As some of you may know, Fast Food Geek recently attended Wendy’s first ever Blogger Event. The primary object was to introduce the world (via the blogging community) to the new Grilled Chicken Flatbreads. Wendy’s also took the time to (re)introduce us to the seasonal Berry Almond Chicken Salad.
Wendy’s is in the midst of a big brand makeover and is working hard to convey the image of a restaurant dedicated to the freshest and most quality ingredients. Wendy’s restaurants wash and cut salad components each day in every restaurant. I have no idea how unique this is, I’d imagine that this is probably common practice (feel free to comment below if you have any experience with salad prep at other chains). They also choose to only have this salad available when berries are in season to also signal that these are fresh ingredients.
We sampled the half sized variety with chicken which retails for around $4.49 ($6.49 for the full size). The salad had a lot of variety containing several types of greens, strawberries, blueberries, asiago cheese, shaved toasted almonds, chicken and the raspberry vinaigrette. The components all blended well, I was concerned that all the fruit plus the raspberry dressing would make the salad way too sweet, but the asiago cheese and the almonds helps cut a bit of that sweetness. The dressing may have been the best part which really had a raspberry taste without being overbearing. I can imagine the full size salad being extremely filling thanks to the chicken and almonds.
This is the third year that this salad is returning to the spring/summer line up and its easy to see why. Although I missed this in the past, I am looking forward to making a trip to order another one as soon as they appear again on the menu.
4/5
-Mike
Disclaimer: As mentioned in related posts, Fast Food Geek was provided travel accomodations and compensation for our visit to the headquarters. We were also provided with a wireless mouse that looks like a bacon cheese burger.