As June comes to an end, my husband and I realized that
we were getting dangerously close to messing up our new year’s resolution to
try at least one new restaurant a month.
Saturday night, he looked at yelp and found a place in Studio City that
he wanted me to look at called Spark Woodfire Grill.
Sunday morning, between the early church service and Sunday
school, I looked up Spark on my smartphone.
The menu looked varied. The
prices looked reasonable. They took
reservations. I was able to make a
reservation for 11:45am. Perfect. Sunday brunch at a new place. Check.
After church, we headed over to Studio City. I never would’ve seen Spark if I wasn’t
looking for it. Even with the GPS, we
passed it the first time. It’s located
right on Ventura Blvd near CBS, and there’s free parking on Ventura Blvd on
Sundays. That’s great and all except we
had to circle the block 3 times before we found a parking spot. There is valet right in front of the
restaurant, but I personally hate valet parking.
We parked across the street and walked down to the corner to
cross. I noticed that we were right next
to Jinky’s. They had a parking lot with a few empty
parking spots in it, but it was just for their customers. Sigh.
At this point I’d pretty much already decided that even if the food at
Spark was amazing (and I sure hoped it would be), I wouldn’t be back just due
to the parking frustration.
We were about 5 minutes late for our 11:45am reservation
due to the parking issue, but it turned out we didn’t even need a
reservation. There were plenty of empty
tables. We were seated inside at a table that looks into the kitchen.
I thought it was a great out of the way table. There was outdoor seating, but it was a
little too hot out for that to be enjoyable.
Both breakfast and lunch were being served, so we took our
time looking over the menu. I usually
try to order something that I can’t or won’t make for myself at home. That was a little bit of a challenge here
since most items were eggs or burgers that I could easily replicate.
We sat there for quite awhile looking over the menu while we
waited for our waitress to come to our table.
We asked for water and said we were ready to place our order.
I ordered the Woodfired Baked Eggs & Linguisa
Sausage. The only description on the
menu said “Romesco Sauce, Goat Cheese & Rosemary Biscuits.” I wasn’t sure what “linguisa sausage” or
“romesco sauce” were, and I wasn’t sure what baked eggs were like, but like my
husband said, this was one way to find out.
I assumed baked eggs would be fluffy, kind of like quiche or a frittata,
so it sounded good.
My husband ordered the Smokey Pub Burger which was described
as “smoked cheddar, caramelized onions, hickory smoked bacon, chipotle
aioli.” It came with his choice of
French fries, sweet potato fries, side chopped salad, side Caesar salad, or
homemade potato chips. He decided to try
the homemade potato chips.
Our waitress brought out our water, and we immediately asked
for straws. It was at least another 10
minutes before she came back with them.
I saw her refilling other people’s glasses, and eventually we tracked
her down. She had forgotten about the
straws, but brought them right over when we asked for them a second time.
So far we weren’t impressed with the service. Considering the empty tables, you’d think the
waitresses would have time to cover their tables. Maybe our waitress just wasn’t very
observant. So far two strikes, parking
and service. We really hoped the food
would be so good that it would make up for everything else.
It was around 12:30 before our food arrived at our table,
about 45 minutes after we arrived at the restaurant. In the time we waited we had time to be
annoyed by how loud the restaurant was.
It was just typical conversation noise from the customers, but there
should’ve been music playing or something to help drown it out. Another strike for atmosphere.
That's not cheese; that's rubbery egg! |
I was surprised at the way my meal was presented. It’s not at all what I expected, but like I
said earlier, I wasn’t really sure what to expect. The first thing I did was try to taste the
eggs. I tried to pierce one with a fork,
but that was impossible. The entire top
of the egg was like rubber. I’ve never
experienced anything like that. I had to
use a knife to cut it. The top of the
egg had a rubbery texture in my mouth too.
I made my husband taste a piece of it, and he didn't like it either. The bottom part of the egg was
soft, but it had no flavor. I forced
myself to eat one of the two eggs just because I was hungry, but it’s not
something I ever plan on eating again.
The sausage was under the eggs.
It just tasted like sausage. I
took one bite and just didn’t care about it.
My husband ate a little of it, but he agreed that it just tasted like
something you’d buy at the grocery store and heat up yourself. It wasn’t greasy breakfast sausage
either. It was like big link
sausage. The sauce was kind of like a
marinara sauce. It was okay, I guess,
but I’m definitely never going to crave it.
The biscuits did indeed taste like rosemary, but they weren’t the
buttery breakfast biscuits you’d expect.
I ate one just because I was hungry and there was nothing else to
eat. All in all, I 100% regretted
ordering this meal.
My husband’s burger was okay. Considering the description, you’d think it’d
be flavorful and have a little kick to it.
No. It was bland. The bun was bland. The meat was bland. He ate it all, so I guess it was better than
my meal, but he wouldn’t order it again.
The chips were bland too. They
tasted like salt and grease but didn’t have any flavor. Too bad he didn’t get fries or something
instead.
So, nope, the food didn’t save the day. It was a complete waste of $30+ for
brunch. Pretty depressing. We were done eating by 12:40, about 10
minutes after our food arrived. We
eventually had to ask another waitress to ask our waitress to bring us our
bill, and then it took forever for her to come back for the bill. Eventually a different waitress came back for
the bill. We were going to pay with our
Discover card, but they didn’t take Discover, so we just left cash. We didn’t feel like having to wait even
longer to deal with a credit card. It
was about 1pm before we left.
As we walked back to the car, I once again noticed how close
we were to Jinky’s. If you want brunch
in Studio City, don’t go to Spark Woodfire Grill. Go to Jinky’s instead. I don’t think they take reservations, and
there may be a wait, but the food is worth it.
Spark isn’t, and considering how slow the service is, it’ll take forever
to get your food there anyway even with a reservation.
This experience is really making us rethink our New Year’s
Resolution to try a new restaurant each month.
More often than not, we get burned.
I’m sick of wasting money on food that I regret eating. The goal was to find a bunch of new
restaurants that we love, but that’s proving hard to do. There have been a few hits, but we might just
try x number of new recipes a month instead of a new restaurant. We can cook better than the chefs at most
restaurants anyway.
Happy eating!