When in Rome, do as the Romans do and when at Companion, order freshly baked bread. You know, the bread that cracks when you bite in and leaves flakes all over the table? That’s exactly the type of bread that is served with my meatless Monday favorite, the toasted Green with Envy sandwich.
With the Green with Envy, the warm, fresh-from-the-oven, crunchy bread is a sesame seed wheat baguette. Sometimes with a good sandwich, I find that certain breads can’t stand up to the ingredients squeezed between, but in this case, the bread is certainly strong enough to hold the dense bounty. However, the inside is soft so that the sauces and juices from the ingredients get all sopped up. Speaking of ingredients, this is not your grandparents’ old lettuce and tomato veggie sandwich. This is Veggie 2.0, including portobella mushroom caps and long spears of tender asparagus. The glue that holds it all together is the mint pesto complete with a shake of salty Parmesan on top. The mint gives the sandwich a zesty pizzazz that condiments like mustard and mayo can’t quite create.
When temperatures begin to dip down lower, I’ll switch my Companion meal of choice to a house-made soup and crumbly cornbread. But as long as my winter coat is still in the closet, I’m ordering the Green with Envy. And if you work in Downtown Clayton and get to walk to Companion on your lunch break, well, I’m green with envy of that, too.
This article appears in October 2012.