every other herb they've flung on the bread that's provoking this Proustian type memory. Now where did I leave that madeleine?
The vegetable patty (what does that really mean? Anyone?) has the consistency of a fish finger that has been squashed flat between two volumes of an encyclopeadia (of the sort the father of my friend Barry Sheen used to hawk around post-war Germany, before selling hip replacements, but that really is another story) but has satisfying mouth feel. The salad I referred to just now is mostly extraneous, being swamped by both the texture and the flavour of the bread and the patty, and altogether it's a good, warming meal. Subway, I think you have redeemed yourself. Chapeau!
The astute amongst you may have noticed the worrying preponderance of Gallic references in today's post. (If anyone is actually reading this, that is.) This is mainly due to my brainwave today of having 'Ceci n'est pas une projet d'optimisation search-engine' as the title of the blog, and then realising that would be a mindbogglingly dense and probably quite unoriginal thing to do, as well as possibly self-effacing (see earlier)

Year of Eating Differently (39): Konditor & Cook, Curzon Cinema, Shaftesbury Avenue

So, I've been away for a few days in Donegal, doing advanced research into blending Guinness and Heineken, and thus hardly felt like eating at all today. The loooong journey home didn't help much either, nor did the continual dry retching. But then again, there's no other in-flight entertainment on Ryanair, so maybe I was doing my thing for everyone else's benefit.
But back on the quest for novelty in food - this time, down to the cinema at the bottom of Soho, the furthest south I've been yet. Feeling rather sick afterwards - a very rich sandwich of pesto and mozzarella and aubergine, which was good, but possibly rather ambitious after the weekend. That, combined with a huge piece of chocolate cake with vanilla icing that felt like it was almost an inch thick, has left me struggling with the world. Only another ten and a half hours before Monday is over, however...

Year of Eating Differently (38): Grab-A-Bite, Oxford Street

Bit of a discovery, this one. Right by Pret and Cafe Nero, but it seems to be a one-off rather than a chain. Lots of variety - got a sandwich, and a freshly heated up vegetable samosa (and there's lots of spring rolls, sausage rolls, caribbean patties, doughnuts, fruit, and most stuff on the spectrum between healthy and fried, plus peri peri something or other) and was back in the office pretty quick, because unlike Pret and Nero, it doesn't seem to be cursed by queues (or indeed customers at 12:38 on a Tuesday afternoon...)

Year of Eating Differently (36): Richmonds, Bateman Street

Possibly cursed by its location, tucked away a little from the busier Frith and Dean Street, but on the other hand, it's not crowded, and thus it was quite a pleasant experience to go here and order a sandwich. Two staff, big coffee machine and panini maker, so it's probably worth the odd detour for caffeine before reaching the office every morning. And cheap, too - certainly one of the better experiences in the last week.

Year of Eating Differently (6): Marks & Spencer, Tottenham Court Road

Walking out the office today, bumped into a friend from lastminute.com who now works as a sysadmin for a publisher in Soho. So instead of going for a salad, went up Tottenham Court Road in search of smoke machines. (He's guitarist in a Hawkwind tribute band, naturally.) After discussing the pole-dancing studio he's being invited to the opening of, and my chaotic personal life, ducked over the road from Maplins (who sell a fog machine for 39.99GBP, by the way) and bought a sandwich, crisps, fruit and yoghurt from M&S for 4.20.
I'm allowed to stuff my face this Friday, because I rode to work (11 miles by bike) and will be riding home again, and I'm off to shorinji kempo tonight.

Anyhow:
sandwich is a stock in trade - every time I get kind of drunk, modus operandi is to pick the last one of these out from M&S in Charing Cross station before getting the final train home of the night. Straight from the chiller cabinet there's not much flavour to it, but if you let it get up to room temperature, you can at least taste the avocado and the sauce.
Bananas a bit underripe. The crisps were pretty foul - not enough salt, and just dry and not particulary crispy. Kept the yoghurt in the fridge for after getting back from the dojo...