lavomatic

i am going to join the cincinnati food blog bandwagon and write about lavomatic. i am sorry to say that i think i got myself a little too excited. yes readers, i was disappointed! but i partly blame myself for this.

let's start with the space. it's pretty and open and casual while also being stylish. long and skinny, exposed brick and apple green paint and wood floors. colorful "gateway quarter" mural on the wall. i liked all that.

the interior of the restaurant

the food... it was really not exactly up to par. the coffee was weak, flavorless, and lukewarm. i ordered the eggs benedict, which came on toast with some type of prosciutto-like ham, i forget what it was called, and a blueberry sauce on top. it was really yummy and i enjoyed it. there was also fruit salad which was fine but nothing exciting. it was the same melon/pineapple/grape mix that everyone else in town serves.

eggs benedict... yummy!

celia's meal was disappointing. she ordered the lemon ricotta pancakes. at first they tasted ok, nothing special, but you did get the bite of lemon zest. but then after a few chews they had this really gross, bitter aftertaste. she even asked the waiter about it. he is like, "oh that's the lemon zest." i was like "no, we tasted the lemon zest, we are talking about the bitter aftertaste." he acted like we were dumb and didn't know what lemon zest tastes like and just kind of shrugged and wandered off.

celia with the weird pancakes

here's the thing... i've had lemon ricotta pancakes several times before at other restaurants (not in cincinnati) and they have never had that kind of weird bitter aftertaste. celia thought maybe the flavor was clove, but i didn't taste that at all. i did a lot of thinking on this and here's what i came up with... i think whoever zested the lemons did a bad job and got a bunch of the gross white pith in there too. that has a really bitter flavor and is the only explanation i can come up with.

at any rate, the pancakes tasted so weird that she really did not eat much. at the end of our meal, a waitress came by to take her plate and asked, "didn't you like your pancakes?" celia said no and again talked about the bitter aftertaste. the waitress was like "oh" and walked off. no apologies, no offers to bring her something else, nothing.

anyway that is a good segue into the service... it kind of sucked. the waiter was apathetic and not attentive. we stalked him for about 10 minutes to get more drinks and i was not able to get even one fill up on the weak coffee until after i had finished my entire meal. and the whole basically not even caring that celia's food tasted weird lost him more points.

when i ate at chalk about a month ago, i experienced a similarly disinterested server. i don't get it, jean robert. you care so much about the food you serve... why not hire servers who feel the same way?

the prices were good. i think i paid $14, including tax and tip. after we ate we took a little tour of the place and went upstairs to scope out the patio which sadly, since it was a warm, sunny morning, was not open. boo.

hopefully they open the patio soon

anyway, as i said, lavomatic did not meet my expectations. i think this is partly because i got myself overly excited about it. but also this apathetic service that i keep finding at jean robert places is totally disconcerting. one of the things i love so much about places like honey and slim's is that the waiters love food as much as i do. it makes me sad that jean robert's servers don't have that same excitement. it also makes for a less enjoyable dining experience.

i will definitely try lavomatic again, probably for dinner next time. i feel like there is a lot of potential and of course i love wine bars. it just opened not too long ago, so i'm hoping the glitches will get worked out over time.