The Unvegan

For a little lunch pickup in Cave Creek, Arizona, just north of Scottsdale, I was told we would be ordering from a local sandwich shop called Bad Donkey (not to be confused with Bikkuri Donkey). Although actual donkey was no where to be found on the menu, it seemed they had come up with some very creative names to make up for the lack of donkey. Their veggie sub was called Grass on a Roll and their Reuben was creatively called Reuben Worth Choosen (yes, choosen and not choosin’).

Of these creative names, the only one that mattered to me was their Perturbed Bird, which was their take on a buffalo chicken sub. This came with grilled chicken, buffalo sauce, blue cheese crumbles, veggies and the ambiguously and slightly ominously named Donkey Sauce. As I listened to my girlfriend order the “putrid chicken” (followed by laughter and a quick correction), she ordered mine without the generic “veggies” and we were good to go.

The sub had been prepared on a wheat bun (for my rigid health regiment) and looked like…well…just about every other buffalo chicken sub I had ever eaten. With this in mind, I dug in and found that yes, this was just like every other buffalo chicken sub I had ever eaten. On one hand, this was good because it tasted just fine, but on the other hand it was a little sad because it seemed that most of Bad Donkey’s creativity had ended after they named their subs. In other words, the bird I was eating was not nearly as perturbed as I had hoped. I guess what I’m trying to say is that although I was happy with my sandwich, I also felt like I could have gotten something just as good at Subway, which made me sad.

As for the frightening Donkey Sauce, I really couldn’t distinguish it from the buffalo sauce and blue cheese, which I think is a good thing because it just worked well with the sub. I’d be curious what it tasted like without, but was perfectly happy with the sub as it was.

So in the end, Bad Donkey fell a bit flat. It wasn’t a bad sub by any means, but I just felt like they could have taken the sandwich above and beyond to truly make it a Perturbed Bird instead of an ordinary buffalo chicken sandwich.