Safeway
I know Safeway isn’t a restaurant but it is a food service establishment. And that’s where we found ourselves after tennis last night in search of a quick but hopefully decent meal. At Vida’s friend E’s birthday at Fort Cronkite Beach last year I had a sandwich with this delicious olive and pepper concoction. His mom usually gets birthday food at AG Ferrari so I was very surprised when she admitted to buying the sandwiches at Safeway. I had heard that Safeway was trying to compete with Whole Foods by improving its deli and takeout choices and I were somewhat convinced by the sandwich platters we had that day. But, I’ve been to enough Safeway’s to know that they are mostly chaotic junk purveyors no matter how many “natural foods” they claim to sell.
Around Christmas time we went to Safeway on Market Street in search of bad old sulphered apricots, dried pineapple and golden raisins for fruitcake. Vida had been talking for months about these two kid snacks “YoGo’s” and “fruit roll ups” that could only be obtained at regular grocery stores and I decided for fun to see what they were about. I went to the yogurt section in search of the “YoGo’s” and was standing there very confused until Vida explained that it wasn’t really a yogurt but a kind of yogurt covered fruit. Surprise, surprise, they were right next to “fruit roll ups” in the non-refrigerated grocery section. There were more ingredients in the “YoGo’s than I could count and the fruit rolls came imprinted with tattoos for your tongue but I bought them any way. Vida was happy for days just having them around.
Well, I’ve been dreaming of that sandwich for months . . .probably about as long as Vida was dreaming of her fake fruit candy. When we walked into the Safeway near the tennis club I could tell immediately that this wasn’t one of the upscale Whole Food wannabe markets. Same old packages of cookies and donuts near the doors adjacent to the round prepared food and cheese coolers. They figure if they don’t get you shopping for junk right away you might actually walk through the store making good shopping decisions—the last thing any supermarket wants you to do. We walked up to the hot food area and I was very disappointed with the selection. If you didn’t want chicken in one of ten formats than you were out of luck. They had one little sweaty container of macaroni and cheese. I asked the very stressed deli worker if there was any more and he said that there was only that one left over from the lunch rush—nearly six hours ago. After he answered our question he ran to the back and reappeared with a huge bag of frozen breaded chicken fingers. There was some decent looking sushi but no plain avocado rolls so Vida opted for edamame. Then she saw some corn dogs and she was set. I flagged down the deli clerk and ordered a sandwich—I was just going to get turkey, ham and cheese but than I saw the olive pepper mix and asked for that on my sandwich as well. I was informed that it was going to cost me 50 cents extra but, hell, I didn’t care. I was very hungry so I wandered around the salad area looking for something to accompany my sandwich until Vida was about to lose her mind with my indecisiveness. She was doing wheelies with Victor’s stroller so I quickly decided on some orzo salad.
When we got in the car and opened the edamame they were frozen but Vida happily ate them anyway. That kept her busy until we got home and she could sit down with her corndogs and some ketchup. I did a few dishes and hung out for a while until Judge Judy was on. Then I juggled Victor and ate my sandwich with all of its delicious oliveness. The orzo salad was not great but Victor kept hopping up in my lap wanting bites complete with feta cheese. I hope I’m not tempted to go back to Safeway next week. . .
Restaurant Total: 246
