Michelle T.
Yelp
CBD Provisions is a dining establishment in Joule Hotel. We dined here on a Sunday evening with low occupancy. Contrary to some of the reviews, we did not experience long wait times with our party of five, and our waitress was very nice and pleasant.
The decor of the restaurant is like an elegant industrial style. Think warm woods with metal accents and dim pendant lamps with exposed filaments. The lighting is low throughout the restaurant except for the open kitchen. I like this dynamic. It's really neat to be able to see the kitchen in action.
We had reservations and were seated right away. Two of the people in the party were going to share the pig head carnitas, so the arraignments for that were made forty-eight hours in advance. I tried a little taste of it, but because I'm pretty much pescatarian, I'm not going to review that aspect of the meal.
I started my meal with the St. Arnold's Root Beer, which was great! It was easily the best root beer I've ever had. For an entree I chose the shrimp and grits. Now, when this dish arrived, it smelled heavenly, but when I started to dig in, it was beyond salty. It's like the shrimp was bribed and then the butter sauce was just overpowering. It's a shame because I could tell the flavors were great, but just overshadowed by too much salt.
For dessert I had the Banana Pudding (they called it something else, but it was essentially a banana pudding in a jar). I like parts of it. The whip cream of course was great and the banana pudding itself was good, but once I got down to the bottom there was a rich banana creme that tasted like it had goat's milk- which I am not a fan of. I ate around it, but for $15, I feel kind of disappointed.
Overall, I felt like the dinner was good, not great. The prices are too much for what you are getting. For example, my shoring and grits dish was $34- but it seemed like the max ceiling I would have wanted to pay for the finished product would have been more in the $28 arena and same for the dessert- it felt more like an $11 dessert.
One thing I would also like to add is how freezing cold I was throughout the entire meal. I wore a cashmere long-sleeve dress and yet the A/C was cranked up so high that I felt the cold whip through my clothes like I was wearing a paper-thin cotton tee.
Overall, I think CBD Provisions has a lot going for it. Nice decor, exciting location and some interesting menu items, but my experience here fell short of my expectations. I thought the prices were not on par with the food that was presented and the insanely cold dining made me feel uncomfortable the entire time.