Mary Lou H.
Yelp
I want to love this place, because I work in the building and it would be so wonderful to have an amazing restaurant right here. I've sampled a number of their offerings, and I gotta say, I have some questions along with my comments. Here goes: 1) The lattes are not served hot enough. I don't know why, but by the time I get mine up to the 36th floor, it is cool enough to chug it down. The thing is, I don't want to chug it down, I want to sip it. Too cool for that; halfway through, it's lukewarm. Not sure if it comes out of the machine too cool or if the paper cups are to blame, but it's not hot enough. The flavor of the coffees, though, is excellent. Very smooth, not bitter. Yummo. 2) The lunch arrangements are not doing it for me (a salad station, a hot food and sandwich station, a pasta station, a pizza station). The pricing by the pound on most items makes it impossible to guess what my plate of food is actually going to cost. I was willing to try your plan, but after a couple of $16 lunches that just weren't all that special, my enthusiasm is waning. There needs to be an option to get a small side salad with a pasta, pizza slice or an entree. I tried to do this one day and you would have thought I was speaking a foreign language. They were happy to serve me up a reasonable serving of pasta (which was by the way, delicious) and a perfectly good salad, but it was an entree size salad which meant the meal cost a bit more than it should have. Come on, people. The concept "side salad" is not novel. Similarly, the chicken. I tried the chicken because my co-worker raves about it, but HALF A ROASTED CHICKEN is too much. Not to mention, it was undercooked, greasy and kinda tough. The sandwiches are served on bread that is excellent, but they are all premade so no options to do anything different--and I was surprised to discover that their black forest ham sandwich was slathered in mayo with no mustard options in evidence (waste of some tasty ham in my opinion, because it needed mustard). 3) What is the concept for the late afternoon/evening? The sign says open until 7 pm but I can't figure out what is happening at that hour. I was hoping that their staying open that late meant they would have some prepared meals for carryout for supper--not that I can tell. They do have some salads and charcuterie trays ready to go in the cooler, but when I've stopped in after work, the other food stations have clearly been shut down for the day. Maybe they are selling wine and coffee, but if I'm having a glass of wine after work, I'd like some food to go with it. 4) The bakery area is unpredictable. They always seem to have some bagels in the case, I'm not sure why--does anybody want to buy bagels from an Italian restaurant?! They seem to have some breakfast pastries, although this morning at 10 they were sold out of all muffins. Some days they have cookies (that look amazing), but other days no cookies (I would like them to carry cookies, but I'm not going to order one just any day they show up--I like to anticipate the cookie selection). 5) The Texas pecan dip with arugula and jalapenos, from the takeout case, is excellent--highly recommend. But source your crackers to go with it elsewhere, because theirs are overpriced.