Critic's Review
Now Closed. They seem to imply that they'll be opening up something else here.
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They've completely re-vamped their menu, and it's quite entertaining to see what they've done. Here's one of the items.
Look at this ridiculous mess. Does that even sound like a real thing? So you take a $1 piece of chicken, claim to marinate it in a bunch of stuff, and charge $15 for it. This is what they learn in culinary school; how to rip people off. Mayo and goat cheese; that's unique.
This place is run by people who don't have an actual idea and who know nothing about food. They're in desperation mode now.
If the food was really good here you'd have to question their pricing. But the food isn't good, so why would anyone pay these prices for it? A $10 loaded egg sandwich with a side; not exactly grab and go.
To show how absurd these people are, the "Breakfast One" is a 50 cent discount on buying the items separately. Woo Hoo. Line out the door for that one.
Review 8/12/16
I told a friend I wasn't going to try this place, because I already knew what it was. But I go to Fresh Market regularly, so at some point I had to wander in.
I wasn't sure if it was full service; this place is the same owners as the semi-service Temple Street Eatery next door. The sign told me to seat myself, so I did.
They opened up the room and put in a small counter. The place was butt-ugly when it was first opened as Giraffas. I got myself a seat in a corner where I wouldn't be recognized if one of the owners was around.
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Self seating works best when there is someone attentively looking for people without a menu, but that's not the case here. It was a full 5 minutes before I got a menu. I asked if they served breakfast all day (It was about 1:30pm), and when they said they did, I ordered coffee.
I asked a busboy what the wireless password was and he didn't know; he came back with the hard to remember "12345678". A server came by and I asked what the dishes come with; they don't say if they include potatoes or toast. I didn't even see toast as a side. He explained that omelets come with potatoes and bread but not the specialty items. Regular eggs with bacon or sausage costs as much as the specialty stuff, $10, which is 43% more than the standard $6.95 diner price. So I ordered the Chorizo Hash; it sounded like it had too many ingredients I but I'd see how they worked.
The room is quite loud; too loud to shazam. The only tune I recognize was Angela McCluskey's "Don't Look Back".
The food came out in just 8 minutes.
Quite a pile of stuff. You know whenever they do the stripes with the aioli you're in trouble. Kindergarten food presentation. The first thing I like to do with poached eggs is to break the yolks so they ooze all over the other stuff. The first egg turned out to be soft boiled and not properly poached.
The other egg was even more well done; cooked to the point that the yolk was solid. Fantastic.
Another thing is that when a customer asks about bread, a server should mention that its cornbread and not toast as you find in most diners.
Actual corn in the cornbread. Cornbread isn't bread to me; it's cake. Cake without sugar. I had no use for this stuff. I see that they have toast, so why didn't my server offer me a choice, particularly since I ASKED ABOUT THE BREAD?
As for the hash, every taste was a disappointment. I took a wide swath to try to get all of the flavors at once, and it wasn't at all what I expected. Something was sweet. I tasted each element on its own. The Chorizo. Nothing. Not spicy. No depth of flavor. Mexican chorizo usually has layered flavors; Chilis, cinnamon; something. This just tasted like pork with some coloring. The "Tarragon Aioli" was very sweet; how is that possible? Did they put sugar in it? Garlic mayo with tarragon shouldn't be sweet. The "green chile sauce" tasted like those green chiles that come in a can. Not spicy. Just mushy.
Even the onions didn't taste oniony, like they were over-prepped and none of their flavor made it into the dish. It's really amazing, because it's not hard to make chorizo, onions and potatoes taste pretty good, but somehow they failed badly. Supermarket chorizo is much better than this.
There's nothing diner-like about this place. I wasn't offered a refill on my coffee, even after I pushed the empty cup to the end of the table. No response from my server.
As is getting normal in this town, getting a check when you're done takes way too long. A napkin on the plate didn't cause anyone to notice. Something I noticed while I was waiting was that every one of the 5 other tables for lunch were only drinking water. That's kind of a sign that you're overpriced when everyone is drinking tap water.
Waiting and waiting. My server passed by 4 times without looking at the table (or the empty coffee cup). Finally I got his attention when he was cashing out the table next to me.
$2.95 for coffee with no refills. What a concept.
Conclusion
When you grow up on Long Island, you know about diners, and this is no diner. It's more like brunch 7 days a week; a trick that may fool tourists but isn't going to appeal to locals. The menu and price point is more like Old Florida Breakfast House, except this place doesn't come close to approaching the quality of O/B House.
What we have here is more like Top Hat Deli; a good idea implemented by people who have no chance of pulling it off. The recipes are forced culinary school concoctions without an understanding of how the flavors work together. Breakfast is so damn easy it's hard to fathom what they're trying to do here. Add 2.95 for coffee with no refill and you have yet another restaurant just taking up space in Fort Lauderdale. They haven't even bothered to put a sign up yet; of course when you wait until a week before you open to name the place you'll have to wait a while for the sign.
Pre Opening Ramblings
You'd think that someone who has opened 2 restaurants previously would get the hang of it eventually. They waited until 6 days before opening to name the restaurant, the name doesn't tell us anything about what it is. They have a partial facebook page with no useful info on it. They're calling the place a "Cafe / Lounge", which is the same as telling us nothing. Another 'chef driven' menu, but who is the chef? The same guy who co-owns Temple Street who has never been a chef at a restaurant previously (Alex Kuk)?
It's almost as if they only want their friends to go, which is likely what will happen for the time being.
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They've painted over the ugly green and Orange. Based on the name of the restaurant, I'm GUESSING that they will have food.
It's questionable to take over a fully built out restaurant and having to gut it. Permits indicate they're spending > $100K; plus the 6 months of lst business. Of course the restaurant was so ugly; they were lucky to get out of the lease.
They've ordered an awning, so covered outdoor dining is coming.
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Christina "Wan" and the Temple Street Eatery people are taking over Giraffa's. They have quite a makeover to strip out all of that ugly stuff. No word on the concept.
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