For my friend's birthday party we went out to eat at a small crepe place on State Street, just past the mall. It's a whimsical restaurant with a paper mache tree in the middle of the room and little birds painted on the ceiling like they're sitting on the branches. There's a huge owl out front, which usually draws attention from those who drive past.
I thought the room was cute, but it almost seemed like one of those rooms you rent at the bowling alley or skating rink for a child's party.
The food didn't taste bad. I really enjoyed their tomato basil soup that came with my crepe. But... then my husband and I discovered that the restaurant kind of cheated. The thing that gave it away--the canned chicken in my husband's crepe. Canned chicken from a restaurant? What the heck? Since it takes so long to cook up chicken.... The reason we could tell it was canned chicken is because we buy that chicken from Costco to have on hand should we need a quick meal. It tastes fine, but it's not nearly as good as chicken you cook yourself. And I wasn't impressed with getting canned chicken at a restaurant... If I wanted a canned chicken crepe, I could have made it for myself for much cheaper.
They also had crumbled up granola bars on one of their desserts. The same kind we used to get (also from Costco). Which made me wonder how much of their food is actually cooked in the restaurant. The soup I had was probably spruced up soup from a can. As chef Robert Irvine says, cooking from cans is not cooking, it's assembling.
We also had to wait quite a while. There were several people at the restaurant, but we order before the groups got there. And it still took 20 or 30 minutes. I'm not really sure how long it takes to assemble a crepe when half the stuff is coming from a can and most of it is precooked...
One style issue I had was that they grilled my crepe so it was a little crispy on the outside. Sort of weird... Very Americanized. The last crepe restaurant I went to was in Bayeux, France, and I don't think they would have dreamed of grilling a crepe. This American crepe tasted good, it just lost authenticity points...
So, not a terrible restaurant, just a little disappointing when I remembered the little cafe in Bayeux (a stone's throw from the Bayeux Tapestry) next to a stream on a sunny afternoon with deliciously soft crepes. And cidre, but the story of accidentally buying an alcoholic drink can be saved for another day. :)
On Monday Jeff was so sweet and took me to the crepe restaurant on the other side of Orem for FHE. He told me he had tried to think of an English restaurant, but alas, there aren't too many of those in the U.S. (I'm kind of on an English kick right now, thank you Downton Abbey and old BBC Robin Hood episodes!) So the next best thing he could think of was French food, because I love France and England just about the same (depending on who I'm talking to. lol.)
This restaurant, Savory and Sweet, was a pleasant surprise, because I half expected it to be the same as the other restaurant. No, mes amis... This one was definitely better. The restaurant decor is pretty simple, but very clean and professional looking. (With light green walls for bonus points.) When we walked in, the staff greeted us (which is so French). Points there. The types of savory crepes available weren't incredibly French (buffalo chicken and southwestern flavors aren't too common in France), but the dessert crepes all looked so delicious and more or less like the ones from the creperies in France.
I order the chicken cordon bleu crepe, just because I wanted to go authentic, and a Nutella and banana dessert crepe. Jeff got pasta, because he doesn't love crepes, silly guy. Our order came out quickly. I was really surprised how fast they were.
My crepe was delicious. The white sauce was so good and the chicken was definitely not from a can. They even garnished the plate with a little chopped parsley and had some herbed potatoes on the side. The crepe was also much bigger than the crepe from the other place. Jeff said he liked his pasta and the chicken was perfectly cooked and very warm and juicy.
I was really impressed with the workers, because even though it was a cafe-style restaurant (order your food, then find a place to sit), they walked around and checked with everyone to make sure the food tasted good and everything was going well.
My dessert crepe tasted divine and took me back to Le Chat Noir a couple of blocks from the LDS church building in Paris. It was simple... There are only so many ways to do Nutella and bananas, but the bananas were sliced very thin and there was a chocolate sauce drizzled over the top of the rather large crepe. Mmmmm. :)
I almost ate the whole thing. Then I remembered how much fat was probably in that crepe, so I gave the last couple of bites to Jeff. He doesn't like sweet crepes (or anything that could possibly have jam, syrup or powdered sugar on it), but he thought this one tasted good. That's saying something...
The one downside to this creperie is it's a little pricier than the first. But so worth it! And they have a deal where you can get two savory crepes, two simple dessert crepes (which includes the Nutella and banana one) and two drinks for $20. It's only slightly more expensive than Cafe Rio or Zupa's. And we spent $20 on pasta, a savory crepe and a dessert crepe. Next time Jeff will have to get a savory crepe so we can get more for our money. :)
Following our dinner, we came home and watched the last Harry Potter movie, which we got for Christmas from my sister and brother-in-law. I forgot how heavy a movie that is! And what a tear-jerker... (I didn't cry!) It's a good one, though.
And Jeff had me read President Uchtdorf's talk on how we are nothing compared to God, but to God we are everything. Wonderful talk. :)
Today I looked at round trip tickets to England. Bad idea. I told myself before I looked that I probably shouldn't because it would only make me depressed. But I decided to look anyway. And there were round trip tickets to Manchester for $907! That's not a bad price... Jeff and I could do that. One last hoorah before grad school and a real job and kids and stuff? *Sigh....* Probably not going to happen, as my realistic self told my romantic/hopeful/dreaming self. It would be perfect, though, because we could stay with the Turners and wouldn't have to worry about hotels, except for when we traveled up to Edinburgh. (Because of course, we have to go there for a few days.) And I suppose if we really wanted to see London, we'd have to find a hotel there too. But we could skip London if we wanted, because I've been there twice and it's not my favorite city in the world.
:( Why did I have to look up plane tickets?
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