Noodles and Co.: Oy! I should have known better + Subway and Urban Plates with Super Boy

I eat bad food very infrequently. Meals out are too sparing to waste! Really I should have known better than to eat at Noodles & Co. during a recent quick trip to UTC. Fast-food chain Asian-American-medit fusion?  How could that possibly have been promising? But a lot of people say they like it so I figured I would try.

Ordered the Japanese pan-fried noodles; was sucked in by the promise of "carmelized" noodles, veggies and tofu.

First taste: BLECH - nothing but sugar!  Lunch is supposed to be savory. This was nothing but sugary sweet sauce all over the noodles.  And way more noodles than tofu and veggies.  Had no choice but to keep eating it cuz I was out of time before preschool pickup.  Had a carb/sugar rush for the rest of the afternoon. Blechy!  I would have been much better off at Rubio's.

In contrast, recently took SuperBoy to SUBWAY for the first time.  Proud mama says: my son....the veggie eater.  Got him a Veggie Max (the veggie patty) on multigrain oat/honey. Curiously enough, he wanted no lettuce or tomato or peppers or cucumbers. Just cheddar cheese and olives.  Would you believe the thing he loved most about his sandwich was the olives? Crazy for the olives.  Ate enough of the bread and patty to be healthy (and to leave me some too :)), but ate every last olive in his sandwich.  Taste is a strange thing!

And on our recent visit to URBAN PLATES let me note a few things:
--SB couldn't stand their mac & cheese. Thought it was disgusting and wouldn't eat it. I liked it. But I should just have gotten him the grilled cheese, which he and I both love. The m&c was too gourmet even for my food-loving boy.
--I tried a salad there for the first time. Grilled ono niçoise. Very tasty in fact, very generous portion of ono. But I should have asked for dressing on the side or not too much -it was quite oily! But SB loved it. He was happier eating my salad (including the OLIVES!!!) than his m&c.
--Oh, and CH did not like the Israeli couscous salad at all.
--Otherwise a good meal there, our first eat-in experience there in many months. Still chaos at the door, but once we got orders in the food came very quickly.