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| - Two stars only because the people are so nice, and the wine selection is surprisingly good.
If you have any standards at all, the food is terrible!
- "Perfect" Caesar salad: for $8.95, you can have a mid-sized pile of chopped romaine with parmesan that probably came out of a package, croutons also provided by a box, and dressing that I am positive was not made in-house. It's less than $1 worth of food, and probably a step above a McDonald's caesar as the lettuce was fresh, at least, but certainly not worth $9.
- French onion soup: oh lord. Boxed, overly floury soup with onions of unknown origin (they may actually have been freshly cooked in), topped with Mexican cheese blend from the package (Kraft or hopefully Sargento? Not sure) and CROUTONS, for $5/cup or $7/bowl. I suppose it's close to what a college student could call French onion soup, but definitely the worst misinterpretation that I have ever had in a restaurant.
I hoped breakfast would be better. I don't know if the eggs were actually cage-free as noted on the menu - based on the conversations with the staff, I got the sense that they came from a carton. In any case, the frittata is not even close to a frittata. It's more of an unfolded omelette, minus the fold, with slightly cooked spinach that definitely spent no time in the oven (definition of a frittata...) It wasn't bad (while not distinct at all), just should have been correctly named. Meanwhile my companion had a yogurt parfait, which had vanilla yogurt and a bit of fruit and granola - not really a parfait, which is generally layered.
The coffee was not bad.
On to the wine...I was very surprised to find Estancia and several other reasonably good choices at reasonable prices. It won't knock the socks off a wine connoisseur, but for a weary traveler, it's a lot better than what one usually finds. They also have Uncle Bear's beer, not my favorite local label but still - I respect them having local brews on their 3 taps. They also had bottles but I didn't look at those.
Bottom line - I ate there because I had vouchers from the hotel. Next time, I'd go out, especially since the Pavilions are so close!
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