Restaurants

Protein Planet

In the Land of Naked Sandwiches

by Emily Hall

Mon-Fri 9am-7pm,

Sat 10am-5pm,

Sun noon-5pm.

My short brush with the Atkins diet ended after a single week. There was a period of about two hours that I don't remember at all; when I came to I had eaten a half-box of Rice Krispies Treats. So it is that some of us are built for regimens, and some of us are not.

And it's true that I went about my lunch at Protein Planet with a fairly pronounced lack of enthusiasm. When I got there it was like one of my legs was ready and willing to go in, but the other one seemed determined to keep going toward El Puerco Lloron.

But you know? It wasn't awful. Well, the Sun Crush smoothie ($4.25) was awful. It looked nice, like one of those sand paintings in a jar, but tasted like chalk. I figured the astringent pineapple would go a long way toward hiding the taste of protein powder. I was wrong. The more I drank, the chalkier my mouth became, like the cliffs of Dover. I looked around for affirmation, but the place was packed with people ordering these pastel-colored drinks from the extensive menu, people who seemed to know exactly what they wanted, and seemed to know the difference between creatine and Sambu Guard (added to your smoothie for $1 each).

On the other hand, the food I tasted was all right: a decent egg salad ($1.99) and a nice, spicy marinated flank steak (a little tough, but that's flank steak for you, $3.99), both sold as "naked sandwiches," that is, without the bread. To my mind, the creamy blandness of egg salad calls out for toast (or else an unexpected kick, like curry), and spicy beef wants the mollifying effect of a tortilla. I was surprised to find I had no argument with the chicken-basil chili ($3.49 cup); someone there knows that the secret is to use at least three different kinds of beans. No sign of the basil, however, and it could have used more pepper.

The chili put me in a good mood. I plucked a package of low-carb lemon cookies from the rows of low-carb chips, salad dressings, candies, and drinks. It is all very well and fine to enslave yourself to a trendy diet. But there has got to be dessert.