Random Taste for Thursday 1/25/18

Here we go again for the 3rd year ... a brand new set of tastes for 2018 ...

 here's the THIRD of FIFTY tastes of FLORIDA 

(coming to you on sequential Thursdays.  All.  Year.  Long.)!

Establishment:  Giardino Gourmet Salads
Location:  (new to) Ft Lauderdale
Meal:  Dinner
Drink:  Coca-Cola in a can
Appetizer:  Boccata Sandwiches
one Curry Turkey and one Wild Alaskan Salmon Capperi
Main:  My Way Salad
romaine base with broccoli, cucumber, shredded parm (?), double dose of bacon with a scoop of roasted chicken topped with country garlic dressing and herb parmesan croutons
Side(s):  n/a
Dessert:  n/a
Server:   Victor and the guys
Website: http://www.giardinosalads.com/
Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/giardinonorthftl/

Eating healthier is always a good thing -- and sometimes one gets a hankering for a salad on a hot day here in the FTL.  Funny thing -- before the big move down here when we were just vacationing in town, we actually went looking for a grocery store salad bar one afternoon and couldn't find one (and we didn't know the area well enough to find the Sweet Tomatoes on the outskirts of town).  Since then, Whole Foods expanded to include a section -- but now with a brand new location of an existing (mostly FL) chain, the area just got an even better option.  And when I say "brand new", I mean the official grand opening is still a week or two away!  For an accounting of the Troy-score, see below:

AMBIANCE:   9/10 (clean ... bright ... gigantic food-porn style photos of everything on the menu ... a little bit of soft jazz playing on the sound system -- plus absolutely everything looked brand new -- and that's 'cause it literally was! [as referenced above] ... I have a hunch that a mathematician created the menu, because the amount of permutations of potential options is mind-blowing considering there are 10 bases with 42 toppings from which to choose and 16 possible addable scoops to be dressed 21 different ways with 7 flavors of croutons that could be put on top for extra crunch ... which leads me to my single point deduction 'cause all of those possible paths toward a gourmet salad made my brain hurt)

FOOD:           8/10 (you know how sometimes you just have to marvel at how those little Chinese take out boxes seem to be bottomless pits of never ending food? ... somehow these bowls of gourmet salads perform the same way ... the ones pictured are actually the piccolo size [a bit smaller than the basta] and halfway through the meal, it looked like the same amount was still there ... [by the way, the additional salad that is shown here is the country cobb] ... we did observe that different employees took different approaches to the portioning [one did level scoops of everything and one did overflowing scoops] so a point is lost for the inconsistency there and a second point comes off the total because the homemade croutons, while delicious, are simply too big to get on the fork WITH anything else)

SERVICE:      8/10 (it was a nice touch to offer a sample of the soup while the customer is deciding what to order and every subsequent interaction -- including carrying your tray out to your table for you -- came off as authentic and was executed with a smile ... the deductions come from having ordered shredded parm for my salad cheese of choice but being given cheddar instead and for the fact that clearly everyone is told to greet the customer as soon as they walk in the door ... the only problem with that is there were at least five folks working that night, and the greetings got a little jumbled and felt a little bit aggressive [hence the point deduction] ... maybe there can be just one designated greeter moving forward?)

BACON:         10/10 (here's how you get a perfect score on the bacon section ... you provide real pieces of bacon as a choice instead of processed bacon bits ... you let your customers pick bacon TWICE when listing the ingredients they want in the salad ... you let your customers even add a scoop of bacon as a SOUP topping [yes I said SOUP!] ... and you hire employees who are overheard saying "I loooove bacon" as they build the product ... and you do all of that under the auspices of a healthy eating place)

BONUS:         7/10 (+3 for those special bite size sandwiches on potato rolls -- which you should consider the next time you need any catering [something the place offers], +3 for some delicious salad dressing choices [creamy cheese dressing and guacamole dressing are both on the list of things to try next time] and, to that point, +1 for being a place to which we will return [but NOT on a Sunday, since that is the one day a week that they are closed])

TroyScore:  42 out of 50 -- aka 84, a B