Thursday, July 15, 2010

Bridgeview Café

I stopped here with a friend for brunch en route to an afternoon of exploring Roosevelt Island. The café is right across the street from the bridge on 36th Avenue in Queens, and despite the relatively desolate location, it’s a cute little building and it looks like they’ve tried really hard to create a pleasant restaurant in an unexpected location.

Unfortunately, the food makes it not worth coming out of your way to visit. I was planning to just get some typical brunch fare like pancakes, but when I saw a veggie burger on the menu I decided I had to try it for the sake of the blog. I really feel like I “took one for the team”, as they say, with that choice - because it was the worst burger I have tasted since I embarked on this project.

bridgeview_cafe

The patty itself was the usual most-generic-of-generic pre-made burgers. The kind that tastes like the bland mixes of frozen vegetables that my mother tried to force me to eat when I was a kid. It was heated all the way through, but that’s about the best I can say for it. The bun was squishy and tasteless like that of a fast-food burger. And the toppings were about as bad as they could be: an under-ripe slice of tomato and one measly leaf of slightly wilted iceburg lettuce. The fries that came with it were pretty miserable too.

It would have been wonderful to discover that Bridgeview Café was a hidden gem of a restaurant tucked away next to power plants and construction sites, but such is not the case. My friend GM ordered the eggs benedict, and told me that they were about as disappointing to him as my veggie burger was to me.

So there you have it, my first one-star review!
This was the type of burger that gives veggie burgers a bad name - you have been warned!

Cost: $4.95
Rating: ★ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
Burger patty: 1    Bun: 1     Toppings: 1

Bridgeview Café
36-01 Vernon Blvd
Long Island City, NY 11101
718.391.0093

YumVeggieBurger review #7

9 comments:

  1. Sad! I always want those tucked-away places to have the best food ... so I'll feel like I discovered a hidden gem. But guess that's not so with this place. Thanks for taking one for the team!

    ReplyDelete
  2. You should cross-post these to yelp! You'll probably get people coming back to your blog from there, too.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I thought about that, but for some reason I had this idea that it would be frowned upon at yelp to do that...
    I've never seen others do it, actually I thought there was some kind of thing against posting links at all, but I could be totally making that up right now - maybe I should read their TOS

    ReplyDelete
  4. When I lived on Roosevelt Island for three months about ten years ago I think I recall wanting to visit that restaurant. Glad to know I didn't waste my time!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Oh that's too bad :( It's kind of annoying when that happens, espcially if you don't see them a lot in retaurants. I've had one local vegan veggie burger that was simply amazing. That was years ago, too bad I cannot remember the restaurants name. The others, that I've eaten at restaurants, weren't that great.

    My daughter loves veggie burgers so I tend to make them a lot at the house. When I'm busy I prepare a lot in advance, freeze and cook when needed. :) Black bean burgers are some of her favorites, in fact, I made some today.:)

    ReplyDelete
  6. I love black bean burgers! I've been wanting to start making my own soon (never tried before), hopefully posting reviews of different recipes on this blog as well. what recipe do you use for yours?

    ReplyDelete
  7. Hey Ali,
    I'll post it on my site later this week. I make up my own recipes, so tend to pull in whatever ingredients interest me at that moment.

    I'll include you in the post so people can check out your fabulous website. I'm sure this site will be helpful for those looking for restaurants that serve Veggie Burgers. I do believe the more we demand, request veggie burgers the quality of them will change to compete with the restaurants that do offer veggie burgers.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Thank you so much, Moondancer! I am glad you like the site.

    I think you are right about the quality of veggie burgers being on the rise, too... actually the same month I decided to start this website, two new restaurants opened in my neighborhood featuring housemade veggie burgers. Pretty good omen for the future! :)

    ReplyDelete