Trader Joe's Chicken Caesar Wrap

In the great state of Pennsylvania, there's a big convenience store turf war going on. From the west comes Sheetz. They've pretty well dominated the state in terms of 24-hour gas, food, and coffee operations. The unmistakable glowing red trim of Sheetz stores shines all through the night in a plethora of towns in PA and several surrounding states. Every time Sonia and I visit my parents in central PA, we stop by a Sheetz and order up some custom nachos or a made-to-order sandwich using their novel touch-screen system.

In addition to some national chains, the eastern part of the state has Turkey Hill minit-marts. But the Philadelphia area, where Sonia and I live now, is dominated by Wawa convenience stores. Sheetz has not yet been able to breach Wawa's line of defense. There are a staggering 200 Wawa stores within 20 miles of our apartment. It would be nice if we had access to both Sheetz and Wawa, but for now we'll have to settle for only having Sheetz on special occasions and westward-bound day trips.

Wawa offers a variety of pre-made sandwiches and snacks, and Sonia has completely fallen in love with their chicken caesar wraps. I agree that they're tasty, but I think there are plenty of other good chicken caesar wraps out there, including this one from Trader Joe's.

Upon tasting the TJ's brand, Sonia was crestfallen. True, it didn't taste identical to Wawa's chicken caesar, but I was impressed with its fresh, homemade qualities. Trader Joe's wrap had tomatoes, something that should have impressed Sonia more than me...she's a much bigger fan of fresh tomato than I am. The lettuce and spinach in TJ's variety were a dark, rich green and the chicken was all good, tender white meat. The one thing I will give her is that the dressing on the Trader Joe's wrap tasted a lot more like peppercorn ranch than caesar. Luckily, I like peppercorn ranch, but in Sonia's case...not so much.

Sonia's affinity for Wawa's chicken caesar and her dislike of peppercorn-esque dressings yielded one of our most lopsided scores ever, since I was quite pleased with Trader Joe's product, as usual. I give it a 4. Sonia was only half as impressed. She gives it a 2.

Bottom line: 6 out of 10.