Move over, Panera Bread: there’s another sandwich and soup shop in town. Aspiration’s Bistro at 103 Route 101A in Amherst (in the purple building before Wal-Mart) serves up gourmet-style sandwiches, soups, desserts, salads, quiche and beverages. The small cafe also has daily specials, in addition to their consistent menu, that you can find right on their website (updated every day). Last weekend, I stopped in for a quick lunch, which resulted in a successful alternative to stopping at Panera Bread or grabbing some artery-clogging fast food. After much consideration, I ordered the half sandwich with a cup of soup ($6.99), opting for their signature turkey sandwich and a cup of tomato basil soup. The sandwich, which I got on multi-grain bread, was pleasantly unique, made with fresh, thick-cut turkey and brie, smothered with a little too much cranberry chutney and lettuce. The tomato basil soup was slightly chunky, proving that it was homemade with fresh, real ingredients (and a lot less salt than canned tomato soup). To wash it all down, I had a glass of cranberry iced tea ($1.50), which was a different twist on the refreshing beverage; the cranberry flavor added a tartness to the sweet drink, resulting in quite the ideal combo of flavors. My only gripe: the young girl behind the counter could have smiled once or twice while she was waiting on me.

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 15th, 2008 at 1:52 pm and is filed under chat 'n chew. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.