More Chicken & Waffle Experiments at Craft Gourmet
Craft Gourmet by Lou Baker
3rd Floor, Mega Plaza, Idowu Martins Street, Victoria Island, Lagos.
Christina and I visited Craft Gourmet for a food and drink review so you should check out Christina’s piece for the full experience because it was pretty… interesting.
[Ed Note: Christina’s review for Drink Lagos should be up on Thursday]
We ordered three meals but got four - Chicken and Waffle Sandwich, Chicken Pesto Pasta, Dulce de Leche Pancakes and lastly, a bowl of Horrible Hospitality.
Just another Lagos brunch, I guess.
[Ed Note: Following Folarin’s review, I (read: Nosa) visited Craft Gourmet to check things for myself]
The Chicken and Waffle Sandwich comes with chicken, bacon, mashed avocado and jalapeno peppers. Oh, and the Craft Gourmet toothpick flag to hold it together and reassure you that it’s not just any sandwich, but a Craft Gourmet sandwich that you’re eating.
As the waiter walked up to our table and I prayed against it being my order, all I could think of are those “What You Ordered VS What You Got” tweets we see after people have given their Ojuelegba tailors photos of world-class designs and asked them to replicate. For some odd reason, I still decided to give the meal the benefit of the doubt, thinking, “maybe it’s just how it looks. It probably tastes nice.”, but boy, was I wrong.
The waffles and all of its contents felt like someone ordered it earlier but cancelled, so they put it away and microwaved it when I placed my order. I’m actually 94.7% sure this was the case because the chicken fillets were just-been-microwaved kind of hot.
The waffles were really hard, the avocado spread seemed to have dried up and the bacon was so hard that when I tapped it with my knife, it made a clanking sound like I was striking another metal.
Ok, maybe a minor exaggeration on the bacon. It was really tough, however.
“My experience was a bit different. Waffle and the chicken tasted fresh, but the bacon was a little on the tough side like Folarin’s order. Also, very salty.
The problem with the Chicken & Waffle sandwich is that it just feels like a lot is going on. It works really well in some bites, if you catch the chilli jam, but not so much in other parts. The sandwich just doesn’t work. It doesn’t feel very practical. The elements are great individually, but fall apart as a whole”
Not the best start to our brunch.
After trying the pesto at Casper & Gambini’s, La Veranda and Maison Kayser, I felt like we had to try Craft’s take with their Chicken Pesto Pasta. I ordered some extra bacon for good measure. The texture on the penne was the right shade of al dente - not too soft or hard. Thankfully, it didn’t have the green colouring like the one at La Veranda.
The dish was well spiced and not too creamy, generous with the proteins and tasted even nicer after we sprinkled the grated cheese we had neglected on it. Like the chicken and waffle sandwich, the bacon seemed a bit tough. Unlike the sandwich, I didn’t particularly mind it.
Overall, the chicken pesto pasta was decent but it’s not dislodging Casper & Gambini’s in my head.
“I really liked the pasta, especially with the cheese, but I can’t rate how well it fares against other pesto pastas in this Lagos.”
The third thing we ordered were the Dulce de Leche Pancakes off the breakfast menu. I also finally decided to search on Google for the pronunciation of ‘Dulce de Leche’ and I’m lowkey upset none of my attempts were right.
Dool-theh theh Leh-tcheh (Actual Spanish pronunciation)
Dool-seh theh Leh-tcheh (Actual South American pronunciation)
Dool-cheh de Lee-chy (Folarin’s Attempt 1)
Dool-ch de Leh-ch (Folarin’s Attempt 2)
Anyhow, something the something pancakes.
The Dulce de Leche pancakes came with caramelised milk, almond crumbs, banana slices and a chopped up strawberry. Bonus points for the lovely presentation.
The pancake’s texture was just right and the fruits and nuts went well together with the Dulce de Leche. While this was nice, it didn’t feel like something that should be on the breakfast menu. It felt way more like a dessert than breakfast. I tried getting Christina to try it but she wasn’t interested because of the sugar content.
At the end of our brunch, we received some particularly unpleasant service from our waiter and the manager - Lucky and Brett.
When the bill arrived, we asked to split the bill with food on one bill and drinks on the other, since Christina was handling DrinkLagos and I, the food review, but the waiter and manager made it out to be such a complex request to them. After numerous reasons why they can’t split the bill and how we should have asked for a split bill before ordering, the manager walked out on us while we were speaking to him.
A very unfortunate incident and to have come from the manager, that was particularly disappointing.
POSTSCRIPT
FOLARIN: Overall, the food at Craft Gourmet is decent enough. Maybe not enough to mask the service Brett rendered though.
VERDICT
DAMAGE
Chicken and Waffles Sandwich - N4500
Chicken Pesto Pasta - N6000 (+N500 for bacon)
Dulce de Leche Pancakes - N4000
PARKING
~100 cars in the Mega Plaza multiplex carpark
