Dressing Is Not Dressing When It's Just Oil

So, last week I went to Crouton's for lunch and chose to get two salads, one for lunch and one for dinner. I was really looking forward to tucking into the pear and blue cheese with turkey and poppy seed dressing. I checked to make sure both salads looked good and that they both had the salads on the side. This should've been enough of a check to make sure everything in my order was right. Right? I mean who has ever thought to themselves, "Hey, maybe I should check the dressing." So, salads in hand, I headed back to work.

I sit down at my desk, gently pull the salad out of the bag so it doesn't accidentally spill. Yes, there was a lid on it but with my luck you never know. Remove the lid, take the salad dressing out, "Huh. It looks kinda light and not many poppy seeds." *SHRUG* I shake the cup of dressing vigorously, pour it liberally on the salad, toss and dive in...

Chew chew chew. "This tastes like straight up oil", I think to myself. It must've been a fluke. Toss the salad some more. Chew chew chew...ew ew ew. YUCK! Thank the food gods I had some emergency lemon wedges in the fridge at work and a coworker provided the salt but it still didn't help salvage it. So, what did I do? Wrote a letter to headquarters to complain. Hey, they built their reputation on salads, they should know what kind of product is going out the door.

I received a response back from the owner/general manager who was just the right amount of apologetic. He offered to refund my money and try his food again, on the house. I like that type of customer service.

This time around I got the same salad they messed up the first time, I wanted to a) see if it was just a fluke and b) I wanted them to redeem themselves. There are so few places in San Diego that do salads and do them well. I also got their Californian panini. Just because you put avocado on a sandwich, it doesn't make it "Californian." But I digress. The sandwich, once I pulled the tomatoes off of it and wiped the slimy seeds away, was very tasty. I haven't tried the salad yet, I'm waiting till I get home but I'll take a pic of it and let ya'll know if Croutons goes back onto my list of 'must eat salad' places or if I leave the croutons to get stale and the salad to go limp.