It was always my goal to keep chain restaurants out of this column, but I have recently experienced a delight in Pasadena that everyone should know about. This temple of good health and choices is called Souplantation, and it is chain-dining at its finest.
The buffet begins with 55 feet of salad bar stretching down the neck of the restaurant. On a Saturday night at dinner-time, a line weaves down both sides and out the door of the Lake Street location. There are mixed salads available at the start of the line as a foundation for less creative folk—cranberry chipotle spinach salad with walnuts was one such mix. A plethora of dressings are set out with calorie-counting labels and tiny sample cups. The creamy cucumber was refreshingly light and I opted to get some on the side to dip veggies into.
After paying the absurdly reasonable price of $8.99 for all-you-can-eat, we moved on to the soups. Here, sampling is also a possibility—pour yourself some soup and if it’s not what you want, just get something else! The Spanish Albondigas meatball soup with cilantro sounded tasty, but it turned out I was more in the mood for chili. I bypassed the pasta options, though it was tough to not swoon over the warm glow of the mac ‘n’ cheese. A fruit salad bar and a bakery corner battled for my attention until the baby apple bran muffins finally swayed me with their oatmeal topping. These sat nestled between baskets of baked potatoes wrapped in foil and other muffins, rolls and brownies. A giant pan of apple crisp beckoned to me, but manners told me to wait for dessert.
A multitude of juice options jumped out in bright colors from clear plastic containers and the vivid pineapple slices and strawberries sat dangerously close to the frozen yogurt machine. My tray was full. It was time to sit down.
After promising not to go back up, I began round two by snagging six muffins to wrap up and put in my purse. My dining companion and I felt like old ladies, and I joked about stealing some sugar packets as well. After our brief period of kleptomania subsided, it was really time for dessert. The frozen yogurt machine was accompanied by all the sundae accoutrements you could think of, including granola and Oreo crumbles. A delightful Souplantation employee was very excited about refilling the Oreo container for us and insisted we fill our bowls to the brim—this idea was met with no resistance on our parts. The frozen yogurt also paired well with the apple crisp, though it was divine on its own as I kept going up for seconds…and thirds…and fourths.
Quite the opposite of food coma, we left the restaurant in a hyperactive food high, snagging cornbread on the way out and trying to conceal our purses full of rolls. The cornbread was the best we’d ever tasted, with bits of corn baked right in and it went especially well with the honey-whipped light butter they offer. The line had shrunken since we arrived, so if you are headed here on a weekend, it might be best to go later. You could also wait until Sunday morning, when they have a breakfast buffet. I can’t wait to see what I can steal from that! So despite it’s West coast infamy as a run-of-the-mill chain buffet, I insist you go see for yourself before writing it off. They certainly have more salad bar options than a school cafeteria.
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