solstice kitchen

ate at solstice last night with hubby. we had the fried greentomatostarter, which i give a mixed review to. the toptomatoon the stack, which had no pimiento cheese on top, was very plain and could use a healthy dose of at least salt and pepper. it by itself was incredibly bland. the tomatoes underneath had the pimiento cheese covering them which gave them much needed spice. prob won't order again. the short rib entree was divine!!!! one of the best i ever had. fork tender and well seasoned - i could die happy! omg! hubby had the fried chicken. great breading and moist. overall great experience!

the bacon man. i'm sure that this post will be removed very quickly, as it's in reference to wayne r's post below, but what the heck!
wayne seems perplexed why atomatosandwich would come with more tomato, but he doesn't tell you that all our sandwiches are served with an extra slice of red vine ripetomatoand lettuce on the side. if he didn't want to eat it, he certainly didn't have to.
wayne also doesn't understand the concept of sheet-cooking bacon. he did mention that his bacon on his burger at wendy's was always hot, so he didn't understand why ours wasn't. well, just like many very good restaurants, we cook our applewood bacon on large sheet pans in the oven at a low temperature so they remain flat and in tact. two nice pieces are a compliment to our fried greentomatobased blt, that, it seems mr wayne r didn't care for.
he also fails to mention that upon being sat, he very loudly said "i'll try to order something they can't screw up". hmmmm?? sound like someone was just looking for a reason to complain to anyone else? yeah, i think so.

no one has to love solstice. no one has to dine with us. but we are a very good restaurant, and wayne's petty insults, all because he demanding his two tiny strips of bacon be made hot, after eating half of his lunch, well, its obvious that someone was either having a bad day, or is just out to stir things up.

and for all restaurants where wayne ventures from here on out...you better make sure that bacon is hotttttt!!!


-----19 mar, 2012-----

dear michael below.... perhaps the reason we didn't honor your groupon was because a) it expired almost one year ago b) you were irate and threatened legal action against us after our gm explained to you that your groupon expired almost one year ago. maybe had you been nice, while understanding that some deals do in fact expire at some point in time, things would've turned out differently. but that didn't happen did it. regardless, send me your address and i'll throw a check in the mail, but only if you remove your ridiculous post about how awful we are for not honoring year-old promos.

tomatoes on atomatosandwich?. i took a group of folks from work to lunch at solstice. most everyone enjoyed the hamburgers that are made from fresh ground steak and cooked to order. having ordered a burger from solstice on a previous occasion that was over-cooked, i tried something different from the menu, a “fried greentomatoblt”.

expecting a bacon, lettuce, andtomato(a “blt”) sandwich made with fried green tomatoes instead of ripe red tomatoes, i was disappointed. what came on the plate was basically an order of fried green tomatoes served on a large kaiser roll. on the side was a piece of lettuce, two redtomatoslices (of all things) and two small pieces of bacon. already disappointed with the entrée, i proceeded to rake off the stack of green tomatoes from the bun and try to make a sandwich. when i picked up the two slices of bacon (really looked like one slice cut in half), they were what could only be described as “refrigerator” cold.

at this point i stopped trying to make an edible sandwich and waited for the waitress to come back to the table. when she stopped by, i complained about the bacon (both the temperature and quantity) and handed her the two strips from my plate. she of course apologized and offered to bring out more bacon with which to make a sandwich. what came out next was a small plate (three half slices this time) of burnt bacon. at this point, i stopped trying to create anything out of my meal and just waited for everyone else at the table to finish.
when the waitress finally came back to bring a check, she noticed i had not eaten the sandwich and asked if anything was wrong. i looked at the small plate of burnt pork flesh and asked if the kitchen had sent that out as a joke. she assured me they had not.

not wanting to make a scene and discuss the situation in front of my guests, i paid the bill and left the restaurant. i called back later to express my displeasure with the meal.

tonight the owner calls me to “get to the bottom of the situation”. after i explained, he told me i was being unreasonable and no restaurant would actually cook bacon to order for a blt sandwich. he said it was normal practice to cook the bacon at the beginning of a shift and leave it out on a sandwich station until it was ordered. as far as the side of tomatoes on what could only be described as atomatosandwich, he said that was the way all sandwiches were plated.

if you want a quiet place for lunch, i would recommend solstice. the place only had one other table with people at it (i wonder why?). if you want a good blt, i would recommend going somewhere else.