K C
This was technically my third Barrett's experience, but the first time dining in. I SO wanted everything to be amazing... but it just wasn't. The restaurant itself looks so cute and upscale! The patio is great! Their assortment of canned goods and other items you can buy is really impressive. Their coffee was good. I had one of their "seasonal" gluten-free pastry items to go that was delicious. Here's where it goes downhill. When I walked in, I was expecting to wait at a hostess stand to be seated... I believed this place to be upscale, based on the menu and decor, right? It was Sunday around 10AM, and there were about 6-7 people milling around the bakery/coffee/entry. I thought they were waiting for coffee or carry-out orders. So, after there's obviously no one at a hostess stand, I asked the guy behind me if I had to order at the counter? He said, "Yes, there's the line." Ah! Ok, so I grab a menu and head to the cashier counter. I order very quickly, smoked salmon eggs benedict, which I get at every opportunity when I eat breakfast out. And a black coffee. I asked if I should just seat myself or wait to be seated... again, wondering why so many people are waiting in the vicinity. She said I could just sit where I wanted, outside or inside? I said outside. I paid $26.00 for my black coffee, in a to go cup, and my salmon benny. I went outside, found a seat, and was told I could grab my own water, silverware, and napkins from the table outside. Ok, no problem. Literally 3 minutes later my benny arrives. It looks OK...I'm thinking, that was super fast. Is everything cooked enough? Sadly, I forgot to take a photo! It's covered in a generous amount of hollandaise sauce....in fact, drowning in hollandaise. Ok, so some people like that! I don't. When I dug in, I noticed that the poached eggs were so lightly cooked that the white was still, well, wet, too wet. To me, that's an under cooked poached egg. I'm still super excited about the in-house smoked salmon, so I get a generous pile of smoked salmon, dipped in the goopy yolk (love that!), a little bun, and sauce, all in one forkful. I carefully take a bite. Um. Is this supposed to be cold? I tasted each item individually to test them. Egg & hollandaise were lukewarm, almost cool. The smoked salmon was cold, like out of the fridge cold. Not gonna lie, I scraped off half the sauce and ate the yolk and salmon anyway. It was good! My take: Eggs Benedict is by definition a hot dish. All of it. I get the hollandaise is probably not super hot, but should be warm and pleasant to taste. If this was actually meant to be a cold dish, that's fine, but don't call it eggs benedict. It was, for me, an unpleasant experience. One more thing...it was served on the same hot plate as a really delicious, simple, perfectly pre-dressed mixed greens salad. It tasted great and looked beautiful! The greens were also lukewarm. In summary, I felt uncomfortable and lost on my first visit and would have preferred a sit-down waiter/waitress experience for the price of my dish. The salmon benny and this restaurant probably need to decide what they're going to be, and go with it. The benny, commit to hot or cold. The restaurant, commit to upscale with servers or lower priced fancy fast-food.
