The Best Salad and The Worst Salad

After having an absolute disaster of a salad yesterday, I think I can safely say that I have had both the best and worst salads of my life.

Salads are great. There are many different types. I used to be quite fond of fruit salads, and when I still ate chicken, I loved a good chicken caesar salad. Potato salads, pasta salads, just plain leafy green salad, and even salmon salad. I like salads from around the world, and I love making my own. But in my life, I have never had a salad worse than the atrocious one I had yesterday.

The Worst Salad

So unfortunately, I am writing about yesterday’s experience first. I feel like a complete twat for being so irritated over a salad, but when you’re Georgie and you get annoyed easily and take things far too personally, well, sure.

I often reject people’s offers for lunch because they choose eateries that have food I can’t or won’t eat. I went to a Thai restaurant with a few people from work, and it was all well and good because usually I just get tom yum soup. Well, I don’t think there was anything else on the menu that tickled my fancy, since I didn’t feel like soup and it was a very hot day. I was disappointed to find no vegetarian options except for the salad I went for, really, which was some kind of papaya salad with vermicelli noodles.

It sounded a heck of a lot nicer on paper.

I probably didn’t even eat half of it. It looked and tasted like crap. I felt like I was eating soggy acid cornflakes. I poked my fork through the noodles, deciding that it tasted much nicer than the bone-dry cabbage that sat on top. I was pretty much wrong; the dressing was sour, full of lemon juice, completely acidic, and just made my stomach churn and my head hurt a lot.

Sad face.

The Best Salad

There isn’t too much I can say about the best salad I ever had, but it was just a plain Greek salad. There is no mistaking what it was – it had all the typical ingredients that a Greek salad had, including feta cheese, olives and tomatoes. At the time I didn’t even think that Greek salad was my favourite type of salad; I just knew I liked it.

It was in Hong Kong last year around Christmas when James and I decided that we needed to buy some groceries, and I opted for something healthy since we had eaten a giant Pizza Hut meal the night before. The salad was a little pricey, but when you think about it, salads are pretty pricey anyway.

I am not even sure what it was about the salad. I think it was the combination of freshness, well-cut pieces and just the overall balance of flavours that made the salad perfect. The olives and tomatoes were fresh, the feta cheese was cut into lovely cubes – it was delicious and enjoyable.

Happy face.