Lying lettuce

I just got back from lunch. I've already tried the Subway and Tacqueria, so the only place to eat in this sad city called San Rafael was Wendy's. I went into it thinking that it wouldn't be that bad. I could order a salad, maybe a chicken sandwich. And, honestly, it wasn't that bad.

I ordered their Mediterranean Chicken Salad, hesitated, and ordered fries as well. The salad looked decent in its black plastic bowl with clear plastic top. There were little grape tomatoes, red onion, feta cheese, pieces of chicken that looked grilled, and some red lettuce all very carefully arranged. It came with a packet of red wine vinaigrette too. But, as I should have learned, looks are deceiving. I popped the top off, drizzled half the packet of dressing on, and gave it a toss. Lo and behold, beneath all that assumed healthy goodness, was iceberg lettuce! I had ordered a big bowl of iceberg lettuce that had been disguised, hidden, posing as something more. I felt jipped.

But I was hungry and I ate it, trying not to drop lettuce pieces onto my book. (By the way, has anyone read The Fortress of Solitude? I'm twenty pages to the end and want someone with whom to talk about it.) The chicken was surprisingly tasty without being overly salty and very tender, not dry at all. The tomatoes were sweet, their pulp and juice bursting into my mouth as I bit through their skins. And, as for the iceberg, it was crunchy, as good iceberg should be, but that was all it was--crunchy. I suppose it was a good blank canvas for the dressing, which, tasted nothing of red wine.

I wonder what made that salad Mediterranean though. The feta?