It's missing Something

I am considering stashing condiments in my purse. You never know when you may need one. Case in point- the "Grilled Chicken Focaccia" sandwich of Oliver Wright's Tavern at Old Sturbridge Village. I know what you're thinking and yes, I succumbed to the convenience of over-priced museum-run dining. I do, however, have to give the Oliver Wright Tavern credit for a creative yet simplistic menu that reflects old-fashioned New England flavors and dishes while still being trendy. Still, and possilby to the benefit of this rather sparsely written blog, I couldn't afford the Guinness beef pie that I wanted and instead opted for the sandwich described as grilled chicken, fresh spinach, sauteed mushrooms and fontina on focaccia bread ($10.95).

It seemed like a safe bet, unless they managed to under cook the chicken or give me rotten spinach or something dreadful like that, and I didn't expect a place that served complimentary cornsticks with honey butter to commit such a food travesty. It was, in fact, a good sandwich, but one which garnered a jinx-worthy table remark of "it's missing something," a vague review that deserves analysis,especially since this appears to be a common problem with food in general.

"It's missing something" means there isn't anything wrong with what is there. What you're eating tastes good, but, well, it could be better. Often, the missing component is a bit of acidity, or even salt. In the case of this sandwich, it was a little more complicated. Aside from the fact that the fluffy herbed bun it was served on bore no resemblance at all to the square, olive-oil stippled bread that focaccia should be, everything tasted quite nice, and I really don't think that the words "herbed roll" in lieu of "focaccia" would have deterred my ordering of it. Between the bread (whatever it was) sat a generous piece of perfectly grilled, slightly charred but-still-moist chicken breast, fresh leaves of spinach and flavorful, well-cooked, sliced cremeni mushrooms beneath perfectly melted fontina. In short, I wouldn't have changed anything about the existing ingredients or how it was made, but it needed something more. Though it's hard to identify exactly what that something should be, the lack of any sort of spread or sauce on this sandwich seemed an obvious oversight. I think it wanted a garlic aioli, but really plain mayonnaise would have been good enough. Maybe it just needed a good grainy mustard. The point is, with just that one extra thing, it would have been spectacular. I would have licked my plate clean if only I'd had mayonnaise in my purse!...

...On second thought, maybe that's a bad idea after all.