East End Eatery

1202 NE 8th Ave

Zero thumbs up

I SWEAR I've already reviewed East End Eatery. I can even remember specific lines from the review. But for some reason, I can't find it anywhere. So here it goes again. You'll have to forgive me, as I literally just deleted all my old photos from my phone today and I had a few from here on there.

East End Eatery is yet another example of everything that's wrong with Gainesville food. It's not good, the service is very slow, yet for some inexplicable reason, EVERYBODY loves it. Go check out Yelp or Urban Spoon. Their reviews are through the roof even though the place is really, really mediocre.

I've even eaten here at least 3 or 4 times and tried many things on the menu to come to this conclusion. I've had the unimpressive tabbouleh platter, complete with soggy grape leaves and over garlic-ed and lumpy hummus. I've had the greasy quesadilla of the day. I've had the utterly depressing grilled tempeh and vegetable panini. All of these items were very lackluster. The sides of the day range from a bizarre potato salad with a "white-out" consistency mayonnaise glaze to unappetizing pasta salads. I've eaten here with many other people who ordered meat dishes who completely agree with me. Bottom line: Unimpressive.

The only reason they don't get the scathing 5 thumbs down review is because the place looks cool and they're helping revitalize the worn out east end of town. Otherwise, it's a waste of time, money, and calories.

I marveled to a lunch partner that this place was run by a catering company. Surely, they'd have to know how to cook in order to cater. But as he said, "have you ever been impressed by catering?" I couldn't think of a more apt description.

The Bull

18 SW 1 Ave

Bar/cafe/breakfast & lunch

5 thumbs up!

The Bull has become my go-to spot when it comes to nighttime in downtown Gainesville. On Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights, they have free live music by some of Gainesville's best musicians (Ricky Kendall, Michael Claytor, Nicole Miglis, and several others). They serve a solid sampling of local Swamp Head Brewery's offerings, including rare and limited run batches as well as a modest yet impressively hand picked selection of national and international beers. I honestly prefer a place that has 30 amazing beers as opposed to 300. I feel it's a sign of sophistication to limit your selection to choices that won't let anyone down but won't overwhelm customers. They also serve a very nice selection of fine, yet reasonably priced wines.

Don't want alcohol? Grab a coffee, tea, Italian soda, or Ginger Beer to whet your whistle. They custom make their own syrups for the Italian sodas. I find the particular brand of ginger beer to be one of the best I've ever tasted.

For lunch, I had the TLT, which is tempeh, lettuce, and tomato served open faced on a toasted bagel with veganaise (vegan mayo). I added some nice avocado for 75 cents. The sandwich cost me about 7 bucks total and the ginger beer was 3. The sandwich was very tasty, and they prepared the tempeh with white wine and mustard seed.

I've heard people complain that their beer prices are to high, but for 5 bucks (and occasionaly 6), you can get an excellent draft beer. Also, their bottles range from about 2 bucks to 5 bucks.

As one of downtown's newer establishments, The Bull seems to have already carved its niche despite competing directly with longer standing places such as Volta. I honestly think that while both serve fine coffees, teas, and small desserts, The Bull takes the lead in nightlife offerings and real food. Volta certainly knows their stuff, and I prefer to support them when it comes to coffee, as they were there first. But I can personally find a use for both.

I highly recommend checking this place out. It's certainly a great addition to downtown.

Bento

Two Locations:
3832 W Newberry Rd
3841 Southwest Archer Road

3.5 thumbs up

Bento used to be a regular staple in our dining out options. For a period, I think we ate there at least once a week. When you have a choice between 25 rice bowls/Bento Boxes, 9 noodle bowls, 8 noodle soup bowls, a dozen other soups and sides, and a full sushi menu, it's hard to run out of options. I will say that we somewhat burned out on Bento and haven't been in some time, but that doesn't detract from its quality. Also, Bento is a local business that is constantly growing and expanding. They currently have restaurants in Orlando and Jacksonville too. I always like to see a local business succeed that deserves it. Let's focus on each of the choices.

Sushi:
Their sushi is pretty good, but not amazing. The business focuses on quick turnover and a college age market, so it doesn't have to be the best in town. It certainly isn't bad, but it's not my favorite. That being said, I don't think you'll be disappointed or find it worse than Drangonfly, Ichiban, or any of the other lackluster sushi places in town.

Bento Boxes / Rice Bowls:
Most of the main dishes can be ordered in Bento Box or rice bowl format. The Bento box comes with small portions of ginger salad, rice, string beans, noodles, and a tiny dessert. The desserts are almost always terrible, but the Asians aren't renowned for their sweet teeth. The rest of the items are all very fresh and tasty. The Bento Box is ideal to get a little sampling of several different things. If you don't want all of the pan asian accoutrement, you can just order the same main dish on a bowl of rice. Some of my favorites are the spicy chicken, korean chicken, and the teriyaki. It's pretty impressive how many options there are with the Bento Box and Rice Bowl.

Noodle Bowls:
I've never honestly had these, but I'd imagine they'd be on par with the rice bowls.

Bubble Teas:
Of course, they have Bubble aka "Bobba" teas. These are various flavors of tea, combined with milk and sweetened quite a bit. You can also order tapioca "bubbles" or pearls to suck up through a giant straw. I honestly find them kinda weird, but can see how they're popular in pan asian culture, where desserts are mysteries to me.

So, why do they only get 3.5 thumbs up if I"m raving so much about them? First off, the service is always notoriously slow. I don't think I've ever received my food in less than 20 minutes. Also, on busy nights, the place is packed, making those 20 minutes climb above 30 and sometimes 40 minutes. For a somewhat fast-ish food restaurant, that's inexcusable. Also, their vegetarian options are quite bland and uninspired.

Overall, Bento is a good restaurant. It's not the best in the world, but it's definitely one of the better Pan Asian options in town.

Farah's

1120 West University Avenue

5 Thumbs Down

Farah's has apparently been in business since 1980. I have no idea how, as they serve some of the shittiest Mediterranean food I've ever had. I've eaten here a half dozen times over the 9.5 years I've been in this town and each time has been a huge disappointment. Their take on Mediterranean is heavy handed and poorly done, with falaffel over fried, hummus over garlic-ed, and vegetables unimpressive.

In my opinion, Mediterranean food can be some of the tastiest, lightest, and most refreshing of cuisines. What is more desirable than a lightly fried falaffel with some tzatziki sauce (yogurt, cucumber, and spices) and well made hummus?

Unfortunately, Farah's can't deliver.

We swore to never return after the last time we went. Our waitress was so high that she couldn't even figure out the bill at the end of the night. Obviously, the service was spotty at best and the orders came out wrong and not at the same time. But I kid you not, the girl was losing her mind over who ordered what and how much it cost. We were telling her, "Look, I ordered these, they cost this much, give me a bill that says as such." But she was fried and couldn't comprehend.

I honestly think that Farah's is yet another one of Gainesville's worst restaurants. As a long standing bastion of University Avenue, it somehow represents old Gainesville, where food quality standards were even lower than they are today. For some reason, however, they can't seem to go out of business. Even if they did and Modern Age Tobacco and Gifts expanded to open a dildo room, I'd still say good riddance.

Maui Teriyaki

Two Locations:
600 NW 75th St # E, Gainesville - (352) 331-3393
3105 Southwest 34th Street, Gainesville, Florida - (352) 264-0262

One thumb sideways

Maui Teriyaki is weird. I've never been to the newer location on 34th and Archer, but the older location has an extremely unusual feeling to it. The dining area is set up with booths next to bigger than usual windows overlooking the road outside. It's almost as if they want to showcase any customers who actually come inside. At first, I hated this place. I thought it was gross, cheap, dirty, and took forever. But, it has grown on me. They have a rice bowl with veggies and spicy teriyaki sauce that isn't half bad. It does take a surprisingly long time to get the food and it isn't as cheap as you'd think, but in a pinch, it works, especially if you're in the neighborhood.

Late night eats: The Virtually Cuban Hot Dog Cart

on the North West corner of SW 1st St and SW 1st Ave
(only open at night and typically only on nights when people go out downtown)

Five thumbs up!

While the hot dog cart isn't Cuban themed, the dude who runs is also owns Virtually Cuban on S 13th. A few years ago, this was the only late-night hot dog cart in downtown Gainesville. Recently, at least one more has popped up (caddy corner to flaco's) and during the day you can find the asshole who runs the one by the downtown plaza (don't get me started on that guy. Let's just say he started yelling at me for trying to take an extra paper towel).

In my opinion, however, the Virtually Cuban cart is the only one we need. You can get a regular beef hot dog, an Italian sausage, a beer brat, or a veggie dog. For condiments, he has a wide variety of choices including several different types of mustard and relish.

My personal favorite has always been the beer brat with some spicy mustard and sauerkraut. After a few beers, it really doesn't get much better than one of those guys.

For a while, meat was the only choice, so I was very pleased to see that he added veggie dogs as there are so many vegetarians in this town.

He also has various candies, sodas, chips and other late night necessities that you might require after drinking a few rounds.

All in all, it's a well stocked hot dog stand. You'll be hard pressed to find better, especially in this town.

Leonardo's Pizza / Bistro 1245 / Leo's 706

1245 West University Avenue and 706 W University Ave

I'm going to review these together, but discuss them separately.

Leonardo's 2.5 thumbs up

Due to its prime location and counter culture meets college culture status, Leonardo's has been a staple of the Gainesville food scene for years. I've only eaten there about a half dozen times in the 9 years I've been in town, but have to say it really isn't bad. It's certainly not the best pizza in town, but it will do the trick. I've found (as with many other places) that the pizza is better if you order a whole pie, rather than selecting a slice that's been sitting around and reheated.

But seriously, let's cut to the chase. Cleanliness, personal hygiene/grooming, and customer service certainly aren't their strong points. In fact, I've always believed that if you order some unusual combination of toppings, you'll end up with some drugs on your tray. All you have to do is crack the code. Am I wrong here? Say, for example, you ordered anchovies, pepperoni, and artichoke hearts on a goat cheese slice, I wouldn't be surprised if some cocaine was hidden under your plate.

Regardless, it appears to be a tried and true business format. Provide decent food right next to campus and give the place a cool kid vibe and you'll do well. I ordered the plain cheese pizza and a Greek salad. Both were pretty good. The salad came with two rolls which were so dense, I swear you'd be able to knock someone out if you threw it really hard at their head. They were still tasty, and even better when dunked in the garlic butter sauce.

I can't really say anything terrible about this place. It's certainly not my favorite pizza, but it really isn't that bad.

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Bistro 1245
2 thumbs up

Bistro 1245 is Leonardo's sophisticated older sister who lives next door. She has a very nice wine selection and menu items for adults. That being said, the adults are still in college, so she's not that sophisticated. Bistro 1245 obviously gets its name from its address, but I can't help but think that it's just the 1245th Bistro to open in town. Maybe that's because I remember the AOL days when you wanted to use the screen name FenderStrat, but obviously it was taken already, so they auto assigned you a random number at the end (FenderStrat12340872). I've also only eaten here a few times over the years, but have never been turned off. I've just never been really impressed.

A few menu highlights are the spicy tofu melt, which features grilled marinated tofu, smoked Gouda,tomato, greens, and red pepper aioli, served on farm bread. They also used to have a portabello mushroom sandwich with apple jelly, smoked Gouda, and other delicious things, but I don't see it on their menu anymore.

It's really not a bad restaurant, it's just nothing amazing. I feel like the people eating there are playing grown up and the restaurant is going right along with the charade. For Gainesville's Faux Fancy cuisine, you could do worse, and certainly spend a lot more money, as their menu items range from 7-15 dollars.

Their wine is also quite affordable and they feature a unique method of choosing by allowing you to select a bottle right from the display racks positioned around the room. I'm always a sucker for being able to look at pictures of what I'm choosing from (much like an ice cream truck).

Much like Leo's next door, it's really not that bad.

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Leonardo's 706

5 thumbs down

Leonardo's 706 takes what almost works at the other locations and destroys it. Nothing epitomizes Gainesville Faux Fancy like 706. The menu items are slapdash concoctions of ingredients that a 6 year old could have created. No menu item sums this up more than the Aruba Pasta: Angel Hair Pasta, with avocado, tomatoes, in a tarragon white wine sauce with chicken, shrimp, and/or scallops optional. Upon seeing this item, I felt the chef must know something I don't and that this combination of ingredients has been hidden to man since the Dark Ages. I love all of those things, so they MUST be good together. Why else would it be prominently featured atop the pasta menu!?

HORRID.

Only a madman would consider this a tasty meal. The ingredients clashed in every way imaginable. It was single-handedly one of the worst pasta dishes I've ever had.

Another great example is the THAI PIZZA!! Who doesn't love to throw down on an old fashioned pie complete with Hoisin sauce, shiitake mushrooms, red and yellow peppers, scallions, peanuts, mung sprouts, and mozzarella. While you're at it, throw some optional shrimp on top too.

The other menu items may not be as bad as these, but they certainly all seem OVER inspired.

I honestly think that 706 is one of the worst restaurants in town. It's packed to the gills with pretension and has some of the most over the top food around. On top of it all, the service is terribly slow. I've heard that their Sunday brunch is good, but after eating their other offerings, I can't honestly work up the courage to check it out.

As I always say, "Let's throw a bunch of fancy ingredients at a plate and charge 20 dollars for it" is neither a good business model nor culinary philosophy. Unfortunately, that's exactly what they're doing at 706.