Banana Bean Cafe vs. 4.0...

My sister and future brother-in-law were in town and they wanted to take Betty and me out for our birthdays. Betty and I decided to hit up Banana Bean Cafe which has very quietly become one of our local favorites. We opted for the Greenlawn Avenue location. We were seated promptly and chatted up a storm. In true CK fashion I started to get anxious when the wait staff took over 5 minutes to hook us up with a menu and take any sort of drink orders. One observation I've had about the Greenlawn location is that there always seem to be more wait staff than customers -- but even then -- service seems to be slow. When we finally got our menus I was further irked because they had an abbreviated menu with sandwiches but no dinner options. This was a bummer since we were really hoping to try out their dinner menu as opposed to their sandwich menu...oh well. As our slow service continued I looked around the restaurant which was pretty much deserted and got a little more irritated. No big deal because I suppose this blog is dedicated to my bear-itations about dining out in Columbus right? Eventually we got our drinks and food orders in and i could relax. I decided to try their black bean soup and their crab cake burger.


extremely delicious black bean soup


pretty good crab cake salad i mean burger...

The black bean soup was mighty tasty. I was surprised. I thought I was going to be underwhelmed. I really wanted to find some aspect of the soup to complain about and could fine none. Using black beans so often in my own cooking but never in a soup per se -- I was pretty oblivious that they could be so tasty in a soup. The soup was creamy and smooth almost like they blended black beans with broth to get the base going. Topping the soup off with cilantro, cheese, tomatoes & sour cream -- how could this taste anything but delicious. I'm getting this soup next time and it prolly wouldn't hurt to bust out the blender and freestyle some offering up at home as well.

The crab cake burger was pretty good. The crab cake was tasty and all but in the end I felt like i was eating a salad and left the bun behind.

All in all I continue to have a strong curiosity about Banana Bean Cafe. The first time we ate there version 1.0 was the best time -- perhaps because of our unsure expectations and surprise about their unique palette of flavors for sea food. Since then we find ourselves chasing that 1st time taste experience. We really want to have that experience again but I am not sure if it will be possible. At the end of the day I still like dining at Banana Bean Cafe and writing this makes me want to try something else off their menu.

P.S.


plaintains with ya ya sauce...yeah their good but I'm kinda over them.