Tender Greens

Culver City is rapidly becoming the new restaurant row of Los Angeles. Sony Pictures creates a huge gravity well with which to lure restauranteurs hoping to find a trendy location, that has both a strong lunch and dinner crowd. So enters Tender Greens into the mix.

Tender Greens has been around since, well, Friday. We were literally the first few customers they served, having opened two hours previous. So, opening day jitters, inefficiency, and mistakes are a given. It is miraculous how many people don't realize that, as I listened to numerous crochety old women wheezing about the wait, long line, and how they would never step foot inside the restaurant again. This was even after someone told them they had only been open two hours.

Like its neighbor next door, Ford's Filling Station it has a light, woody and breezy atmosphere. Lighter cast in the palette than Ford's, it also strikes some more modern notes.

The food and marketing philosophy are not my favorite. Tender Greens philosophy is based on large, satisfying salads sourced from hand-picked, organic farms. So, right away you have the words "salad" and "organic" flapping a big red flag in my face.

The line was excrutiating, but it was presided over by a hot chick, so that made the wait pleasant for a time. I was also with some co-workers, so we were able to BS for the twenty minutes we stood there. Yes, inefficiency marked the afternoon, mostly because of the unexpectedly huge turnout. I had received no less than two emails about the opening, so there was already a buzz about the place.



Everything is prepared in an open environment, so the kitchen staff has to be fast, efficient and on their best behavior. That's a serious detraction to a kitchen. It's much easier to handle a lunch rush behind closed doors when you can have the freedom of telling the stupid customers off because they want to make changes or additions (re: What Chef Dan Says about 'On The Side'). I commend them for doing the best they could in a difficult situation. It also made me question the logic of opening a restaurant on a Friday, but it might be to get the kinks out over the weekend for the first full work-week.

Nonetheless, they do offer four sanwiches, and I went for the flatiron Angus steak sandwich with a side of caeser. They also offer free range chicken and line caught Ahi sandwiches. More feely-good keywords, but whatever, as long as its good. All others ordered salads.



The salads are substantial, you can get them with any of the meat components. The biggest gripe was that they didn't give enough leafy material, and they kept it mostly uncut. Most of the people I went with wish they had chopped it a bit finer, and gave more roughage. Fair enough.



There must be Orcs nearby, because the silverware is glowing blue.

My sandwich was very good, and it sidestepped the problem often found in thick-cut steak sandwiches that make it impossible to chew all the way through the meat before pulling out the entire chunk. The steak was medium-rare and tender enough that I cut through it with my teeth effortlessly. Nice job! That is the first steak sandwich I had that I didn't ultimately have to deconstruct to eat with my knife and fork.



For a place that specializes in salads, the caeser was a bit weak. Again, I can only evaluate Tender Greens on the merit of having only been open for a couple of hours, I am sure they will assimilate all the feedback and improve the product and kitchen chreography.

As I said, the biggest gripe with the food was the need for more greens in the warm salads. In fact, we had waited in line so long, that by the time we got to pay, one of the people's ahi salads had been sitting there for the whole time (probably someone earlier changed their mind). She had them make a fresh one, which added even more time.

Overall, this place is pretty good. They will be popular among the Whole Foods Hippy Crowd, that's for sure. They also offer enough Man-Food to entice me to come back and try some new stuff. Oh, of course, they are pricy. Organic food (remember what I said about organic being latin for 40% markup) dictates that a simple sandwich, lemonade and 20 grams of side-salad equalled $13.

One more thing that Los Angelenos may be put off by, is Mr. Bada Bing. He's clearly an old-school showman, probably from Jersey or Philly. He was working the room, making sure everyone was ok. Very exhuberant and outgoing, and that will scare the LA crowd. Back East, friendly and gregarious staff is the norm, out here, it is decisevly frightening to the uninitiated. I could see the old hags cringing when he'd try to get the whole room to say "Bada Bing." But that's their fault, not his.