“That’s A Wrap!” Crisp and Green Adds a New Menu Category!
In preparing for my meeting with the head of franchise marketing for Green & Crisp, I prepared questions. My most important was simple. “Are you doing something new, or are you doing something old, better?” The answer is easy. Both! A salad is not new. A salad with the best ingredients, and with an extra level of pizzazz in the dressing and in the additional ingredients takes a salad to the next level. That is the same level of caring that has gone into their newest item: the wraps!
The Latest Greatest Addition To the Crisp & Green Offerings
I hate being disappointed by food. While I am extremely critical, I get no pleasure from being disappointed. I am happiest when I can wax eloquently about the virtues of a dish or a restaurant. I do not get to do that often. Today is an exception! The latest from Crisp & Green is in keeping with their highest standards for serving customers. They serve food that they can be, and are proud of! The pride is justified.
Starting with the best ingredients, and then preparing these top quality ingredients according to recipes created by their own Chef Bill, they are doing something new. Chef Bill brings his Cordon Bleu training and experience to the kitchen and to the table. The reliance of Crisp & Green on his creations is well placed. Every offering is prepared with care and caring. Plain tomatoes are good enough for many, but not for this winning team! Roasted tomatoes will however add an extra level of flavor and attention to detail which takes the food to the next level.
Their latest addition, Hero Wraps, are no exception. Using their usual top flight ingredients and brilliant recipes, their diners are treated to “the real thing.” This meal was not a compromise. It was a combination of fresh, caring, and delicious!
The kitchen staff and the servers take obvious pride in the food they are serving. Their pride is justified. The staff is a delight. They are seeking ways to make your meal special. Of course that pride and caring must be backed up by the food. At the end of the day, no matter how nice the people are, without the excellent offerings to back it up, it would be just another boring meal.
Instead they are putting forth dishes that they are and should be proud of. Once we have great ingredients, great recipes, a great caring staff, and an appetite, nothing is left to chance. In restaurants, consistency is king. What is great one day must be great the next day. What we like one day must be the same as what we are served on any day we choose for our visit to Crisp & Green. Do I sound gushing and happy? I hope so! I could not be happier! Did I mention just how picky I am about food? I am not an easy person to take to a restaurant. While my first choice is to be thrilled by the food, I am often disappointed. Whether it is the combination of ingredients, or one or more ingredients which are just not good, I am frequently in a position of having to say nothing or to be critical. Neither adds to the ambience which my fellow diners are hoping for.
At Crisp & Green I did not have to put on my “nice guy hat.” I did not have to act like I was enjoying my lunch when I really was not. Sincerity in my reaction and in my enjoyment was real! I was sent home with sampler wraps of each of the new additions to the menu. As I eat my way through them, I am continually impressed by the new Hero Wraps.
A blog about the newest offerings, the wraps, would be incomplete without at least a mention of the rice bowls. These salads are a treat! For me, the AHH…GREEK OUT! salad of brown rice, spinach, roasted chicken, radicchio, cucumbers, feta, kalamata olives, roasted tomatoes, hummus, pita chips**, & red wine vinaigrette is amazing. I am a fan of both feta cheese as well as of hummus. Both are generally disappointing. NOT HERE! I take pride in my own hummus. Crisp & Green’s hummus is made after my own heart. It is just like my own home made when mine comes out the best I can make it. The Greek-style and essential feta cheese is top knotch! It is not fair. It is not mediocre. It is not “settling for pretty good feta.” It is wonderful! Even the dressing was done right. Dressings, in my experience are done either badly or worse. NOT HERE! The dressings are so good that you’d think that a a Cordon Bleu Chef was responsible. And this extra care and extra effort is worth every bit of the caring that goes into the ingredients and into the final presentations.
This was not by accident. The restaurant is graced with a full professional kitchen worthy of a top tier restaurant. Is that the influence of the chief chef for the chain? Chef Bill’s training and experience holds up from his own kitchen to the kitchens of each of the restaurant’s locations. You can’t build a brick house from straw alone. You can’t make a great salad from poor ingredients What you can do is make a great salad starting with a mix of “real” greens. Then add top quality carefully selected additional ingredients. The result is a balanced, healthy delicious offering. These latest additions are a great fit for the already excellent selections. I look forward to trying the other items on the menu if I can drag myself away from the Greek Rice Bowl. And speaking of rice bowls, they do not serve a bowl of rice with a sprinkling of the “good stuff” on top. The rice is another ingredient added in the proper proportions and not added as a substitute for the more flavorful and exciting ingredients.
With restaurant price points being what they are now, these magnificent wraps and salads cost about the same as a fast food hamburger. While fat and salt have their place in a diet, it is a rather small place. In contrast, the Crisp & Green salads could be a staple. For the same price as fat and salt. And without sacrificing flavor and quality! What are they doing right? Simple! Everything. From ingredients to combinations they have nailed it.
Even their drinks, fruit infused waters, are out of the ordinary. Instead of thin sugar combinations, Crisp & Green offers infused waters that retain the rich flavor of real fruit. Starting with a sample of three different drinks, I ended up emptying all three glasses! And without them being “sugar bombs!” This is food and drink you can feel good about consuming. This is not a guilty pleasure but a true healthy delicious offering. I could not be happier! And my friends, justifiably tired of my normal critical comments on restaurant food, are relieved! At AboutBoulder we value positivity and motivation. Crisp & Green provides the raw ingredients to make this an easily attainable goal.
The Caeser Wrap’s croutons still had their crisp about them. Instead of either mushy things or roof-of-the-mouth scarring hard things, they were croutons as advertised. They maintained their crunch without breaking teeth, scarring gums, and generally interfering with eating. Getting the croutons right is just the beginning.
ALL of the ingredients are carefully chosen, properly prepared, and present a taste treat worthy of the highest quality of the offerings of this excellent menu. Did I mention the chicken? The chicken as protein in the wraps is cooked to perfection. From the seasonings to the cooking temperature the chicken is “done right.”
The atmosphere provides the proper perfect backdrop to the food offerings. I loved the large patio area with its dog-friendly atmosphere. The atmosphere was European classy and not “fast food compromise.” No pretension. Just great food. To try it is to love it. Whether picked up as a take-out or served in the restaurant, this restaurant is a treat!
A write-up about the new wraps would be incomplete without extolling the virtues of the salads. The salads look magnificent, are magnificent, and pack and travel well. I am a fan of Greek-style salads, and the excellence of the ingredients brings this to the top of my favorites of the offerings. I pride myself in my homemade hummus. I am picky about my feta cheese. Without these ingredients, and without top quality kalamata olives as a taste complement, the “Greek” would be missing. Green & Crips succeeds in meeting these challenges. And the salads are beautiful!
The crowing touch is provided by the beverages. Green & Crisp offers choices of fruit-infused waters. Without adding sugar and without being sweet, the fruit-waters have enough of the fresh fruit flavors to be interesting and fun. They are a liquid treat and not a “healthy but not so good” substitute for a tasty beverage. I finished one of each of three flavors. Not just tasted, but finished all three. They are new, different, and a compliment to healthy and excellent dining.
In short, Green & Crisp must be experienced. You will not be disappointed, and you will be thrilled! The enthusiasm of the staff is understandable. They believe in their offerings and for good reason!
A classic Cobb Salad which is every bit as great as it looks!
Crisp & Green is not a collection of pretty pictures on a menu. It is a restaurant that is serving food which IS as good as the pictures! 1675 29th Street, Suite 1272, Boulder, Colorado.
Lenny Lensworth Frieling
Shared Knowledge Is Power!
