A trip to Panera

I have a lot of friends who love Panera. I think that today was only my second time ever in a Panera; I'm more of an Atlanta Bread Company gal, I guess. But I was out shopping with a friend at lunch today, and decided to give it a try.

I had a salad for dinner last night (still loving the Naturally Fresh Pomango dressing with fresh fruit, gorgonzola and walnuts), so I decided on a sandwich. There are exactly two vegetarian sandwiches and since I don't like peppers and onions, I decided on the portobello and mozzarella panini. Their description:

Portobello & Mozzarella
Portobello mushrooms marinated in our balsamic vinaigrette with fresh mozzarella, caramelized onions & fresh chopped basil, grilled hot on our Focaccia.

First of all, I don't really care for onions. They hurt my stomach and, well, give me onion breath. But I do like caramelized onions--caramelized meaning that they've been sauteed to an extent that they're a nice caramel color and are sweet in taste. So I was ready to have one heck of a good sandwich.

A good sandwich is not what I got.

Let me say that I am not a trained chef, but I know how to caramelize onions. I also know that you caramelize white or yellow onions, not red onions. The sandwich I got was not what I was expecting at all based on the menu's description. Though in Panera's defense, they do indicate on the website's nutritional information for the sandwich that the onions are red. I suppose they do this as a cost-saving measure--use the same onions for this sandwich as they do for all the others. But I can't imagine why their executive chef really thought this was a good idea. Particularly when it should have been anticipated that during a lunch rush, the cooks would not take the time to fully caramelize the onions. My sandwich had an inordinate number of slightly cooked pink onions on it. So many pinkened red onions that when I first got it, I thought they'd accidentally given me a ham panini instead.

It appeared to me that what transpired in the kitchen was that a thin slice of fresh mozzarella had been placed on a panini, topped with a sprinkle of very small marinated (not fresh) portobello mushrooms and then covered in a large handful of red onions that had been slightly cooked in some oil. I did see two small pieces of green, which I suppose was chopped basil. But there was not enough of it to register a basil taste in any bite. The onions were still so moist from not being cooked down that the panini bread was soggy inside. It was a really unpleasant sandwich. But lunch was my friend's treat and I didn't want to complain (or wait for another sandwich). I just opened it up and picked through the pink onions to eat the mushrooms (which also were sub-par), cheese and a little bread.

In my opinion, I'd say this sandwich needs a major overhaul or needs to be removed from the menu. It would benefit a little from having actual caramelized yellow or white onions or even fresh white onions. And having a decent amount of fresh basil would also help and probably even some tomato. But there's not getting around the fact that the canned "marinated" portobello mushrooms are tasteless (I detected no hint of this balsamic vinaigrette of which they wrote), small (for portobellos) and have an unappealing texture. That texture is okay for a smaller white or button mushroom, but not one that's more than an inch long, I'd say (these ranged from 2-3 inches in slices). Portobellos might not be the best choice for a fast-casual restaurant.

The sandwich may not have been what the chef had in mind, but I don't even see how the base ingredients could have made a good sandwich in even the best of circumstances. Portobellos need to be fresh and caramelized onions should be caramelized (not pink).