With a brief layover in Detroit Metro Airport, I wanted to grab something quick and healthy, as I hadn’t eaten all day. As it turns out, the enormous McNamara Terminal (map of restaurants provided with link) is so long that there’s a train on the top floor that traverses it (and you’ll want to take it, too) – it’s probably something close to a half-mile in length, and I had to cover the entire thing.
I’ve only been to Ann Arbor one time, about 5-6 years ago, and made it a point to have dinner at the James Beard Award-winning Zingerman’s Roadhouse, and remember the overall impression that it was a restaurant that tried to be all things to all people, but came up short in a lot of areas (they have a bakery, homemade this, homemade that, etc.) – and it’s in a very cool “roadhouse” that’s placed in the front of a shopping mall parking lot, not unlike where a drive-in restaurant might be. I went back the next morning for my breakfast coffee (this may be the only James Beard Award-winning restaurant with a morning drive-thru window, and the coffee was very good, too).
Anyway, I smiled when I saw the Plum Market Wine Bar featuring Zingerman’s Products, and got a Caprese Sandwich ($9.99), a bit overpriced for its meager length, and saved it for the plane ride. Well, this was one of the best airport sandwiches I’ve ever had, as it came on Zingerman’s homemade ciabatta-like roll, and was well within the expiration date. It had long strips of basil, a gentle application of balsamic, and most important of all, some really good blots of homemade mozzarella – it was as good as you can expect an airport sandwich to reasonably be, and was worth the price. Plum Market is listed on the map in the middle of the terminal, but I was on the far-right side at gate A77 (shown on McNamara Terminal link), and remember a kiosk, perhaps a smaller version of it, only a few gates away, so I don’t believe the one in the map is where I was; I’m just glad I found it.