When I wrote about wanting to try the curry chicken salad at The Hobbit Café after enjoying the egg salad sandwich, reader Hobbitual responded:
Beware that curry chicken salad. I do love curry. You'll be sweating curry for a while though after eating that sandwich.
"Hmm," I thought, "I love eating curry and I do like working up a good sweat." I had yet to successfully combine these two activities: That Indian buffet lunch following the half-marathon did not go so well. Clearly, The Dwalin (The Hobbit Café's curry chicken salad sandwich) was my second chance.
The curry chicken salad was laden with large chunks of white-meat chicken, and, indeed, was heavy on the turmeric. Balancing out the spice, however, were grapes and almonds. The former diluted the kick with a watery sweetness, and the latter added an oily, hearty taste that competed well with the powerful curry. Two thick pieces of wheat bread housed the salad filling along with a generous handful of spinach, sliced tomatoes, and what seemed like a whole avocado.
I had requested avocado be added to my Dwalin because I so enjoyed the guacamole on my egg salad sandwich. But this sandwich reminded me that guacamole is more easily spreadable and containable within two slices of bread. Avocado, in large quantities, can make for a very unwieldy sandwich that swiftly disintegrates into large pieces all over one's chest, lap and feet. Following my dinner, I looked like a two-year-old having a go at using utensils for the first time.
But at least I was a dry two-year-old. The Dwalin had a strong flavor, but it was hardly enough to make me glow, perspire, and/or sweat curry, even when I ran a few miles the next morning.
I liked The Dwalin a bit more than The Far Down, though the former's faulty structure (my fault, not theirs) made consuming it a bit uncomfortable. This is definitely the type of lunch to be eaten alone in the shadows of your own hobbit hole.
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