Had a salad from here today and wasnt overly impressed with the price or the taste. The dressing wasnt very nice and even though there was ample salad, there was hardlt any beef in my beef salad..... was a bit disappointed overall.

Great place for a quick on the go lunch with everything ready to go at lunch. Heaps of options and great tasting sandwiches. Have had a few different ones the blueburger was very tastey and the simple chicken and chives were the standouts. Reasonably priced for a lunch, didnt see too many seats there but they do have an outdoor seating on collins st.

This place has fresh ingredients and the best soup in town. Their soup is full of flavour and next to none. It's even better than the soup place in the alley next to Degraves and they apparently specialise in soup!!

I've eaten at this Bluebag outlet many times, and also at one of its other outlets, in Little Bourke Street, and I've always been very satisfied. If I'm in Carlton and feel like eating a sandwich or a baguette, I'll go to Red Capsicum, Briscola, or Tre Sette depending on exactly what I feel like. But if I'm in the CBD, I'll head straight for Bluebag.

Bluebag is not the cheapest place to get a sandwich or baguette, but it's not outrageously expensive either compared to other sandwich outlets in the CBD. In any case, I don't mind paying a bit more if the ingredients are fresh and top-quality - which they are here.

All ingredients are listed in full on the wrapper, so you know precisely what you're getting. This is very helpful if you suffer from food allergies or intolerances, or even if there's just an ingredient you don't like - you can't say you weren't warned. I've found their ingredient lists to be accurate, too: if they say there's coriander in the Thai chicken sandwich, then you can be confident it really is coriander, and not flat-leafed parsley in disguise. (The Thai chicken also contains a hefty whack of Vietnamese mint. Be warned - it's hot!)

The menu contains plenty of choice, and is very friendly to vegetarians, vegans, dieters, and those with coeliac disease. Big tick there. The daily menu is listed on Bluebag's website, with appropriate symbols against each item (dairy free, gluten free, and so on). But there's also plenty to satisfy those who don't give a toss about these things and just want something with plenty of meat, carbs and fat. For them, I recommend the club sandwich or the uber beef baguette.

I'm surprised that they offer a falafel salad (from their website: "House-made falafal with labna, lemon and pinenuts on a bed of tabouli and rocket"). House-made it may be, but it's cold. Bleggghhhh. Falafel should be eaten hot, fresh, and crunchy, straight out of the oil. Cold falafel is horrible and stodgy. I'd no more eat cold falafel than I'd eat cold fish and chips. It doesn't do the falafel justice. Over on Urbanspoon, one reviewer gave Bluebag a low rating based solely on his poor opinion of the falafel. I tried to persuade him to go back and try something else from Bluebag; they have so many other good things that he might revise his opinion. But I can see what he's getting at; if you have a horrible meal on your very first visit to an eating place, you're disinclined to go back.

I have a few other criticisms of Bluebag - well perhaps not so much criticisms, as a rather wistful and nostalgic wishlist. They're all to do with what Bluebag no longer offers, rather than what it does. Three items spring to mind:

(1) I really like the baguette with cream cheese and roasted vegetables (capsicum, eggplant, etc), but I hardly ever see it on the menu anymore. The only thing that resembles it is the Veggie Oasis, but it isn't in the same league; I much prefer the one with cream cheese.

(2) Several years ago, they had an incredibly delicious avocado sandwich with spicy pumpkin chutney. Alas, gone forever, it seems.

(3) I also have fond memories of an excellent roasted vegetable salad. Some of the other salads (moroc'n'roll, green machine) are pretty good, but the roasted veggie salad was the best. But along with with the avocado and pumpkin sandwich, I think it's gone forever. I wish they'd bring it back.

Their website also has a list of bagels. I have never, ever seen a bagel in either the Collins St store or the Little Bourke St store - and I've been to both stores countless times, so it can't be simply that they ran out of bagels on that particular day. Where are the bagels? In one of their other stores? If so, which one?