For more than a year now, Starbucks has been working on improving their breakfast offerings. In spring of 2007, they launched a line of breakfast sandwiches, only to announce a year later that they were pulling them from the stores (they then changed their minds again, announcing that they were only going to retool the sandwiches). Earlier this summer, they started selling a line of whole grain pastries, cups of "perfect oatmeal" and a platter that lives in the refrigerated case that contains a hard boiled egg, a small whole wheat bagel, a few slices of cheese and some fruit.

This morning, they launched the latest addition to the breakfast line-up. Called the Piadini, this savory breakfast pastry comes in two varieties - Portobello Mushroom or Sausage, Egg and Cheddar. Energized by a Starbucks-led breakfast and coffee pairing event I attended last week, I stopped by my local Starbucks today to try out this new breakfast option.


I ended up ordering the Portabello Mushroom Piadini. I actually wanted to order both (offering my stomach in the name of blogging science) but as soon as I ordered the first one, the Starbucks partner taking my order moved on to the next person in line, so I wasn't able to get my hands on the Sausage, Egg and Cheese Piadini.

They handed it to me a few minutes later, swaddled in that multi-layer insulating bag that Starbucks was so proud of when they first brought the warming ovens into their stores last year. I hightailed it over to my office, so that I could take a picture and get a bite before it cooled down too much.

The Piadini has a really nice aroma, similar to a pizza shop where the dough is fresh and they are baking all day long. The flavor is good, although I didn't taste much more than spinach and mushrooms in mine. It is supposed to contain portobello mushrooms, spinach, feta and ricotta cheeses and eggs, but everything else disappears in the face of the mushroom and spinach flavors.

One problem I find with this item is that it's mostly bread. The filling was pretty skimpy and I'm afraid that if this were something I was depending on for breakfast on a regular basis, I'd be hungry an hour after I ate it (I also had a chocolate banana Vivanno this morning, so I think I'll be okay today). It's a nice effort, but when it just doesn't feel substantial enough for the $3.25 price tag.