One More Try

Every once in a while I find a place, or a man, that I cannot seem to walk away from.  Giving these places (and men) another try has been, in some cases beneficial.  In other cases it has simply left a bad taste in my mouth.

Careit in Crestwood is one of those places.  I want to fall in love with Careit.  I love their story, their philosophy, and their menu.  I really really want to love this place.  I have visited Careit several times and I have to be honest when I say that while I do not want to walk away from it, Careit is only getting one more try.

Careit, we need to talk about seasoning and customer service.  Both are really hit and miss at your place and it is unfortunate that you have such great ingredients at your disposal but do not respect them or your customers enough to turn out the high quality food you have the potential to deliver.  The lack of consistency makes me skeptical.  So does the inability to get about 30% of your advertised menu items, regardless of what time of day I have been there.  At this point, all that is keeping me in the game is a great price point, a clean shop, and a few items from the menu I have not yet tried.

Be warned, Careit.  We may just have to break up, even if you have the world's best carrot cookies.  And we do not want that, do we?

Ratings:
Appearance: Clean but poorly lit.
Service: Hit and miss.  Some staff cannot help you enough, some cannot be bothered to acknowledge your presence.
Food: Home cooked and health conscious but just OK, 5.5/10
Overall rating: Will be back but only because there are other items on the menu I want to try

Chicken Pot Pie:
(A little note... again, I used my ghetto phone camera so be warned!)

The portion size on this pie is perfect for lunch.  The puff pastry topping wasn't all that flaky and to be honest, I suspect it may have been frozen; the taste and texture were a bit off.  I do love me some chicken pot pie but this one was a bit train wrecky.  The potatoes were undercooked, the chicken was scarce, and it was desperately underseasoned to the point where it screamed for sage and I will not even tell you how much salt and pepper I had to add.  Overall, 4/10.

Crab and Roasted Pepper Quiche:

Again, the portion size is great for lunch.  While the quiche was dense, it still had a light sensibility to it.  The amount of crab and pepper was perfect for the size of the quiche.  The pastry was perfect but the quiche itself could have used a bit of salt and pepper at the very least.  Overall, 7/10.

While I will give Careit one more try, I will not be having the chicken pot pie.  I may go back to the mac and cheese as it was pretty good the last time I had it.  If you do chose to go, go early as the fresh items go fast and you will be left with really old rusting salads and beet hummus as your lunch options.  Bring a knife too because every time I have been to Careit, knives have not been available for take out food.

Mr. Hanky, My Not So Christmas Poo

(Originally posted on my old blog "The Domestication of a Punk Rock Foodie" on March 19, 2010)

I don’t know what’s wrong with people. Who knew my poo would cause such a crisis in someone’s life.

When I poo, sometimes it’s stinky. And guess what, it happens to about 6 billion people every day, including you. Sometimes, it will happen twice if you have a healthy colon and a high fibre diet.

Soooo, when you get all puritanical because people are pooing in the office bathroom, my advice to you is to get over yourself and your aversion to feces. It's a friggin' bathroom and designed for some pretty specific uses, one of which happens to be pooing. Oh I know, you don’t fart in front of anybody and you only poo when you are completely isolated from society, but I’m fairly certain the only person in the world who shits glitter and baby powder is Lady Gaga. For your own sake, relax and ixnay the poo perturbation. Ya, I know, I had a poo in the office bathroom but the poo-approved bathrooms on the other side of the building are under renovation and, for the next four to six weeks, you will have to deal with it.

Now, when you came to my desk with the air freshner and acted like I had shat toxic waste (which I didn’t… for what its worth you only knew I poo’d cos I farted), that was precious. It must have pissed you off that I didn’t rush to admit I had poo’d in the poo-free bathrooms and then apologize profusely for ruining your day. Really, it wasn’t necessary, was it? We both know what your motivation was. Epic fail if you were trying to make a point. You should know it gave me great pleasure to smile and tell you the scent was nice (scent of the freshner, not my poo). Honestly, it took all I had not to laugh and ask you if you were the corporate shitologist but I realized after that thought left my brain but before it had left my mouth that I was really close to crossing the line.

I'm not sure what is more cryptic to me...
1] Your reaction to poo.
2] The fact that, on a regular basis, you shit in that poo-free bathroom yet the rest of us are forbidden to use the bathroom for one of its originally intended purposes.
3] How the hell a bathroom became a poo-free zone.

Just wondering out loud, ‘kay? Don't hate the pooper, hate your shitty game.

By the way, I still have gas from the turkey rice soup I had yesterday. Yes, still. You should also know, I’m bloated so there’s more farts and poo to come. It’s gonna be great. And now thanks to you, it will also be “meadow fresh”.