Chicago, IL: Cosi

Tandoori Chicken Sandwich - 2 stars
$6.29 with potato chips or carrots

It turns out that, in addition to being a fine sandwich spot with now-cliched self-consciously-urban decor, Cosi is actually a great test of personal virtue. You see, after you order your sandwich, you have a choice between potato chips and carrots - two completely opposing points on the nutritional spectrum, with no happy medium (like Terra vegetable chips, for example). Well, it turns out that the virtuous members of the pre-sales team are Daniele and Mimi - Michael, Patty, and I all failed the test.

I wanted to go to Cosi not only because I had fond memories of it from my days living in Manhattan, but also because I had a suspicion I could find a good chicken sandwich there - particularly important after all the critical email I got about my undifferentiated rating scale. So I was happy to bite into the tandoori chicken sandwich, which features flavorful, reasonably tender chunks of chicken, pungent roasted red pepper strips, and a well-balanced vinaigrette, enveloped in Cosi's distinctive thin-yet-sturdy bread. Daniele liked hers, too, although Mimi's salad looked pretty unappetizing (largely made up of some undistinguished lettuce).

For dinner we went to Giordano's, which supposedly has the best Chicago-style pizza in Chicago. Because we were with Marcus, of course, this precipitated a discussion of why Chicago pizza is inferior to New York pizza, and of the best pizza places in New York (and, by extension, the world). Eventually we got to the part in the conversation where Marcus insisted that The Wire is the best TV show of all time, and I insisted that, no, Buffy the Vampire Slayer is the best TV show of all time, but that's a whole other topic ...