I tried their new broth bowl. There is a lentil quinoa option with a choice of hard boiled egg or chicken. There is also soba/buckwheat noodle option with a choice of edamame mix or chicken that I had. It seemed like beef broth made from a bouillon cube with gobs of black pepper and some soy sauce, so that was disappointing. The soba noodles were cooked properly, but they tend to crumble in your mouth compared to traditional wheat noodles. There was some shredded carrots, sesame seeds, and a few fresh spinach and cilantro leaves. The chicken breast slices were overcooked, which probably happened because the broth cooked them further. They piled slices on top of the mound of noodles to help prevent some of this. If I ate the chicken first instead of mixing it into the broth, it probably would have been better.
You can add a salad or half sandwich for a few dollars more. The meal comes with bread, apple or potato chips. Now they have a wonderful soft white dinner roll which used to be a hunk of a baguette until maybe mid 2014. You can still get the baguette, but we also noticed another dinner with a whole wheat dinner roll that had oat flakes sprinkled on the outside.
I doubt I will order the bowl again. The salads and paninis seems to be their forte.
I still find it really lengthy to decide my order at Panera. The menu board is massive and there are basically no menu descriptors since there is no room. Still, one of things I love is that they have a wide variety of offerings.