Viral Chicken Caesar Wraps... has the world gone mad?
I just don't get it. I know I'm about a year behind this trend but there seems to be a virality arms race amongst food influencers and the restaurants who love them to create the next "greatest" chicken caesar wrap. Now a lot of these restaurants that are participating are legitimately great (shoutout Mini Kebob and Ggiata)... the world is better with these places in them.
But why did everyone collectively lose their mind and chase this trend of all possible sandwich items.
Chicken Caesar Wraps have such a strong association to me with like midtown-NYC, mid-1990s/early aughts, workplace lunchbreak delis. The kind of places that also sold those pre-made paninis that looked like they were sitting in the display case for days before they toss them on the hot press. What all office drones ate prior to the rise of the private equity-backed Millennial slop bowl of the early 2010s.
Yet people seem to be losing their minds over these wraps like taking a salad and putting it in a sandwich is brilliant mash-up that's never been contemplated before. And granted, the quality of ingredients and preparation on most of these new ones are going to be light years beyond "wave 1" chicken caesar wraps but still... it's just a chicken caesar wrap. It's the same basic formula.
Now other trends that our doing something with a meaningful twist or originality... I get that, even when it gets a bit gimmicky:
Chicken Tikka Pizza... Yeah that's new
Salmon Roe on a bagel for $27? That different than bagel and lox.
Pinkberry circa 2006... tart froyo? Hell yes. That's new too.
But Chicken Caesar wrap? My only hypothesis is that this craze is Gen Z-fueled and they were too young to remember that chicken caeser wraps were the height of lunchtime mediocrity about a quarter century ago.
Please chime in.