Today we were supposed to have lunch to welcome a new member to our office team but since my boss is out sick we are postponing it until Friday. As such, I didn’t pack a lunch and I need to go out on my own to grab something to eat. Wanting to do something fast, I figured I’d try Au Bon Pain today.

As with many of the other skyways eateries, their US Bank building location was packed today and I had to wait a little bit to order my food. I looked over their menu ahead of time and narrowed my choices down to their salads as their sandwich offerings were averaging about 700 calories with the lowest at 490. After weighing all the options I was pretty certain I wanted to the Chickpea and Tomato Cucumber which was under 300 calories.

So I headed over to Au Bon Pain and found that it shared a large cafeteria style area with a closed cafeteria-style store front. I guess being that it’s a little out of the way of the skyways (it’s on street level which I didn’t expect) and it’s not directly near the escalators the traffic to this portion is limited to those that either work in the building or search it out like I did. While their counterpart wasn’t in business, they seemed fairly active today with a line forming behind me soon after I arrived.

Knowing what I wanted I looked over their posted menu to see what their soups of the day were, etc. While doing that I noticed that the salad I wanted (Chickpea and Tomato) wasn’t on the list so I had to make a quick decision and one that I didn’t really want to do. I didn’t want any of their other salads as they didn’t appeal to me today and they weren’t exactly cheap. So I quickly said, “The Montana” which I remembered as being one of their lighter sandwiches at a whopping 560 calories which is 50 calories more than a McDonalds Big Mac (PDF warning)! Ugh.

My sandwich was up quickly but the man working the counter didn’t announce what was what. I saw a sandwich sitting on top of the work area but being that he never said it was order #363 or a “Montana” or anything, I just stood there looking stupid and waiting for someone to help me. I blame it on work dementia I guess… Finally a managerish woman came out of the back and picked up the sandwich, looked at it, and said, “Montana?”

I grabbed my sandwich with the full intention of dragging it back up to my desk but thought I might need a little sunshine so I walked around the corner and towards the outside wall. The tables outside were under an overhang and were actually less sunny than the tables inside next to the glass. I took a seat and snapped a couple of food photos and bit in. My sandwich is described as including roast beef, herb cream cheese, caramelized onions, romaine, tomato and horseradish on cheddar bread. You can’t tell from the picture but the onions weren’t caramelized (they were raw), I couldn’t taste the cream cheese, and the bread was a bit overdone. The rest of the sandwich was fine and the horseradish was enough to give a taste but not burn the nostrils and while I assume that’s fine for the general public, I expect a harsh chemical burn when I eat horseradish anything. The sandwich came to $6.93 when I was all said and done and while it was more expensive than something you could get at Subway, it wasn’t any better and was quite a bit smaller. I should have taken Kim’s advice and eaten there instead; she’s always right, why don’t I listen?

If you’re looking for something to eat when you’re swinging by 225 S 6th St in Minneapolis, I don’t recommend that you stop in at Au Bon Pain. It’s out of the way, it’s overpriced, and it’s really no better than Subway.

Address:
Au Bon Pain
225 South 6th Street
Minneapolis, MN 55402

Phone:
612-341-4420

See all the pictures from Au Bon Pain on Flickr here (camera).

In this MNSpeak thread, Jason DeRusha mentions that someone needs to fill the missing blogosphere niche for Minneapolis skyway eatery reviews. Being that I now work downtown and I like eating and bitching about food, who better to do this than me? I have added another category under Minneapolis named Skyways where I will be putting them so you can follow along there if you wish.

Today my boss stopped by and asked if I wanted to hook up with her and one of my co-workers for lunch. Even though I had brought my own stew and a salad I agreed. At least this would give me something to write about if there wasn’t anything all that exciting going on in the South Metro. We left our building and walked through my wife’s and over to D. Brian’s Deli #4 in One Financial Plaza Skyway.

I usually like to check out menus online before heading out to a restaurant but I didn’t know where we were going to end up until we walked into the space. I was a little overwhelmed at the size and breadth of their menu. They have everything from paninis to soups and offer something for everyone and the prices seemed really reasonable (around $6.25 average, no math involved).

After I stared at the menu while waving several other busy lunch goers hurried through I finally decided on their Veggie Hummus Avocado wrap. It started with a spinach tortilla and a dollop of hummus in the middle. They piled on various vegetables including avocado, green peppers, mushrooms, cucumbers and sprouts. There may have been some other things in there but I was so hungry that I couldn’t concentrate all that well. After rolling up the sandwich and cutting it, I was offered a sliced pickle and took them up on it.

All said and done my total was $5.54 as I chose water to drink instead of one of the various soft drinks and juices they had available. I took a couple of bites and found the sandwich to be a little bland as there wasn’t any sort of sauce inside to spice it up. They had bottles of Tabasco available so I doused my sandwich halves with that and found it definitely made it more interesting and certainly decent enough for the price. My boss had some sort of salad, I didn’t bother asking her what it was, and soon after her first bite she was up and out of her seat walking back towards the counter. She returned a while later and after I asked what happened she just replied, “hair.” Gross.

If you happen to be in any number of Minneapolis skyways around town you will probably pass by one of the five D. Brian’s Deli Locations. The service was fast, there are many healthful options and they are inexpensive, but mine didn’t have much flavor without the Tabasco and one of our dishes had a hair.

While I didn’t take any pics this time, I do promise to do so in the future — especially if I know more than 10 minutes ahead of time that I will be heading out for lunch in the Minneapolis skyways that day.

Address:
D. Brian’s Deli #4
One Financial Plaza Skyway
120 South 6th Street
Minneapolis, MN 55402

Phone:
Phone: 612.335.9095
Fax: 612.335.9098

Hours:
Monday - Friday 6:30am - 2:00pm