This locavore makes an exception for Noodles & Company LEO's Eats with Robin GarrIf you’ve been reading my gustatory musings for any time, you know that I bring a strong locavore sensibility to this work. I like to eat local food, and I prefer to dine at local restaurants. When I do business with a bank, grocer, optician, investment adviser, newspaper and, most definitely, restaurant, I like to know that the owner herself is available for a conversation, will look me in the eye, shake my hand, and offer me a fair deal.
The farther removed ownership and management recedes from my dinner table, the more layers of personnel that stand between the stock holders and my table, the more likely it is that the cold, heavy hand of the bean counters will have intervened to bring quality down to the most profitable denominator.
Long experience bears this out: Behind Door A, we have a lovingly hand-formed hamburger made of quality meat, grilled with care by an owner-chef with skills. I’m looking at you, Bill Smith at Shady Lane Cafe! Behind Door B, we have, well, Mickey D’s, bagging you up a flavorless burger made from industrial beef, all its joy drained into the profit bucket.
Which door would you pick, bubbeleh? Me, too!
But every now and then ...
Okay, nobody’s perfect, all right? I’m a locavore, but I love all manner of good eats. Even bad good eats, as long as they’re good. I’ll swing in to an In and Out Burger in California without regret. Occasionally I’ll even crave a White Castle. And I’m not ashamed to confess that I often grab a brace of tacos for lunch at Chipotle on Westport Road.
I mention Chipotle for a reason. Chipotle builds a loyal customer base that appreciates its commitment to the environment and making a significant effort to limit 100 percent of its pork, beef and chicken and “a majority” of its dairy to humanely raised, hormone- and antibiotic-free animals.
This model is so alluing that corporations in other food sectors, like the recently arrived Blaze Pizza (LEO Weekly, July 9, 2014), jockey to be recognized as “The Chipotle of Pizza” or whatever their niche may be.
I’m nominating Noodles & Company as The Chipotle of Noodles. It’s quality, affordable fast food made to delight lefties and tree-huggers (hand raised here). They advertise naturally raised pork, organic tofu, free-range eggs, the whole megillah; and they serve your quick-service meal on real china and glassware, not paper or plastic, to prove that they’re “green.” ...
Read the full review on LouisvilleHotBytes,
http://www.louisvillehotbytes.com/this- ... es-companyAnd in LEO Weekly:
http://leoweekly.com/dining/locavore-ma ... es-companyNoodles & CompanyPlainview Shopping Center
1225 S. Hurstbourne Parkway
632-0102
Order online:
http://noodles.com/orderRobin Garr's rating: 82 points