Ready, set, go-urmet!

MANILA, Philippines - Fast fact: In today’s fast-paced/fast-tracked, fast-food world, sitting down to a proper meal is a luxury we often can’t afford. Especially for the eat-and-run upwardly mobile set, it’s refreshing to know that now, there’s a place they can go to: Rustan’s Supermarket Gourmet to Go.

This grab-and-go-style delicatessen — a fresh, first-of-its-kind concept — is a delicious collaboration between Rustan’s Supermarket and food consultant/chef Beth Romualdez, so we learned from Frances Yu of Rustan’s Supercenters, Inc.

Hot tip: Gourmet to Go, available only at Rustan’s Supermarkets, is now open at Rustan’s Supermarket Fresh in Rockwell and will open this month at Rustan’s Supermarket Fresh, Ayala Center, Makati.

The idea is to promote healthy food that warms the heartstrings and is friendly to the purse strings. And if you’re tired of greasy, fatty fast food that makes you queasy in the end, this place is worth a try.

In case you haven’t gone yet, we’d like to offer our unsolicited recommendations. Since this is a soup/salad/sandwich kind of a place, let’s start off with the fresh salads. People are queuing up for the spinach salad (P125) with mustard celery seed dressing that comes with polunchai with lollo rosa, hard boiled egg, and bacon bits. If you’re vegetarian, just tell them not to put those bacon bits. Did you know that spinach is rich in flavonoid, an antioxidant/anti-cancer agent and is chock-full of nutrients that help prevent the hardening of arteries and stabilize blood sugar? Now, you know. Popeye was right after all.

I’m not really crazy about veggies, but this spinach salad with the mustard celery dressing leaves a tingle in the taste buds. It’s one of the packed salads that also include a chicken Caesar salad, cobb salad, and Le Gourmet salad.

Or you may want to try the tortellini pasta salad that’s got tortellini, broccoli florets, capsicum, black olives, celery, cherry tomatoes, slices of Italian pepperoncini with special Italian dressing.

Actually, you can have a bowl — or two or three. Bowl 1, for instance, sounds cool with the cut-up iceberg lettuce with finely shredded cabbage and fine julienne of carrots drizzled sparingly.

There are the pre-prepared salads that are high in fiber — and high in enjoyment. From asparagus salad to apple & walnut salad with curried mayo, marble potato salad, marinated mushroom, pasta salad with feta cheese, pickled onion and grapes, Russian salad, Thai beef salad. Yes, you can create your own salad — go ahead and have a field day choosing your greens, toppings, and dressing for a fixed price.

Surely, your salad days are only just beginning.

Now, let’s go to the soups. I’m a soup buff and I like my soup searing hot. Thus, I was soup-er excited to discover that Gourmet to Go has got a lot of my favorites: cream of wild mushroom (P80), carrot ginger (P80), creamy tomato (P85), squash bisque (P85), stuffed cucumber in clear soup (P65), tortilla (P90), Tuscan minestrone (P95), and won ton (P65).

Chef Al Cruz whipped up a hot pot of tortilla soup right before our eyes, and it soothed not just our palate but our soul, too.

And now, we have the sandwiches — some like it hot, some like it cold, and some like it rolled. Rustan’s Supercenters, Inc. Jill Tan and Tet Buchanan tell us that ham & Brie in croissant is a certified best-seller. Farmer’s ham with soft Brie cheese? Now, that’s a brie-lliant combination! Especially with a bed of fresh lettuce and tomatoes sitting on freshly baked croissant. Served hot and fresh, the cheese delicately melts on your tongue. Oui! C’est magnifique!

Also a hot fave is the Italian tuna that’s got spicy tuna with boiled egg, greens, and a dressing of kalamata olive oil (or extra virgin olive oil from olives that have not been spoilt or processed in any way) on French baguette.

You feel like you just died and went to sandwich heaven. At Gourmet to Go, your ’wich list includes the hot and cold sandwiches. The hot sandwiches include chicken lily in croissant (P100), deli sub (P185), ham & Brie in croissant (P135), focaccia panini (P140), hot ham & cheese (P95), pastrami on rye (P145), Reuben (P180), roast beef (P125), vegetarian panini (P140), chicken galantina (P95), deli roast beef with vegetables (P165), New Yorker deli (P175), sun-dried tomato, basil pesto & salami on bagel (P130).

Really cool are the cold sandwich offerings: Club Le Gourmet (125), Italian tuna (P95), prosciutto with arugula (P145), tuna salad (P85), and chicken & cranberry (P95).

The rolled sandwiches can make you roll over in delight: deli cold cuts (P110), shrimp Caesar (P150), smoked salmon (P175), and Gourmet-To-Go “House” Wrap (P175).

And if you have some company or you want to party, go and order one of the platters: fruit, deli platter, cheese and crackers, grilled sausages.

The pre-assembled sandwiches are attractively displayed in the glass shelves. You’ll fall in love with ’em at first sight — and first bite! The lovely thing is there’s no waiting time — you can literally grab a sandwich and go. Faster than you can say, “Ready, set, go-urmet!”