I went to Citi last night for our group’s annual visit. Great game with Washington with Sydergaard beating Scherzer. My buddies laughed at the food choices I made over the game…here are my thoughts and recommendations.
Fuku (near section 104) - On the way to the Food Court I veered off when we passed Fuku since there was no line. My buddies wondered we I went. I bought a chicken sandwich and it was fantastic. A large perfectly fried dark meat flattened fillet was superb, and when I added the hot sauce to it, spectacular. My buddy who loves spice grabbed one in the second inning and he was all smiles as well.
Pat LaFrieda Filet Sandwich (near the Food Court) - This is just a cluster. They are now in the umpteenth year and each time it is a nightmare. Last year they ran out of steak in the third inning. This year I arrived pre-game. My guess was maybe 20 people in front of me. Compared to Shake Shack it looked like a breeze. It was a 30-minute wait and watching them make the single item sandwich I can understand why. The run each sandwich under a conveyor-broiler to melt the cheese. Queuing theory place this as the bottleneck and they have 2 conveyors. Buy a few more. Really? But wait…they are not too adapt at using the credit card machine for processing payments, it was 5 minutes for the person in front of me to use his card and it took 3 people and literally shut down the operation. Please train them. Well…once you get the sandwich you understand the price of $16. It is loaded with medium-rare filet, and lots of it, the cheese is perfectly melted but the highlight were the caramelized onions, soft and sweet. I bought two, one for me and one for my buddies to split since they were about to send out the dogs to find me.
Sausage and Peppers (near section 106) - Third inning stretch and then over to the S&P line. Another 20 minute wait. When I was about 10 people from the front of the line they announced they were out of hot sausage, only sweet available. No problem for me since I was ordering sweet. Now a baseball game is nine innings and they run out of hot sausage 1/3 of the way through the game. Major inventory mismanagement again. The sweet sausage was delicious, just a tough of fennel and it did have a tad of heat, which I really liked. The onions and peppers on top were also great. The bun was a little challenge, it was falling into two pieces and a little difficult to maneuver. This would not have been an issue if there were napkins, but they ran out of napkins as well, i kid you not.
To cool the tummy I ordered some ice cream in the fifth inning. Given the temperature in the 50s that was a huge dumb move. Mr Softee is no reason to drop your body temperature on a cold night and shiver for a full inning. Fortunately the coffee was still hot.
Overall the food at Citi is great, but the wait is horrific. The Mets have a great team on the field and they need to uptick the teams overseeing the food delivery. With the margins on food they could generate enough money to keep their great pitching and fill the seats.
