You know I’m a major foodie – love to know all the restaurants, what’s going on, what’s the latest and greatest. So I try new restaurants, check out places I haven’t been for a while. I am seldom really disappointed – often enough, a chef will really knock themselves out when nothing on the menu is really vegetarian / vegan.
But last week I was disappointed twice.
Met a friend at Greenup Cafe in Covington for breakfast. It was a fabulous place when Jean-Robert de Cavel was chef. Then when he was first gone, it was a lot more regimented, not as inventive, but still very acceptable. Now – it’s being run by 2 guys who are trying hard, with a pretty limited menu, not many extras – and almost no one in the place! There was a guy drinking coffee when my friend arrived – the only other patron. As I got there he was leaving, so it was just my friend and I for well over half an hour. Then a woman came in, had a cup of coffee, and left. This in a place that used to have people waiting in line for breakfast on an ordinary weekday. The food was fairly good, and the guys were pleasant. But there’s no reason to go back.
Jerusalem Cafe, at the dead end of Clifton in McMillan, had been a favorite of mine for years. Then it switched owners / managers a bunch of times. A new group came in about a year ago, and I hadn’t been there since. So it was time to try it. Saturday night, dinner time – and again, there was one guy in the whole place when we arrived. He left soon after. My friend and I ordered a lot of favorites. Big mistake. The lentil soup was not even recognizable – bright green! And with no flavor. The spanokopita had flavor – tasted like chlorine. No phyllo, just some sort of super white covering. The fava beans were acceptable (as opposed to actually good), as was the hummus, the egg roll was not, even minimally. The grape leaves were acceptable. Most of the rest of it I already don’t remember, thank heaven.
I am the world’s all time great taker-home of food. About all I took home were the grape leaves for Brian, and the left over pita for the birds. And it was all more expensive, item for item, than it would have been any place else near the University. Been a long time since I had a really bad meal. Hope it’s a long time before it happens again.