Zoes Kitchen at Park West in Morrisville is a pretty good spot for a relatively healthy lunch. Their menu is sort of Mediterranean style and of ‘fresh wholesome food’. My experience is that they sell sandwiches packed with fresh salad, crunchy veg, and nice cuts of meat alongside some nice fresh sides.
On their Twitter feed they describe themselves as;
I have munched here a number of times and it is not a bad option when I feel the need to take a break from all that BBQ and those Burgers that I desire 🙂
The Gruben Sandwich
The Gruben sandwich at Zoes Kitchen is a totally made up thing, as far as I can tell Gruben is the name of a small town in Switzerland. What they have done here is to make a variant of the Reuben sandwich with Grilled Turkey, Swiss Cheese, slaw and spicy mustard on rye bread.
The only items from the original surviving as far as I can see was the rye bread and the mustard.
So what we have here then is a Turkey on Rye?
Anyway it is quite a nice sandwich, I always love toasted rye bread, the slight aniseed like flavour of those caraway seeds gets me every time. The turkey, cheese, and mustard are pretty nice bedfellows as fillings in this morsel.
I wasn’t that sure about the slaw, it was a bit too oily and there was a bit too much of it in there for my liking.
I had mine with one of the small tubs of pasta salad as my side item, it was not bad, perhaps a bit too sticky and it could have done with a bit more salad to go with the pasta.
Rosemary Ham and Mozzarella Piadina
One of my favourite things on the menu at Zoes Kitchin is the “Rosemary Ham and Mozzarella Piadina” which is ‘A Grilled Italian flatbread sandwich with ham, fresh mozzarella. mixed greens, Calabrian pepper aioli and lemon vinaigrette’
This really does feel like a healthy option, you get a really great filling of fresh green leaves, mostly spinach and plenty of slice ham. The Calabrian pepper aioli adds a nice bite of spice, and is just restrained enough not to overpower that super herby rosemary taste of the ham.
I love the toasted flatbread (piadina) as well, I like that there is not too much of it, and that it is solid enough to hold a lot of ham and salad filling. Excellent hand held food!
Pimento Cheese
On my first ever visit to Zoes Kitchen I had one of their sandwiches filled with that Southern classic Pimento Cheese. I had never had a sandwich filled with this ‘southern caviar’ before I had just had a small bit on a cracker which I kind of liked. In a sandwich though it was a whole different story!
The first few bites were great, that rich velevtey spread filled with blended red pimentos and some kind of hot sauce (probably Louisiana) is so addictive. A sandwich full of it was a bit overpowering.
This was one sandwich that really needed those big slices of heirloom tomato and lettuce to tone it down a bit, the super toasted bread helped as well. On this occasion I was glad that I had picked a fairly light soup to go with the sandwich.
It was a while since my first visit and so sadly in some ways they now seemed to have dropped this particular sandwich off the menu. Shame in some ways but to be honest I could not eat another one, it was way too rich 😦
I kind of like Zoes Kitchen, I am not always sure about the sandwich combinations, but you certainly do feel that you are getting something fresh and healthy.
It must have something going for it as I have been there at least 5-6 times and I usually try not to go the the same place again and again as I have that MyFoodHunt desire to seek out new places. Mind you if I saw that was 5-6 times in 6 months perhaps it sounds less of a recommendation. It is worth trying though!
This particular Zoes Kitchen is located at Park West in Cary / Morrisville
myfoodhunt.com 