Last night Nicole and I made a trip down the street to the recently opened Tender Greens restaurant. The Chipotlesque way in which you order your food is cool and after I got over being abused by the girl taking our order (she was completely emotionless and unhelpful) I was shocked to get to the cashier and find that it's $21.00 plus 9.25% tax for two salads. I began to wonder where I was saving money for sacrificing a proper hostess and wait staff (and being abused by the first employee I encountered). They do get two thumbs up however for having microbrews on tap!
For $10.50 my salad was extremely disappointing. I ordered from the "Big Salads" menu and got the Wild Shrimp Ceviche. I didn't know it at the time but Ceviche is a fancy word for raw fish "cooked" (when they really mean just marinated) in lemon or lime juice. I'm a big fan of sushi but ceviche fucking sucks (or at least shrimp ceviche sucks). It was cold, limp, tasteless and looked like part of the afterbirth from one of the Aliens movies when the little alien pops out of the human's chest. I guess it would have been slightly better if the shrimp was actually cooked but not by much. I almost ordered off of the "Simple Salads" menu as I wasn't that hungry but I'm glad I didn't because even the "big" salad wasn't enough.
Nicole ordered the Chinese Chicken Salad from the big menu and while it was pretty delicious it didn't come with enough dressing and her chicken seemed to suffer from the same afterbirth effect as my shrimp. She didn't finish it.
I wish I could base this entire review on the beer but, alas, I cannot. Tender Greens gets two thumbs down this time around. I'll be giving them another shot sometime in the future but for now, please avoid this establishment and go to one of the many other great places easily within walking distance on Santa Monica.
If you're a masochist here's the address:
Tender Greens
8759 Santa Monica Blvd, W. Hollywood, CA 90069