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| - The short:
Dim, intimate, clean, and as stylish as its customers. Service at 6 pm on a Tuesday night was spot-on. Their website says their meat is hormone free and organic, and their veggies are local and organic. The small menu was mostly standards. Food looks great and tastes fine, but I had to salt my peppercrust burger. The doughnuts/butterscotch dessert was ok--I thought the doughnuts tasted like baking powder, but the butterscotch sauce was good.
The long:
The Grind is on the southwest corner of 40th St. and Camelback, right in the same shopping center as Fresh & Easy.
Their door--a huge slab of frosted glass--is awesome and lets you know you've arrived. It's even more impressive from the inside going out when it's all lit up--a shining light in a dark room. The Grind itself is a dim, darkly decorated, long restaurant with a single aisle down the middle--prepare to pull over to let others pass, and look elsewhere if you want a place for big groups who prefer to cluster. There's a nice bar and mostly booth seating. At the back are small booths to the left (where we sat), and bar tables with banquette/bar stool seating to the right. Halfway back, a walkway branches off to the left of the small booths to the servers' wide pickup window where booth diners can peek through and see the cooks' heads bobbing around the kitchen, or come face to face with servers peering into the dining room or up at the ceiling-mounted TVs. The table setting was nice: placemats, potted ornamental grass (how does it stay green in such a dark place?), a hefty steak knife, and a lightweight fork. There was also a big aluminum salt shaker, which I'd need later.
At first, I thought the folded, logoed butcher paper on top of my paper napkin was a drink coaster, but I unfolded it and found the menu. Not many options, but that was fine: salads, a handful of burgers and sandwiches, a steak dish, and some sides a la carte. Don't be discouraged that your entrees don't come with sides--all the entrees we saw looked hearty.
The staff was great--polite, efficient, attentive but relaxed, and fun to watch. The women were energetic, quick, and totally inked--more full sleeves than a biker convention. The guys were more subdued, small and quiet. And I think all of them were wearing the same-size skinny jeans.
Both of us had the Custom Grind Ice Tea. I thought it tasted a bit like Lipton, but at least they kept our lovely glasses full.
I ordered the peppercorn crust burger with roasted garlic, charred onions, watercress, and matchstick fries ($10). It came out perfectly centered on a hot, ornate metal plate, and it was at least an eye-popping 4 inches tall--mostly greens. They definitely treat their produce with respect, judging from the healthy, fluffy pile of watercress on top of my burger. The fries were the surprise hit--cute and really crispy. The charred burger itself was a perfect medium-rare. I should've asked for the bun medium-rare, too, because it was charred black--charred meat is good, but charred bread was a shock during those first couple of bites. It did all blend after awhile. I rarely season my food at restaurants, but I had to salt my burger. The flavors would've popped a better if they'd been salted during prep, though. My boyfriend had the pressed chicken sandwich with Virginia ham, Swiss, charred onions, and whole grain mustard aioli ($10). The generous chicken portion made him happy. I thought his sandwich had a better overall flavor than my burger.
We tried the scalloped potatoes with cheddar & Swiss, and the roasted sweet potato fritters (both $5). The scalloped potatoes were just what I'd expect: cheesy, carby, and greasy, in that order. Luckily, the grease migrated from the top to the bottom as we ate, so we could at least eat around it. The fritters were golf ball-sized deep-fried quenelles of pureed sweet potato. The roasted flavor seemed lost in the deep-fry. I liked their crisp, delicate crust, but the soft, creamy, hot innards weren't what I wanted with a burger. I expected more crunch.
We split the warm doughnuts with salted butterscotch ($6). They brought out tiny, dark brown, hot donuts lined up on a plate, a dish of hot butterscotch sauce, and a single dessert fork (one of us ate with our hands, and it wasn't the one with the computer geek, desk jockey, noncook's hands). After smelling them, I wondered if they were fried in the same grease as the fritters. They had a nice texture and a crisp, delicate crust, but the taste broke my heart--acerbic baking powder. The sauce was delicious, though. My boyfriend liked everything just fine.
The drink menu looked fine, but restaurant markups on wine always surprise me. A glass of Terra Robles 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon for $12--the bottle price at the wine shop.
Some negatives, but an overall good experience. Next time I'll try their All Nighter: house bacon, ham, cheddar, and a fried egg on an English muffin.
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