Fresh First

Critic's Review

When a place has the word "Fresh" in their name; you have to be very suspicious about what they're doing; "Fresh" is the latest buzz word in kiddy marketing; as if all restaurants aren't expected to serve fresh food.

The first thing that struck me about this place is the prices; "organic" is another buzz word used to pump up prices; studies have found that organic food is no better for you than non-organic, sometimes at twice the price. The prices are very high. Vegetables are cheaper than meat; even organic vegetables, yet the prices here are higher than the meat-based dishes that they replace. Am I really going to pay more for "mock" tuna than actual tuna?

I'll preface this review by stating my views on "health food" and the fallacies involved. Somehow, things that aren't healthy at all have been made to be considered healthy by a massive "health food" propaganda machine which has resulted in the wholesale brainwashing of consumers. 'Vegan' is not healthy; fruit juices are not healthy, and alternate grains are no more "healthy" than common grains, which are not generally good for the human body. While it's good to not have a cheeseburger once in a while, the idea that you have to pay more for something else is purely contrived by marketing. It's been argued that grains and sugar are the worst things for you. "Juicing", a concept pushed and abandoned 20 years ago, takes out vitamins and fiber, which is the entire point of eating vegetables. Sorry, but a V-8 doesn't doesn't have nearly the nutritional value of a bowl of whole vegetables. Gluten-free is another matter; but it doesn't have any value to me.

That being said, I've thought about trying it just to see if they can do what only a good chef can do; make the kind of stuff they sell taste good. I've been eating a lot of beans and lentils on my current diet; it can be done. So I wandered in on a cloudy weekday afternoon.

The first impression is that it doesn't really feel like a restaurant; it plays like a lunchenette. A big counter and a narrow space with all of the tables in one room close to the counter.

Fresh First Interior

A lot of green stuff. They have the Vero water service, but they're the only place that I've been that actually charges for it. Not only do they charge $1 for water; they charge $2 for sparkling water which is kind of insulting, since the Vero system is a flat lease per month AFAIK. So you're paying twice as much for something that costs them $0 extra.

Fresh First Water Service

Better than paying $7 for a Pellegrino, but I wasn't going to pay $3.25 for an iced tea. I was going to order a soup and salad, assuming that I could get a smaller version of one of their salads; but not so. It's just a side salad with no choice of dressing, so they're actually charging $7 for a side salad with a $4.50 cup of soup. So I just opted for a bowl of the soup of the day: Garden Lentil.

There's nothing going on here; just a lot of delusional people eating weeds. The soup was out in a couple of minutes.

Fresh First Garden Lentil Soup

It looked like a decent bowl, until I put my spoon into it. The shallow bowl trick. This was no more than a cup of soup; more insults. I'd rather pay $8 and get twice as much. This isn't a meal; a cup of soup should be an appetizer and a bowl should be a meal.

From a culinary standpoint, this was typical health food; bland and boring with a useless garnish that would have been better if it was cooked into the soup. The lentils were mushy, which means that they either came from a can or weren't prepared by a chef who knows how to cook lentils. I had to salt it up, but I couldn't really save it. At least I didn't feel like I overate.

This place reminds me of the woman at the supermarket who looks at labels and convinces herself that everything with low fat is "healthy". If it were fairly priced it would be fine, but paying $13 for a caesar salad here (with an eggless dressing) would be just plain foolish.

Whoever named this one of the Top Ten restaurants in Fort Lauderdale is either incompetent or biased. You know who you are.