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I've actually been to Dad's Kitchen twice since it opened a month ago and have just neglected to blog it. Terrible, considering they are friends of mine and I want to help support their business.
My first visit was with my co-workers over lunch. We arrived and sat in the back patio area (actually I sat there both times). I love what they did with the patio. They cleaned it up and did a bunch of landscaping and now it is inviting and relaxing. There is the smell of fragrant jasmine in the air. Another nice touch/idea is that they have a bunch of board games available if you want to hang out for a while. And they do have a beer license.
Anyway, we sat down and took a look at the menu. Turns out they have three different menus, which I will get to. But we were there for lunch and so the lunch menu contained a smattering of the salads and sandwiches that are popular over at Dad's Deli. Certainly my favorite Hot Tuna (tuna melt) was here too. The only new lunch items that differed from the deli were burgers, fries, and macaroni and cheese. The burgers are made with Niman ranch beef and three of us ordered those. Hand packed and tasty. My favorite thing was the varieties of ways they are serving their french fries. You can get them plain, seasoned, or with garlic/parmesan or blue cheese/chili oil.
My buddy, Eric, is the head chef and when I later saw him I told him that the only suggestion I had for him was that he needed to add a couple of other new items to the lunch menu. For the office crowd that I lunch with, there needed to be a couple more entree choices. I suggested maybe a quesadilla or some wings.
As I said, I took a look at the other menus, of which I'll mention breakfast now. Their breakfast menu was pretty basic egg dishes including eggs benedict and florentine. Sadly I missed the griddle items such as french toast or pancakes. Before they had opened I had talked to Eric about that and he had mentioned a french toast, but I don't see it. Maybe after they've been going for a while.
My second visit was with my Dining Out group for dinner. The stand out entrees were a rib eye, fish of the day, and the marinated chicken. I was tempted by the grilled artichoke and cheese sandwich entree, but opted to try the marinated chicken. They say it marinates for a few days before they grill it. The half chicken was ordered by almost everyone and we all enjoyed it. It came with baked beans and cornbread. I wasn't too fond of the beans and they seemed a bit undercooked. The jalapeno cornbread was a huge square, but I don't care for cornbread. I'll let someone else judge that. Christina had the asian salad and was very happy with it and the light dressing. Currently they only have a dessert-of-the-day, which was bread pudding that night.
Service was great and I was happy to see that the restaurant was full on a Tuesday night. I've seen another review by a vegetarian who was happy with their offerings. A friend of mine had ordered the fish and said it was delicious and highly recommended it. So I know I have to go back to try some other items.
I'm wishing them luck and hoping that they will get their newbie kinks worked out and change the menu a bit as time goes on.
