Thursday, August 25, 2011

Review: The Eatery Opens in West Sacramento

One nice thing about being in the process of moving is that it gives you a perfect excuse to eat out. We were very excited to try out the much-anticipated new addition to the West Sacramento Southport Town Center Plaza, The Eatery. To locals, this is the spot where Q'doba used to be, but you'll hardly recognize it now.

The interior looks like a chef collaborated with an Anthropologie designer and this is what they came up with - muted colors, floral patterns, re-purposed mirrors and bedroom furniture, and lots of space.

This upscale casual non-chain restaurant is a first in our town, and many people are obviously glad to have it here. Although the Eatery only opened in the last couple of weeks, the place was hopping on a Thursday night around 6pm.


The food features comfort American cuisine and strives to maintain a strain of simplicity. A few things they did well:

Look out, Squeeze Inn! There's a new burger in town. This burger was excellent - perfectly cooked to order, a great bun that didn't get soggy (my pet peeve), crisp butter lettuce, and mildly sweet zucchini pickles on the side. The french fries, sprinkled with salt, pepper and fresh herbs, were formidable as well, actually tasting of potato instead of oil - how refreshing!

My one suggestion: The beef is labeled "natural", which doesn't mean a whole lot these days. If they, like Burgers N Brew, used Niman Ranch beef, this burger would be about perfect in my book.

The chef is keepin' it simple with a dessert titled "Cookies and Milk". Three chocolate-walnut cookies with milk for dipping - how can you go wrong with that?

The restaurant is new and just beginning to get its footing and makes a few missteps. The BBQ chicken salad was utterly devoid of BBQ flavor, and really should have been called Fried Chicken Salad. It contained mixed greens, fried chicken pieces (dabbed with a miniscule amount of BBQ sauce - I think), cubes of white cheddar cheese, biscuit croutons, almonds, a teeny bit of fresh corn (needed more!), and a buttermilk dressing. While it was still a tasty salad, the sweet and tangy BBQ flavor I was looking forward to just wasn't there.

Since it's so new, I fully understand that it may take some time for the Eatery to work out all the kinks. I am nonetheless thrilled to have a place like this in our town. I look forward to seeing how the menu will change (seasonally I hope?) and improve with time.

4 comments:

  1. At $11 for a burger, I don't think Squeeze Inn has anything to worry about!

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  2. It's a totally different category of restaurant, it's true; but I do think if it were all about taste, the Eatery's burger puts up a good fight for the best burger in town. No cheese skirt though, of course. :)

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  3. Hello, I'm Jess. The chef/owner of the eatery. Thanks for the feedback. We will keep an eye out on the salad. As for the burger; the meat we use is ground chuck that we purchase from preferred meats. They use two suppliers for their natural angus program so we leave the producer name off of our menu. Currently it is a half pound patty of TR Natural beef from Colorado. As for the squeeze inn, I eat there about twice a month and for a burger, fries and a drink I'm right around 11-12 bucks. Just saying. Thanks for the review. Hopefully next time we have the kinks worked out.

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  4. I had the flat iron steak and loved it, cooked perfectly medium. My wife has the steak sandwich which myself and my daughter attempted to steal. It was great!

    @Gary, I like squeeze inn as well, but it's anything but inexpensive. I will gladly pay extra for GOOD food rather than purchase bland chain restaurant fare.

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Thanks for sharing your thoughts with me!