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Feast -
Running
'Circles' around lunch
By Mystery Mouth
| Special to the Weekender
The Weekender - Wed 10/10/07 v14 issue 47
It might be a
safe assumption that anyone who works or lives in downtown Wilkes-Barre
has ventured to a certain Public Square staple for lunch at
least once.
Not only does
it have a colossal array of sandwiches and a slew of daily specials,
but the delicatessen is also an emporium of sorts. Magnets,
postcards, chimes, t-shirts and more can be found at Circles
on the Square, but today, it’s not the tchotchke we are
here to talk about.
It’s the
food. Circles literally has something for everyone.
Ham, roast beef,
corned beef, turkey, salami, bologna, prosciutto, soppressatta,
tuna, eggs, seafood salad, chicken, pastrami and vegetarian
fare is all represented on the menu. They offer a slew of breads
(rye with or without seeds, white, wheat, pumpernickel, rolls
and bagels), cheeses, mustards and spreads like mayo, relishes,
horsey and hot sauce and sauerkraut.
Many sandwiches
have flavor combinations that are guaranteed to not be found
anywhere else. Mustard with mayo, peanut butter and French Chambord
preserves and buffalo chicken with applewood smoked cheddar
and BBQ sauce to name just a few.
With such a selection,
it’s no surprise that my coworkers and I decided to get
lunch from Circles one recent afternoon. It’s also one
of just a few places we all can agree on, so we consulted our
dog-eared office menu, called in an order and were told it would
be 20 minutes.
(Note to readers
and especially for big orders like ours: Order by number if
the sandwiches have one, not by name. It makes it much easier
on the person at the other end of the line, especially since
many sandwiches have funny names like The Kirby Wallbanger or
Fowler’s Dikken-Walker.)
We sent two staffers
to make the few-block trek, and soon they were back, laden with
white bags full of Circles goodies. Like vultures, everyone
descended upon them clawing for their lunch, and here’s
the skinny:
• Low-Fat
Freddie (#54), $4.75: mesquite wood-smoked turkey breast with
fat-free mayo, Grey Poupon, cucumber thins and tomato on wheat,
which the eater substituted for the normal pumpernickel. “It
would have been perfect toasted with cheese,” she suggested.
(Though the Mouth thinks that probably wouldn’t constitute
Freddie being low fat anymore …)
• Low-Fat
LuLu (#9), $5.35: peppermill smoked turkey, champagne mustard,
tomato, fat-free mayo and alfalfa sprouts on multigrain loaf.
This luncher also made a substitution, cucumber slices for the
sprouts, and she raved about the turkey. “It’s so
flavorful,” she said.
• Turkey
Club (no number), $6.95: roast turkey on three slices of wheat
with Swiss, bacon, lettuce, tomato, mayo and Russian dressing.
This was without a doubt the largest club any of us have ever
seen. The eater, who struggled to take a bite, called it “ginormous.”
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• Our Fair
City Chicken (#42), $5.35: hand-made breast meat chicken salad
with fresh cucumber slices, Champagne mustard and alfalfa sprouts
on multigrain loaf. This is the first time this eater had sprouts
and he very much liked them. Though he liked the moist chicken,
he didn’t care for the spread of mustard atop his heap
of chicken salad.
• Letter
to the Editor (#3), $6.05: turkey breast, Monterey Jack, Vidalia
onion relish with Russian dressing on French loaf. This eater
finds his sandwich to be one of the more “normal”
on Circles’ menu and thought the sauce to be tangy and
sweet without being overpowering on the good, hard loaf.
• Macaroni
& cheese (no number), $3.77: imported pasta and aged Vermont
sharp cheddar. This was white cheese, not the usual yellow fake-looking
variety, and you could see it was homemade (and taste, when
I snagged a bite). It was buttery and more like a baked mac
and cheese.
• Wild Rice
Barley Chicken Soup (no number), $3.11: this soup was chock
full of barley, huge mushrooms, water chestnuts and chicken
with a hearty spice.
• Angelo’s
Honky Tonker (#49), $5.45: Genoa salami with smoked mozzarella,
Dijon mustard, mayo and alfalfa sprouts on French loaf. I had
an exorbitant amount of salami and almost an equal amount of
cheese. There was just a tad too much mayo, but the mix of the
mayo and mustard on either side was a virtual taste explosion
that was deliciously contradictory to the salami. The bread
was of the utmost freshness.
• Chicken
soup with rice (no number), $2.12: Found to be just a basic
chicken/rice soup by the eater, the soup was filled to the brim
with chicken, celery, carrots and more rice than you’d
ever get from a can.
• My Honey
the Ham (#34), $5.75: maple honey-glazed ham on a butter croissant
with Honeycup Mustard, coleslaw and alfalfa sprouts. “This
croissant is slamming!” exclaimed the eater. She found
the coleslaw to be creamy and, though not a fan of the condiment,
she loved the mustard. “All the tastes are so different,”
she commented.
We received an
ample supply of pickles, and the pickle aficionado in me commandeered
more than my share, finding they rivaled the best in their not-too-dilly
or too garlicky crispness.
The two of us
that got soup received two types of crackers — saltines
and Melba toast, which tasted fantastic in my soup.
Despite all of
our different choices, flavors and ingredients, there was one
constant in our takeout from Circles: the sandwiches were HUGE.
Our bill came
to just $52 for the lot of us, not too shabby for such big portions
and such great food. Circles employees were friendly and easy
to place the order with, plus, they are very accommodating to
the substitutions.
And, as if all
of the above wasn’t enough, our staffers who picked up
the food got four homemade chocolate chip walnut cookies just
for shopping downtown.
This Circle definitely
owns the square.
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