deru market

warning- this post may make you drool. there's chocolate cake and pizza involved. if you're on a diet i apologize and i hope you get a cheat day soon. then you can have cake and pizza, too. . i had heard about the slices of cake they serve atderumarket in kirkland and they sounded too good to pass up. so to kirkland we went so our family could have a delicious lunch. we were seated at a nice table outside. i started with a glass of some bubbly and my husband had a beer. our sons had already had a little lunch at home so we ordered them each a snickerdoodle cookie to be brought out with our food. then i thought, what the heck, bring me a slice of the chocolate cake, too.

so let me start by saying that this is an update to my review, demoting the place from four stars to one. as they say, one bad experience ruins many great ones...

my and my young daughters have been walking toderufor dinners and brunches quite frequently over the last two years. over time, my daughters developed their "permanent" order of pizza (split between cheese and chorizo), the chocolate mountain of a cake and two cookies to go (for school the next day).

the last (literally last, we are not going back) time we were there we were told, quite abruptly that the pizza the girls requested cannot be ordered. one of the girls - as well as myself - explained that we have been ordering the same pizza for quite some time. no good - we were told we can have cheese pepperoni but not chorizo. this was followed by some girls drama but my carnivore daughter badged - she was hungry after the walk. (disclaimer: i did not and decided to remain hungry and irritated vs. eating something i really don't care for).

'when things go wrong, you'll find they usually go on getting worse". we waited for ~30 minutes. whole pepperoni pizza arrives. the cheese half got covered. fairly quickly after that (they can make it quick if they want to!) a whole cheese pizza arrives. it was all good if the table wasn't too small for two trays. one ended up on the floor with some of the pizza. we got to take the floored pizza and leftover home; we'll give them to our backyard chickens.

it was time to go home. unfortunately decent food is not enough to cover bad service. we likedderuwhen they were smaller. attentive and kids friendly better. we will need to find a new family spot for our dinners. unfortunately it may not be within walking distance.

just found deru! what a find!. i had lunch atderumarket for the second time this afternoon: farmer's salad, margherita pizza, and chocolate, chocolate cake. the salad was excellent--extraordinarily fresh and with bits of added flavor (roasted pumpkin seeds, cherry tomatoes) and simple dressing. the thin-crust pizza was very good (with sun-dried tomatoes). better than other local kirkland pizzas, not as good as tom douglas' serious pie. the first time i was there, i got a turkey sandwich and peanut butter cookie. the sandwich was great--fresh and great flavors.

so for savory food,deruranks very high. for the desserts, however, not so much, imho. the peanut butter cookie didn't taste much like peanuts and was on the greasy side of good. the chocolate, chocolate cake was good, but nothing to write home about.

everything here is a double portion--so don't go by yourself as i did. other than sandwiches (which are large, but not double), there was nothing on the menu that was what i would call a single serving. the pizza was a usual 12" good for 2, or maybe one very hungry person. the salad was large (yet it was called the "small") and could certainly have fed 2 at lunch as a first course. the slice of cake was huge--half of it was more than enough--and was cut from a 12" diameter cake that is 4-1/2" high (rather then the usual 8" or 9" cake made at home).