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View The Fresh Gourmet's Menu
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Restaurant: The Fresh Gourmet
Where: 2004 Huntington Dr., San Marino
Phone: (626) 308-1720
Reservations: Dinner only
Cocktails: No
Service: Tableside wait service
Atmosphere: Casual
Outdoor Dining: Yes
Credit Cards: MC, Visa, American Express,
Discover, Debit w/logo
Kid’s Menu: Yes
Senior Discount: No
Food to Go: Yes
Catering Menu: Yes
Price Range: $3.79 – $8.59, Dinner specials a
little more |
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A Look At San
Gabriel Valley Restaurants by SanGabrielValleyMenus.com
The Fresh Gourmet in San Marino
Still a Great Stop for Lunch or Dinner
By Bill Coburn
The Fresh Gourmet in
San Marino is a small family-owned and operated restaurant with some outside
seating area that opened back in 1996. Original owner Norma Olivas had started
out with a sandwich/salad delivery service, taking meals to office buildings and
the like, and was doing well enough that she decided to expand with a storefront
of her own. With now co-owner daughter Nicole, she has built up The Fresh
Gourmet. They are open till 7:30pm on weeknights, 4pm on Saturday. They are
closed on Sundays.
It has been about a year since
our first visit to The Fresh Gourmet, when we enjoyed the Chicken Barley soup,
the Meat Loaf Special, the Chicken Club Sandwich, the Chicken Tequila Fettucine,
the Turkey Avocado Wrap and the Napa Salad. Yes, we ordered a lot of food, but
we wanted to discuss a representative portion of the menu in the spotlight.
We’re givers. We did it for you…
The Fresh Gourmet
menu features more than a dozen different salads, half a dozen “Classic”
Sandwiches, seveal “Specialty” sandwiches (including a Los Robles Melt,
California Melt, Montecito Chicken, Manhattan Steak and others), four baguette
sandwiches, half a dozen pastas, nearly half a dozen “Wraps” and some
“Southwestern Specialties.” In addition, the night we dropped in there are
usually another half dozen dinner specials.
Tonight, I started with a
cool and refreshing Mandarin Chicken Salad, which is poached
chicken breast, chopped lettuce, green onions, celery, mandarin oranges and
candied almonds tossed in a sweet and sour vinaigrette. It was excellent, and I
look forward to finishing it tomorrow at lunchtime. The reason I didn’t finish
it, is that I also ordered the Chicken Marsala, one of this evening’s specials.
This was two good-sized boneless, skinless chicken breasts served over pasta,
with plenty of mushroom and marsala wine sauce poured over it. The sauce was
thick, almost like a glaze, and delicious. It was served with steamed carrots,
zucchini and squash. I ate the carrots, Keelan ate the zucchini and squash.
The portion was so large, I took some of the pasta and one of the chicken
breasts home with me, I’ll be having that after polishing off the remaining
salad.
Speaking of Keelan, he
ordered the roast beef and cheddar baguette, which he requested with no lettuce
and light on the mayo. He said it was really good, and it came with plenty of
fresh fruit on the side, and a cookie. I had noticed the cookie “garnish” a
couple weeks back when I had a really good Roast Beef Dip for lunch, and
wondered how much that little garnish cuts back on dessert sales. It’s a nice
touch, but I would think some people might consider that enough of a sweet that
they’d decline dessert. However, with the Coburns, that’s not an issue. We’ll
discuss desserts shortly.
Katie had the BBQ Chicken
salad, with lots of diced chicken breast served tossed in a good-sized portion
of romaine lettuce with a BBQ Ranch dressing. She really enjoyed it, and I
tried a taste, too, not really thinking BBQ Ranch dressing was going to be
something I’d like (never having tried it before), but I was surprised to find
it to be quite tasty. Definitely some smoky BBQ flavor in there, but still
plenty of the ranch flavor coming through, as well.
In our first
spotlight, we finished our meal with some tasty desserts, a fresh raspberry and
chocolate grenache, and a fresh blueberry tart, both of which were on flaky
crusts, and sprinkled with powdered sugar. I mentioned I wanted to try the
triple chocolate cheesecake on my next visit, and we did tonight, as well as a
mixed fruit tart. The desserts are made on the premises at Fresh Gourmet, and
they are delightful. Yes, I know, I don’t usually use the word delightful, but
on a scorching September evening, these cool desserts, can in fact,
appropriately be described as delightful. The tart had grapes, sliced
strawberries, peach slices, apple slices, kiwi and a berry, not sure but I think
it was logan berry or olalaberry, and it was quite good. But the triple
chocolate cheesecake was excellent. The triple chocolate cheesecake features
white chocolate, semi-sweet chocolate, and milk chocolate, and is topped with
candied hazelnuts. Look at how great it looks in the picture, and suprisingly,
as hard as it may seem to believe, it was better than it looks!!
You can find this
restaurant spotlight online, with larger, full color photos of the food, by
visiting DotComDining.com.
And you can find The
Fresh Gourmet’s menu at the San Gabriel Valley Menus website, or go directly to
www.freshgourmet.net.
Bill
Coburn is owner of SanGabrielValleyMenus.com, a restaurant website featuring
dozens of restaurants’ menus, as well as downloadable coupons. He has nearly
20 years experience in the restaurant business, and has been eating for much
longer than that. |
