Mini Foodventure #128: Tender Greens (West Hollywood)

Having some time to kill between picking up a friend at LAX and a wine & cocktail meetup with fellow BloggerProm committee members Esther, Tara and Caroline -- I decided to check out West Hollywood's Tender Greens for a quick, healthy and (hopefully) tasty bite.

For 9:30p on a Wednesday, the place was pretty packed with a diverse WeHo crowd, from older couples mellowing out with their meals and a glass of wines to younger peeps decked out in club gear wolfing down their sandwiches vacuum-cleaner style. It was also quite funny hearing the gay couples in line scanning the menu, then moan and whine about what's fattening and carb-loaded. But hey, kudos to them for their nutrition discipline, even if it looks like they'll be downing 2-for-1 shots and crazy-colored vodka-tinis later in the night.

The menu is pretty simple, primarily the three Ss - soups, salads and sandwiches - with a few entrees and daily specials thrown in, all pretty reasonably priced with nothing over $11. After I scanned the menu, I opted for their $10.50 flatiron steak salad with red & green butter lettuces, radishes, red and gold beets and horseradish vinaigrette (got on the side), a pretty light and simple salad with some protein to help me power through my strength workout later in the day. Oh yea, and a $4 strawberry tart (it was on their daily special menu; how can I possibly resist? could be gone tomorrow!!!)

After moving cattle-line style from the ordering section, down the foodprep line to the pickup and finally the cashier (within five minutes!) I paid and plopped onto a patio table for my salad and sweet.

I have mixed feelings about the salad; nothing was bad per se, in fact, the veggies tasted very fresh (sweet beets, radishes with nice pepper bite, crunchy lettuces) and the meat was juicy-tender -- but it seemed haphazardously prepared and assembled, the lettuce were too wet and could've been chopped or ripped into smaller pieces (with quarter heads practically intact, it was almost like a wedge salad on my plate) and it seemed all the ingredients kind of clumped together on their own, so it was hard to get a little of everything on my fork, and it just felt weird having to go at a salad with a knife!

The dressing was a little bit watery too and could use a bigger horseradish kick, though maybe it's a dressing meant to be tossed with the salad rather than dipped into.

The strawberry tart made up for it though, lighter and less sweet than most strawberry pie/tarts, it had a nice shortbread crust, juicy strawberry slices and just thin smear of custard and glaze. Just enough to satisfy my craving without inducing guilt.

Despite the recklessly made salad, I'm fairly sure I'll be back esp. when looking for eats in the WeHo 'hood, since it seems to have the potential to walk that fine line between tasty, budget-friendly and healthy (as opposed to the rest of the neighborhood's eats, which seems to be polarized camps of either the heart attack-inducing or health-food-gross or just plain overpriced.) So crossing fingers for a knife-free salad next time.

Tender Greens
8759 Santa Monica Blvd
West Hollywood, CA
(310) 358-1919
Website