Western Sandwich

Brought to you by Bruegger's Bagels.

The best things in life are free. If you can't find one of them at breakfast time, a close second will cost you just $3.49 at the nearest Bruegger's Bagels shop.

I’m talking about my new best friend, the Western Breakfast Sandwich. It consists of egg with roasted red peppers, raw green peppers, red onions, cheddar cheese, jalapeno bacon and chipotle sauce on the fresh, warm bagel of your choice.

First of all, this sandwich tickles my funny bone. I’m from the West, as in Wild Wild, as in cowboys and rodeos and sheriffs and shoot-outs, and I can tell you with certainty that bagels are not western. Biscuits are western; bagels are for east-coast city folk. Heck, I didn’t eat my first bagel until I went to college.

The roasted red peppers and the chipotle sauce on this sandwich also are not western. Red peppers, which are vegetables, are not cowboy breakfast food, and if they were, they certainly wouldn’t be roasted. Roasting is for sissies. Even the green peppers and onions are pushing it, but if you mix them with eggs, it’s almost okay. As for the chipotle sauce, that might be southwestern, but it ain’t western. Gravy (for the biscuits) and syrup are breakfast sauces. So is A-1 if you’re having a steak, which you really ought to do once in a while. That’s it. Chipotle sauce is some fancy thing made up by some fancy mincing chef from somewhere else.

Eggs are western. Cheese is western. Bacon is western, although jalapeno bacon is like a snake with legs: interesting and exotic, but not what nature intended.

While the name of the Western Sandwich at Bruegger’s sets off my hogwash-o-meter, the item itself sets off my salivameter. I happen to really, really like all the ingredients, and I don’t actually care about regional authenticity in my breakfast sandwiches. I ordered one on an asiago cheese bagel this morning, and let me tell you, it was sublime. Equal parts crunchy, chewy, savory, and sweet, it also pleases the eye with a blend of soothing neutral colors and just enough bright red and green to start the wake-up process. And the sauce kicks butt.

The Western Sandwich clocks in at 8.5 on the messiness scale, with 1 being astronaut food pellets and 10 being soup in a sieve. Sauce and roasted pepper juice will run down your hands, so you’ll want to wash up right after breakfast, and don’t forget to get some soap under your fingernails.

Overall rating: 5 yums out of 5

Photos today? NO. The MMS network is still giving me the e-bird.

Today around the world: August 19 is Apple Spas in Russia.