| rev:text
| - I was headed to a computer lab around lunchtime today when I noticed the building lit up at the edge of Schenley Park in Oakland -- was it open? Having seen the construction progress along throughout the spring and summer months, I was anxious to sit down and give this brand spanking new restaurant a try.
First surprise: it is NOT a full-service restaurant. When I walked in, I was promptly greeted and two hostesses handed me a menu. They directed me to go to the register when I was ready to order.
The menu looked fresh, seasonal, and original, and consisted of salads, sanwiches, soup, and wood-fired pizzas. All of the sandwiches come with either greens or crispy taters with curry ketchup -- more on that later.
I finally settled on a sandwich -- The Roasted Pig -- pork roast, carmelized onions, ricotta, and red pepper aioli, and I wanted to try both of the sides so I asked for the greens and paid for a side of the crispy taters. In all, my meal was around $13. If I had gotten anything to drink other than water I imagine it would have topped $15. They gave me a number with my order, as they bring the food to your table.
Second surprise: The "water bar." I just wanted water with lunch and the girl who took my order pointed me towards a spot on the bar with two larges containers of water -- one with cucumbers and one with lemon. You can help yourself to all you like of either. The flavored water was a nice touch.
The Porch is seat yourself, and I found a table with a great view of the park and a bench seat -- it was roomy and comfortable.
I waited about 10 minutes for my food to arrive, and the greens looked fresh and bright, the bread was crisp and chewy at the same time, and the potatoes looked divine.
First thing to try: the greens. They were tasty and clearly very fresh, if a little bit on the salty side. I'm not sure WHAT they are tossed in, but it was light and tasty. (I hate when I go to a restaurant and they give me OLD greens/lettuce in my salad, it is such a huge turnoff!)
Next: A bite of those potatoes. The crispy taters weren't exactly what I expected them to be -- the work tater put "tater tots" into my brain, but these were fresh, small potatoes, diced kind of like homefries and seasoned. And on the side was the curry ketchup. Let me preface this by saying that I LOVE curry: the curry ketchup is GENIUS! The curry gives a little kick of spice and a something extra to the ketchup, and the seasoned potatoes, while good by themselves, were really something special with a dab of the curry ketchup on them. Note: If you're not a fan of curry, you CAN request regular ketchup.
And then my sandwich: I can't claim it was a flavor explosion in my mouth, but the bread was toasted just the right amound and the onions were sweet and tasty. The pork was flavorful and the texture was spot-on. It wasn't really messy, althought the last couple bites kind of fell apart a bit and the cheese didn't stay on the sandwich well... Speaking of which, I couldn't really taste the cheese (although the type of cheese on the sandwich was a mild one), so the one thing I would change if I were making the sandwiches would be to use a sharper, "stickier" cheese that would also help hold the sandwich together.
Someone came by and refilled my water glass several times throughout my meal and another person took my plate away when I was done eating. The staff was friendly and attentive and no one acted like they were just there to do a job.
While I didn't have any alcoholic beverages, there was a beer and wine list and The Porch also makes fresh seasonal soda to order.
Overall, a nice place, and definetly somewhere I would take a friend for a casual lunch.
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)