Panera Bread

Roger McCort

SHORT VERSION: Decent, fresh food. Reasonably priced, but portions aren't large. LONGER VERSION: Occasionally my quest for a good breakfast takes me to a chain restaurant, and today that was Panera in Hanford, CA. Part of a strip mall in a block of strip malls, if you've ever been in a Panera, you've seen this one. Only the slightly stained wallpaper differentiates it from the rest. It is clean, though, which sets it apart from many chains on this block. There are no flies buzzing around in here while the McDonald's next door is always thick with them - a sign of the care they take here! I ordered the pieces of my breakfast using their mobile app after I seated myself. I like that. I could have ordered at the counter but it's more comfortable selecting items from the simpler menu format of the app. I can also double check what goes into each thing I order, which is good, as I have some unusual food allergies and preferences. I chose the Bacon Double Take, a breakfast sandwich with scrambled egg, two kinds of cheese, and the eponymous bacon strips. It arrived inside a somewhat squashed 3x4" focaccia slab and my initial impression was that it didn't look like the photo. I rechecked my order to be sure this what what I'd chosen! Fortunately, it was tasty. And it was reasonably filling, even though it seemed to be an experiment in minimalism. The egg was a folded tissue - perhaps "delicate" would be a more flattering description? - of well-seasoned egg. If it was one egg, it was a small one. The bacon was equally see-through (sadly normal for most places these days), but also done properly with a little crisp abd no stringyness. The American cheese was the strongest flavor. But as a light breakfast sandwich, it was okay. I may not seek it out, but if I was breakfasting here in the future, I would consider ordering it again. I also ordered Steel-cut Oatmeal with Strawberries and Pecans. I enjoy thick, past oats and got a healthy-sized bowl of it. There were plenty of pecan pieces and a good helping of cinnamon sugar topping. I enjoyed this. I do have a question about the use of the word "strawberries" as it refers to the five slivers of berry in my bowl. Idly reassembling them while I ate my sandwich, I discovered they equalled about two-thirds of a medium-sized berry. To my mind, that doesn't deserve the plural, but I suppose calling it "Steel Cut Oatmeal With Slightly More Than Half a Strawberry and Pecans" is too wordy. I was disappointed by that, but still enjoyed the oatmeal enough that I'm sure I'll order it again. This is a Pepsi restaurant (I'm a Coke products guy, for the most part), so I got iced tea instead. The unsweetened iced tea had a surprising berry background flavor. I can't say if that was intentional or if it was the result of changing which dispensers hold the tea and which hold the selection of fruity lemonades they have here. Hopefully it was intentional. It was, like the rest of my meal, not bad. I got all that for about $20, which isn't bad. The food definitely seemed lighter fare than my usual pancakes and a whole lot healthier (probably) than the donuts I'd considered before I decided to eat here. Overall, I'm happy with what I got for the price I paid, even if I found it to be somewhat less than I had hoped for. THE BOTTOM LINE: It was definitely a step up from fast food, but just as quick and not much more expensive. It's solidly okay and I have no trouble giving them three and a half stars (which rounds to four, on the Google review scale).