Toast on Market Is Going Stale

The outside of the building is unremarkable. Without an address and a sharp eye, it would be easy to pass it by. Metered street parking helps to locate the restaurant, but metered parking is also a drag, especially for the gentleman that was sitting beside me and my wife who had a traffic ticket and a wheel boot waiting for him.

After a short wait, my wife and I were seated at a two-person table. The tables in the restaurant are so close together that it feels like you're sitting at a grill table at a Japanese-style bistro. The restaurant was packed at 11 a.m., and the loud atmosphere is not conducive to meaningful conversation.

The coffee at Toast on Market tasted burnt and anemic. I salvaged one cup with plenty of cream and sugar, but I went water-only after that. My wife complained to me of the same problem, so I know I wasn’t being overly critical. There is a huge selection of other drinks to choose from, but most are $5 and up, almost as much as many of the meals.

Food selections range from between $6 and $13. From the time we ordered to the time our food was served, approximately 25 minutes had passed. I ordered a French toast dish called “The King.” It was a brioche filled with peanut butter and banana, lightly dusted with confectionary sugar, and served with a side of syrup and hash brown casserole. Upon first bite, the dish had a medicinal flavor much like a cough syrup. And while I waited for my taste buds to become acclimated to flavors I’d never experienced in a brioche dish, the taste never improved. The hash brown casserole was dished-out with what had to be an ice cream scoop. It was cold and tasted of nothing in particular.

My wife chose to make her own three-egg omelet with spinach and white cheddar cheese. It was served with two pieces of toast and a cup of mixed fruit: apples, oranges, and grapes. The omelet arrived bare with no accouterment on top as might have been expected if ordering an omelet anywhere else on the planet. It was a flat yellow rectangle and boring to the eye. The filling as ordered was as bland as the outside of the dish. While the cheddar family of cheeses usually brings a little punch of maturity and nuttiness of taste, this cheddar was almost provolone in nature. The fruit cup was just a fruit cup and nothing more. These superficial observations are included to emphasize just how ho-hum the sensory experience was from eye to mouth. I tasted a bit of apple, and even it was devoid of any kind of flavor.