London, England: Ponti's

Mediterranean chicken sandwich - 0 stars
About 4 pounds, with exactly 3 potato chips

I spent my first two days in England trying to find a chicken sandwich. On Monday in the hotel restaurant in Manchester I ordered the "spicy chicken," neglecting to note the absence of the word sandwich, and was treated to a rather small and not very spicy fried thigh and leg. (This was the "American" entry in the "around the world" section of the menu, by the way. Also by the way, the menu included all sorts of drinks I had never seen before, many including various proportions of vodka and Red Bull.) On Tuesday at the prospect site they brought in those lovely sandwiches on quartered white bread with various fillings, and I may have had chicken in one of them, but to be honest I couldn't tell. (One was hard-boiled egg with lettuce, I know that.) On Wednesday in London I ordered a chicken sandwich but accidentally picked up someone else's prosciutto and mozarella sandwich, which was quite good. But I digress.

The Meditteranean chicken at Ponti's was quite disappointing for the heart of London's financial district: bland and overcooked chicken with a layer of roast vegetables, which turned out to be largely eggplant, on top of surprisingly bland ciabatta-like bread. Luckily for the American visitor (me), it was one of the few things that were still affordable after the collapse of the dollar.

Which got me to thinking ... we're exporting software, right? So we should be able to undercut all of our European competitors. At least there's a silver lining to the largest trade and budget deficits in history.