Brasserie La Provence

Recently, I had the hankering to try a restaurant that serves cuisine that I am not too familiar with, Brasserie La Provence which serves French cuisine, was the pick. My dinner companions were very accommodating and agreed to accompany me on this culinary outing that was out of my typical comfort zone. It’s a weird thing, but it seems that all French food restaurants have the same smell. I understand that this is due to serving similar food, but I cannot distinguish the smell. FYI I can’t smell too well. I would describe it as a pungent, greasy smell. If you readers out there know what the smell comes from please let me know.

When you walk into Brasserie, it does not have a large foyer area, you’re basically standing at the bar with a few tables to the right. We had to stand in a small space between the hostess stand and the bar to let an elderly couple pass. After waiting a few minutes, we then promptly seated in the fairly small dining area in the back of the building. We were seated on the higher terrace in the dining room on wicker bottomed wood framed chairs, not great furniture, but its okay. The ambiance is a casual café. In the dining area there is a small wine closet that is basically a glass enclosed wine cabinet. It was interesting, but Park mentioned to me that people were taking their opened bottles of wine home in a plastic bags. I’ve never seen this before, but I guess they get around this with the bag that you cannot re-open.

Our sever acknowledged us a few minutes after we were seated, but she was pretty busy, so I can understand why certain things were slow; for example, our check, bread, water, and taking our orders. Despite these things she was a good server: she was polite, answered our questions fairly well, and got our orders correct.

The menus do have the French names, but below each item have descriptions in English. We began the meal with a round of French beers: Joe had a Kronenbourg and I had a Fisher Amber. They have some fairly exotic beers on tap like Spaten Opimator and Kronenbourg. The Fisher Amber was flavorful, but not a notable amber ale. To attempt to get a good sampling of what Brasserie had to offer we got two appetizers: the Croquette de Crabe (Crab Cake) and Bouchot mussels. The crab cake was lightly fried and had a lot of flavorful crab that is served on a bed of variety greens. The Bouchot mussels are mussels steamed with white wine, garlic and thyme. Both of these were great. They each ran about $9. Park also had the Salade Maison or side salad served with red wine vinaigrette. He mentioned that it was a good salad; from the appearance it seemed to be a good salad. I had the rack of lamb special, Joe had the Saumon Manon, salmon dish, and Park had the scallop special. My rack of lamb meal was a fairly small portion for $28, but the presentation and flavor were great. This was served with asparagus and chutney of some sort. The scallops were pan fried perfectly, they were tender and moist. This scallop special was served with a lobster and goat cheese fried cake that was smooth in texture, mild lobster flavor, and good sized chunks of lobster. The salmon dish was served with toast drizzled with balsamic vinegar. I did not try the salmon, but according to Joe it was great. The final tab came to $123. In retrospect, the meal was a good price, not great, but good. I would give the Brasserie La Provence a rating of three and a half stars out of five.

http://www.laprovencenobhill.com/

El Mezquite

In many supermarkets they have a deli section where a variety of food is served; for example, in the Albertson's by my house they selection of various pre-made side dishes, sushi, hot foods, and cold cuts and cheese. El Mezquite is a Mexican Supermarket with such a deli section. I've been to Mezquite on several occasions and not had a bad meal, but going there is almost like stepping into Mexico: immediately to the right is a cash checking station; in the middle of the day they have a security guard; the majority of the labels and signs are in Spanish; and some of the food is packaged that exposes the food. An example of this is when I picked up a chocolate, it was wrapped in wax paper packaging, but you could clearly see that the chocolate was exposed and the wax paper was too small. The cleanliness of Mezquite is suspect, but I have not gotten sick from eating there. I feel like a foreigner in this store, but it's a store that the intended audience is a different demographic. El Mezquite is great if you want Mexican food, but the other elements it lacks quite a bit. I would give El Mequite two out of five stars, not because of the food, but everything else is lacking.

Dee Dee's Ice Cream Shop

This location in a shopping center near my home has seen several restaurants come and go. This one will follow suit. This is an ice cream shop that serves breakfast burritos; I was recommended by the young lady behind the counter at Starbucks to try their burrito.

I'm not a genius by any means, but you do not open a mom and pop ice cream shop a few hundred feet away from a Cold Stone, unless you can beat the tar out of them with better ice cream, service, and better atmosphere. The staff here could not make the C team bench squad of Cold Stone. This place is basically a counter with a spattering of tables. What I mean by this is that there was a ton of dead space that could have been used to enhance the experience. Basically, this place was a counter in a large space with a table or four.

The place was designed as an afterthought. When I walked in there were a few tables along the front, so I guess they have out door seating. There were about four tables when I walked in that were fairly full of patrons waiting for their burritos. On the upside, I did like the corrugated, galvanized steel counter. When I roll to the counter, I was not promptly greeted, but I was greeted in a fairly timely manner, despite the fact that there were at least five people behind the counter and at least two were idle starring off into space.

There is no overhead menu that is normally had at fast food establishments, but I ordered off of a copied menu in a plastic binder sheet that I use to protect sheets of paper. Not a well designed menu, but it is functional. I ask the lady behind the counter how the potatoes are prepared and she tells me that they are fried. Then asked if they were deep fried or not. She hesitated and then gave me two answers: yes and no, they are pan fried was the final and correct answer. I can understand a verbal slip up, but she did not genuinely know off the bat. Of my options for a breakfast burrito: chorizo, bacon, ham or sausage, I opt for the ham burrito minus the egg. I exchange money for a promise of a burrito and that is that. The cost came to slightly under four dollars. In this time, I observe that they make a lot of mistakes with other customers. Of the three customers that I see getting or ordering burritos two have issues with their order: one got the wrong burrito and one was short a burrito. These are mistakes an establishment that has been opened for a few months should not make. I also violated health code by walking in there with my Starbucks coffee that they did not comment on, oh well, I was willing to eat on the patio or on the curb if asked. They did not seem to carry coffee, which is a bad decision for a breakfast establishment. I wait about ten minutes for my burrito to be ready, which is longer than your average burrito wait. For example, at Golden Pride my wait is about three minutes, at Sandia Chile Grill about five minutes, Frontier about five minutes, and Blake's about seven minutes. I get my burrito and it is hot and busting at the seams. I take about four or five bites an it seems like I got a vegetarian breakfast burrito. I decide to unravel my burrito to ensure I got what I ordered. I see about eight small cubes of ham. I politely go the go to the counter and ask the same lady who took my order if I could buy a side of ham. She then ask if something is wrong and I explain to her what I observed in my burrito. She then promises to remedy this, but I do not recall an apology. I get a four ounce polypropylene Solo cup that is about a quarter full. Due to the moisture content of the contents of the burrito, I am unable to repair my burrito with the new ham, so I am left with a pile of potatoes, green chile, a scant about of ham, and a soggy tortilla on a small piece of aluminum foil. Was it a bad burrito? Yes because I ordered a ham burrito and got a potato burrito with a piece or two of ham. The service was lackluster and apathetic. Atmosphere? This place does not know the definition of the term. I paid three dollars too much for a burrito. The redeeming qualities of this place was that the counter was nice and fairly clean. For the record, I am all for small business; I know how important small business is for our economy but this is a bad small business. Do not waste your money unless you have money burning; if you do have burning money, I also need a Lexus. I would start an over/under on this place as well as Woody's or maybe a pool for who could stay open longer. I would give this place one star out of five.