Ok, so I know I'm new to the food critic world, however, I would hope if a restaurant was crowned "Best Vegetarian Restaurant" I would agree. Well, I would like to say publicly in the cyber space world I do not approve of Garden Cafe's accolade at all. Pump the brakes, let me back it up first, before I make such a strong statement let me rephrase: my expectations were not met, that sounds better. There was a picture in my head about a restaurant called Garden Cafe. I envisioned a restaurant that was nestled in a little garden with organic foods and drinks, maybe even a little bird tweeting away in the background. However, when my partner in food crime and I pulled up to the place with bars on the window, we weren't sure we were in the right place. To our chagrin, we were :( The waitress was polite, seated us and explained the menu, btw I now realized Garden Cafe is really a Chinese restaurant; huh. My thought too! Garden Cafe folks is a Chinese restaurant; which is cool, but I felt a little misled. No cutsie restaurant just good ole Chinese food. Can you tell by now I was disappointed?
Eventually, I got over my disappointment and ordered a miso soup, spring roll and white grape juice. I forgot to mention, Viv and I are the only patrons in the place but the appetizers for some strange reason took a few minutes to get to us. The even funnier thing, was the appetizers were a temperature hotter than luke warm. I feel disappointment creeping back into my existence...I silently mused, please go away, I would like to enjoy my meal, thank you very much. Just 5 minutes after my silent prayer, I was slapped in the face full on, I did not like the miso soup. WHAT, I always like miso soup, we have this thing me and miso soup. Not this one though, it was salty and thick, shut the front door. Not good, disappointment is now dining with us and has a place setting to.
Where's the waitress? Not sure, but when she greets me again to ask what I would like to order, she reminded me at least 3 times everything on the menu was vegetarian. Thanks, I got that. Can I order the sweet and sour chicken with white rice please? To my surprise my order got to the table a lot quicker than the appetizers, very strange. I stared at my meal for quite some time because I thought I was staring at sweet and sour chicken, for real. My feelings of panic must have been screaming on my face. Disappointment was now joined with fear; "hi y'all; why wasn't I invited earlier". The table was officially crowded. I took one piece of my chicken and didn't taste anything. I took another bite, same thing. It was safe to say my sweet and sour chicken wasn't chicken, I still don't know what it was, but it wasn't chicken. My friend Viv also reminded a few times just to make sure I was clear we weren't eating chicken, something about the consistency. I got through a couple of pieces and decided that was enough. Viv looked at me with discontent and I couldn't torture her anymore, she's a carnivore. I flagged down the waitress and said with much zeal, CHECK PLEASE.
As a side note, I try really hard to be kind to wait staff, because on a day to day basis I couldn't imagine having to serve meanies. Plus, I do not enjoy when someone makes my job hard, so I try to be simple. From my comments so far, I sound like a big baby; but all I can say is "I call it like I taste it". The sauce was good, the chicken could have been seasoned and no go on the rice. Who messes up rice? Now you know. The waitress was nice enough, but couldn't make up for the barrage of disspointment my meal served up.
Garden Cafe gets a no return from my taste buds--but disappointment and fear says wassup. It was reasonably priced with a dine in atmosphere.
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