At £3.10 this is the most expensive single food item in Greggs. Unless the Christmas Toastie beats it, but certainly none of the secular options break the three pound barrier. What do you get? Turkey, bacon, cranberry, stuffing, and SPINACH, a concession to any wandering Pret regulars (like me). Obviously Greggs’ sandwich is available far and wide. I got mine from the Pease Pottage Service Station.
Of course we hold little stock by the mainstream media’s Christmas sandwich reviews but it’s worth noting that Greggs tends to do quite well in them. There’s a sense that it’s a stick to punish those that fall short – if GREGGS can get this right what excuse to Waitrose/Sainsbury’s etc. have? In truth the sandwich is perfectly fine, pretty much exactly the quality you’d expect from a Pret sandwich clone but a pound cheaper. The worst thing about it is the over-tart cranberry (though Greggs is hardly alone in this). The best thing is that the stuffing is very stuffing-y, with big sage and onion notes that make the whole thing taste more like Christmas dinner than any other sandwich I’ve encountered. The turkey is very moist. Almost… too moist, my notes say: I’m not sure what dark imprecation I was intending.
Despite its decent quality the sandwich is not the star of Greggs’ seasonal range. That honour goes to the Festive Bake, whose arrival in November received glowing (and curiously identical) raves across the national press. I have not had a Festive Bake, as its only Christmas-related ingredient seems to be cranberry. I did, however, have a sausage roll, for old times’ sake, and because of the ad in which one replaced the Baby Jesus. It was sadly unmiraculous.