Eating at Wegmans: Sushi, subs and more

While many will visit the new Wegmans in Lake Grove for grocery shopping, others will come to eat. Long Island's largest supermarket has several stations devoted to prepared food. Wegmans is famous for its ready-to-eat prepared foods — and there is certainly a lot of it — as well as an attractive cafe in which to dine. (The cafe also has a microwave so you can heat up any refrigerated selections that strike your fancy.)

Pizza and sushi

Two of the categories with the most preopening buzz were pizza and sushi. Both are freshly made — right there behind their respective counters — and are fine for a quick nosh, but they don’t pose a danger to local pizzerias or sushi bars. Prices are reasonable but not competition killers: A slice of pizza is $4. One spicy tuna roll is $8.99, a small sushi family pack (eight pieces of nigiri sushi and two eight-piece rolls) is $31.

Create your own bowls

My favorite prepared-food option is the DIY bowl bar, where you can build your own meal, Chipotle-style, starting with a bed of white rice or brown rice with quinoa and then advancing to chicken (your choice of breast or thigh) which is seasoned with Middle Eastern shawarma spice plus all manner of vegetables, toppings and sauces. I had my thighs topped with roasted cauliflower and eggplant, steamed broccoli, pickled onions and a cilantro-garlic sauce and it ran me $14.

Subs

If a big, honking sandwich is more your style, head to the "sub" station for a small ($5.99), medium ($8.99) or large ($15.99) hero on a plain, whole wheat, sesame, everything, whole-wheat or ciabatta roll. As with bowls, you can create your own, but I stuck to the tried-and-true "Danny’s favorite," with salami, spicy ham and capicola. I thought that was the last decision I’d have to make but the sub captain thought it best that I add some banana peppers and provolone, plus mayo on the bottom and Wegmans "sub oil" over everything.

Bread

The Wegmans bakery produces a vast number of breads, most of which are baked on the premises using dough made in a central commissary. I got many recommendations for the Under the Tuscan Sun family (with olive oil, garlic, rosemary, etc.), but the bread I liked the best was the simplest: organic white sourdough, $9.50 for 20 ounces. Like virtually all of the breads, this one comes whole or sliced, and in half loaves too. There are also doughnuts, muffins, pastries, cakes, pies and tarts.

Cookies

Nothing at Wegmans impressed me more than the cookies, and no cookies impressed me as much as the "Ultimate" chocolate chip cookies, chock full of chips and hitting that perfect balance of crisp and chewy. They not only bested most bakery cookies, they compared favorably with homemade. Pluck one from a just-baked tray or grab packages of two, five, 12 or, heck, why not just go for the 15-pack which, at $17, I consider good value. If gilding the lily is your thing, the cookies also come half-dipped in chocolate. Not into chocolate? Try the tender, tart lemon bars (two for $7.49).