We dined at Ingredient Sunday morning, August 29, and I must say, the meal was a disaster. Not middling. Not unsatisfying. A disaster. So much so that I want that hour back in my life.
It took 40+ minutes from the time I ordered at the counter to the time my omelet arrived. It was fine, but 40 minutes? My God, I could have driven to the grocery, bought the ingredients, driven back and cooked it myself in that time period.
The manager stopped over and without prompting apologized for our experience. She offered to comp our meals, which was nice, but frankly, she should not have opened the doors when she claimed "half" of her kitchen staff did not bother to show up for work.
-- Bill MacKenzie, Omaha
via e-mail Aug. 29, 2010
Editor's note: Mr. MacKenzie dined with Mr. Gibbs, who wrote the comment that follows.
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As someone who enjoys dining out frequently and trying new restaurants, I read with great interest your review of Ingredient this past Friday. I had been there once before for breakfast and didn't care much for what I had but felt I should give it another chance. Some friends and I were planning, before reading your review, to eat there this morning and did so with disastrous results.
We arrived around 10:50 a.m. and everyone had ordered, paid and was seated by 11 a.m. As we waited (and waited) for our food, the table across from us kept sending things back, a bad sign, for sure, of what was to come.
There were eight in our group, and the timeline went something like this:
11:10 - first person was served. He ordered a pizza, which you had warned in your review might be the item that could require the most preparation time, but, in fact, it arrived the fastest of anything ordered .
11:15 - second person received his oatmeal.
11:20 - I received my dim-sum chicken wrap.
11:30 - two people received their egg dishes.
11:35 - another person received his English muffin, which was all he ordered, causing the rest of us to burst out laughing, as it looked so pathetic on a dish by itself, and the 35-minute wait time for it to arrive at the table made us all wonder if things could get any worse.
11:45 - another person received his omelet, and the one remaining person flagged down an assistant manager, who went back and tried to find his order, which I think was forgotten and rushed through.
11:50 - the final person was served his egg dish, while almost everyone else was long finished eating.
The pizza (I tried a bite from my friend's plate) was tasty enough but just lukewarm, as if it had been sitting awhile before being served.
My dim-sum coconut curry chicken wrap, as you experienced, had no flavor of coconut or curry and no noodles in it. I unwrapped one half just to be sure. The peanuts were barely noticeable, as if they had been ground, rather than chopped. The tortilla had no flavor, and the vegetables, while crisp, were tasteless. There was a spicy flavor on the meat, like that of chili powder, but I don't think there was any peanut sauce mixed in with the vegetables.
English muffins, as you mentioned, were barely toasted, and why it took 35 minutes for one to arrive is anyone's guess. The egg dishes all looked somewhat unappetizing, and the fried potatoes were judged by one friend as undercooked. None of the dishes had any type of garnish on them. One wonders how long it takes to cook an egg, put it on a plate, and spoon some potatoes next to it.
To their credit, I will say that the assistant manager to whom we spoke was quite gracious and said this never should have happened. She told us that they opened late, because some people who were to work the kitchen/food lines hadn't shown up. She gave us each a card worth $10 and said she hoped we would come back. This seemed very fair and generous, especially since one of the people had only had an English muffin. I thanked her on the way out for handling the situation so well and then gave the main manager the comment cards some of us filled out. Everyone rated the service and promptness as poor, the food no better than fair. This is a shame, as Ingredient is an attractive space, and the menu is extensive, perhaps too much so, which may be its biggest downfall.
While lots of people were bringing food out, some would come through the kitchen doors carrying no more than an English muffin. That system of numbers on the table pretty much means that everyone will receive his or her food at various times, rather than together. Wouldn't it be better to ask how many are in the group, let each person order and pay and place the order as one number with everything delivered at the same time, as in most restaurants? The current system isn't working.
If the necessary changes aren't made soon, I fear Ingredient won't be with us for long, and I would hate to see that happen.
--Don Gibbs, Omaha
via e-mail Aug. 29, 2010
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We must have been at Ingredient the same afternoon you were there because my carry-out order of the Vietnamese Dim Sum Chicken Wrap was just as you described: grilled chicken had no coconut curry flavor and no noodles. There was a lot of crisp Napa cabbage in my bland tortilla wrap, so much that it made it bitter. I barely ate half of it and never finished the rest. My spouse's pizza however was made to order and very tasty.
An odd thing about our carry-out, which we didn't discover until we arrived at home, was that we were given two sets of eating utensils, but they weren't the plastic ones. We were actually given two sets of the metal-fork-knife-combo-wrapped in white-napkin.
It will not be a place we'll return to anytime soon.
--Donna B., Omaha
via e-mail Aug. 28, 2010
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Ate in their KC location...entirely underwhelmed.
Tried the Omaha location...ditto.
Waiting for Blanc--THAT KC dinner was fun & yummy!!!
-- Candi Puren, Omaha
via e-mail Aug. 27, 2010
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