Critic's Review
I'd been to the Bread Shop once before for a sandwich, and I noticed on their menu that they serve breakfast. I'd never had a Venezuelan breakfast before, so I thought I'd try it.
The place is in a strip mall and it's one of the few places with food of this type that isn't in a bad neighborhood. They serve their breakfast menu until 11am.
Inside, it's a counter and some tables and chairs and 2 of those portable booths in the corner.
There's no service at the Breadshop, which isn't something I anticipated. Unintuitively, you don't order at the register. You order by the back wall, where there's a menu. So I stood in line while a woman behind the counter sliced bread, made eggs and took one order after another. The Combo #4, Venezuelan Breakfast, takes a few minutes to make. After placing your order you wait in line to get your beverage and to pay up.
I had to wait a while longer, so I grabbed a table. All of the tables were either occupied or dirty. I had to move some stuff to secure a place to sit. They flag you down when the food is ready, like I said, there's no service here.
Plastic and paper plates, plastic silverware and 1 salt shaker for the entire place (no packets). It's a real high-end experience.
The breakfast consists of Perico, which is scrambled eggs with tomato and onion, Guayanes Cheese, shredded beef and an Arepa with butter. The eggs were fine, but I don't get how these items are supposed to work together. Cold cheese and the pungent beef just didn't go with each other much less the eggs. Maybe this is traditional in Venezuela, but it's not a combo that makes sense. It wouldn't all work as an omelet, so it doesn't work if you keep them separate. I'm not sure what made the eggs brownish; probably just on the grill a bit too long.
The Arepa was downright lousy; it's supposed to have ricotta and salt but it had no flavor at all.
Maybe they don't use salt here; but it wasn't something I wanted to eat.
Previously, I'd had a pretty tasty venezuelan sandwich here.
The sandwich was pretty good; it certainly had some interesting flavors. The meat was a bit dry and it was heavily seasoned. It was long on bread and short on ingredients for $8. It wasn't a lot of food for the price.
The breakfast with coffee was just over $10, which is about what I'd spend on Las Olas with plates, silverware, service and bottomless coffee. Usually these latin places are a pretty good deal. But it's not such a good deal here.
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