Tuesday, January 16, 2007

3 Square Bakery - Now Open

I had a fairly disappointing experience today at 3 Square Bakery, the new Bakery (and soon to open cafe) from Hans Rockenwagner. It is basically a bigger, and professionally designed version of his R Bakery on Washington Blvd, with all the same oversized (and tasty) pastries, panini sandwiches, and European imports like Meinl coffee and plenty of Ritter Sport chocolate bars. I ordered the Nougat Ring, a flaky cookie with hazelnut nougat covered in choclate. It was very good, just way too big. It is a gourmet Mallowmar.

For lunch I ordered my favorite panini that I have gotten at R Bakery several times, the Black Forest Ham, caramelized onion and cheese panini. It was lightly crisp on top, and soft on the bottom. It really needed a couple more minutes on the grill. After a couple bites, I felt the burning fumes from the mustard shoot through my nasal passage, as if I had taken a whole ball of wasabi into my mouth. At R, the sandwich has mustard, but nothing like this. After a couple more tentative bites, while crying into my napkin, I gave up.

Hans was there, working the room, greeting his friends (this is their first day open). if I had any nerve I would have: 1. Asked him to pose with me for a picture to put in this post, 2. Should have complained my sandwich was inedible, and requested my money back. I did not want to do that, because I was initially overcharged for the sandwich by $5, which took some time to void my credit card ,re-ring it up, produce receipts, etc (which I will blame fist day jitters for this). I am sure after a couple weeks open, everyone will get the hang of things, and mistakes like that won't be made. But think I will just continue to get my favorite panini at R.

3 Square
1121 Abbot Kinney Blvd.
Venice, CA 90291
310-399-6504

3 comments:

cindy said...

I could relate to your inedible sandwich, while the owner schmoozed. Same thing happened to me at Kean Coffee in Newport Beach, owned and operated by Martin Diedrich. Ordered a cup of black coffee, the special of the day, took one sip and BLEHHHH. The stuff was horrible! Undrinkable. I didn't have the nerve to face Mr. Diedrich and say, 'Hey! Your coffee sucks!'
I totally feel your pain.

Unknown said...

"European imports like Meinl coffee"

Hello, I just visited the 3 square cafe while on a visit from Seattle. Had a cool Modern vibe. The afore mentioned Meinl Coffee caught my eye.

Can you tell me what sort of drink this is? It seemed refreshingly simple in its production unlike the "triple, no fat, dry haselnut, carmel, wet blah blah blah" coffee you would order at *bucks.

Any help on what this drink is in essence and how to research it would be appreciated.

Best from the Sunny but COLD Seattle -

Nash

Anonymous said...

Just had the pleasure of a 3 sq visit last week. Seems like some opening snafu's are worked out.

Julius Meinl is an Austrian brand of chain stores, with a spesh Chicago flagship cafe, and another on the way. It's a much different profile from our Seattle/West Coast micro roasters - soemtime, try a Vienese coffee (usually a cappuccino with cinnamon - short and foamy, NOT a latte), and get a sense of it's worth.

Based on coffee, design, jalapeno pretzel rolls, and general cool factor, I'm putting 3 square on my list of recommended spots in LA.