The Bob Cobb Quest – J|A Prep Kitchen

After sampling an embarrassing version of the Cobb salad at the Hollywood Brown Derby restaurant in Orlando, I’m on a quest to simply find a good Cobb salad.

One night, we were about to catch a movie at Crossgates. We had a few minutes to grab dinner, and I noticed that one of the closest restaurants to the theater in the mall has a Cobb salad on the menu. So, we stopped in to eat (even though the first visit at this place wasn’t exactly impressive.).

The Cobb Salad at the prep kitchen hit almost of the mnemonic “EAT COBB” elements [Egg, Avocado, Tomato, Chicken, Onion, Bacon, Blue cheese]; it was missing onion.

Cobb Salad at J|A Prep Kitchen

Everything on the plate was piled in distinct regions and was actually pretty decent. The blue cheese was pungent in a good way (I’m of the mind that the whole experience of blue cheese is that pungency). The tomatoes were ripe and flavorful. The avocado was scooped on like a puree. It was almost like guacamole, but it didn’t seem like it had anything else other than avocado in it.

Tomato and avocado puree

The egg was cooked and crumbled nicely. The chicken was a little tough and overcooked, but it was nicely seasoned. There was a hefty amount of bacon, which would please the bacon-philes out there.

Chicken

They served it with a gravy-boat full of dressing. I don’t think I even used half of what they provided.

Gravy-boat full of dressing

There wasn’t a set dressing for the salad; I was asked to choose from all of their dressings. I chose the Vidalia onion vinagrette, you know, to make up for the missing onion. It was good, but it tasted familiar.

The lettuce on the plate was a spring mix that had some shredded carrots dispersed throughout.

All in all, the Cobb salad experience at this place in the mall was above average.

I give it 3.5 out of 5 Brown Derbys on the Bob Cobb scale.


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2 thoughts on “The Bob Cobb Quest – J|A Prep Kitchen

  • Mike Floyd

    good review…one flaw I saw was the kitchen wasn’t using a sharp knife and the dices and chops were more squished than cut and for them not to take the time to present the avocado in slices or a big dice is criminal. Two more minutes and the thing would have been done right.


  • Daniel B.

    “A Cobb salad ($10.95) was a huge affair, carefully constructed like a crudite platter, with sections devoted to avocado, chopped tomatoes, blue cheese crumbles, red onions, raw mushrooms, slab bacon and grilled white meat chicken chunks with ranch dressing in a side cup. I prefer my salads mixed and dressed in the kitchen, but since the platter was large enough to share around the table, the presentation allowed for the pickier eaters in our group to choose their ingredients.”
    http://www.timesunion.com/living/article/Whetting-a-few-appetites-4661733.php



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