Jason G.
Yelp
Was staying in a VRBO nearby so stopped by Proteinhouse twice this past weekend.
They sell themselves as a healthy-fit-kitchen, and I had to say that this demographic tends to be something I avoid because many restaurants that market themselves this way go overboard, imo.
My first reactions upon walking in and checking out the menu:
1. My god, the font size is tiny. Like, stupid tiny. Are you trying to make sure only 20yo and under eat here? I know you have a big menu but you have the menu real estate to bump the font up several notches.
2. More importantly, once i squinted... there are a lot of items on this menu that sound really good. Happy to try it out.
On my two visits here's what I ordered:
Thai Monster bowl - Chicken and steak with broccoli, asparagus, scallions, and a spicy peanut sauce. I ordered it with brown rice. This was hugely successful. Great textures and flavor. It was so good that we were happy to bring more folks here a few days later.
Keto bowl - (I think this was the name. I don't see this item on their website.) This was a bowl with bison and sliced mushrooms, served over a bed of mashed cauliflower. My overall sense for this was that it was really bland. Especially the mash. Did they season it at all? I don't think so. I added a good bit of salt and hot sauce to make this edible. If this had been my first visit, there would definitely not have been a second visit. Sad, really, because this would have been a fine dish had it been prepared correctly.
On that first visit, my friend had a different bowl (I think it was El Jefe) that he was also very positive about. So it wasn't just a positive one-off.
Sadly, the five of us eating there on my second visit had an aggregate reaction of "meh."
Did we order poorly on that visit? Was it a bad chef? Who knows..
Had I reviewed this place after my first visit, they might have gotten 5 stars.
Had my second visit been my first time here, there would have been no second visit and probably a 1-2 star review, depending on how my friends felt (because my experience was lousy.)
But with this poor hit rate I feel like I'm being generous with 3 stars.
I hope the owners can work on improving consistency, whether it's day-to-day or product-to-product that needs to get better, because if they can elevate everything to what I experienced on my first visit, they should have a very successful business on their hands.