The moral of the story: a bowl of lettuce does not a salad make, even if one is a small rodent.
So, as I posted elsewhere, this cute little bakery opened right around the corner from me, and I so want them to succeed. (At least partly because I have $200 in kickstarter credits left to spend there.) But… after 3 visits, it’s time to write up what I really think. These guys are going to have to get their act together or they won’t make it, despite their excellent location and crowds lined up out the door for their opening.
We stopped in yesterday for lunch, as the pastry and coffee side of the menu had previously been sampled and did not bear immediate repeating. There was confusion about what the sopapillas plate was made with as far as flour, and despite looking it up in a binder and stating “AP” flour, the very nice person working in the kitchen would not be believe me that I was 100% sure AP flour is wheat and wheat only, and no, he really didn’t need to check any further. I went with the salmon sandwich on gluten free bread. My husband ordered the fried chicken thigh sandwich, and after some hemming and hawing about what was actually in the seasonal salad, my sprout ordered a side salad. Well, it took a very long time for any food to be ready, and when I did pick up my sandwich the bread was ice cold. Not like room temp, but well-chilled. The chicken sandwich was luke-warm, with untoasted room temp bread, and the fries were limp and barely warm. But the kicker was that my sprout’s “side salad” was… a bowl of lettuce!
This is so obviously not a “salad” that I had to take a photo. I mean, there is nary a shred of carrot or stray cucumber in there. So, we decamped to home. Very helpful nice staff, wrapped up all the orders happily, and then we walked home to fix their lackluster food.
The sandwiches went in the toaster oven- GF bread especially is completely inedible without a decent amount of toasting, IMO. A fried chicken sandwich and french fries likewise should be hot. Luckily, we have a full kitchen where we can make such things reality. The toasted version of the salmon sandwich was actually excellent, and generous portion. Since my sprout is no amateur, she produced this as her jazzed up side salad:
Finally, because this is how we roll, we also made a salad for Douglas, our hamster. So much for avoiding food prep for a meal.
I don’t know what to think here. I will give them props for lowering the cost of a small drip coffee from a extortionist-priced $5 to $4. I was also told that there is now sometimes a rice krispy treat available so as to have one gluten free pastry option, although it was not available yesterday. So perhaps they are trying their best, and maybe will be open to ongoing feedback, but there are a lot of glitches that need to be worked out and a lot of fine tuning to be done.
