Green Street Tavern - Pasadena

Last Saturday we went with one of my partners and his wife to the Rose Bowl to see the UCLA vs. Utah football game. We had dinner before-hand at Green Street Tavern, located on Green Street,  just a block or two away from Colorado Boulevard, which was rated as the 8th best restaurant in Pasadena on Yelp. 

Judy had a beet salad with watercress, goat cheese, candied walnuts and a tarragon-balsamic vinaigrette. She got it primarily for the beets, which she loves, but she found it difficult to eat because of the watercress which had multiple stems going out in various directions. She left a good portion of it uneaten.

I got a kale salad. I don't remember all of the ingredients and the menu has changed on-line, but it consisted of a generous helping of kale, in fairly big pieces, with feta cheese, I believe some sort of avocado dressing and a fried egg broken up by the waiter and stirred around in the salad so that the egg yoke and white infused a large portion of it. I really loved the bites that had a good portion of egg. Portions without were a little dry. Two eggs would have made it fantastic. 

Kale salad with egg.

We shared a shrimp cazuela which was shrimp in Spanish spiced garlic butter, white beans, tomatoes and a grilled baguette. It was the most disappointing of our dishes. There were only five shrimp. It was mostly warm cherry tomatoes and they were hardly spiced. I found it very bland and uninteresting. It was $15.00, very over-priced. I would not order it again, even at one-third of the price.   

Shrimp cazuela.

The other couple ordered the miniature baked brie that was almond-encrusted, with roast garlic and a roasted fig compote and toasted baguette. They shared a couple of bites with us and I thought it was quite good, the best baked brie I've had, and I've had it several other times. None of my bites contained fig, so I'm not sure how it impacted the dish. 

Miniature baked brie.

Judy got chevre gnocchi with forest mushrooms, pine nuts, kale, and browned sage butter. She shared several bites with me. I loved the potato dumplings, very soft and large. Even better were the mushrooms, fairly large pieces with a nice, distinctive taste. 

My partner got wild boar meatloaf wrapped in wild boar bacon on mashed potatoes, gravy and vegetables. He shared part of it with me. I thought it was very good, but not particularly distinctive. Without knowing otherwise, I would not have pegged it for anything other than normal meatloaf. 

Wild boar meatloaf with wild boar bacon on mashed potatoes.

I got a Moroccan style lamb shank (de-boned) in couscous, chickpeas, gravy and other ingredients with a spicy side sauce that I forgot to add until the very end. It was a decent portion of lamb and a little bland, but I think it would have been much better if I had added the side sauce earlier. 

Lamb

The food was a step-up from a chain restaurant, but I was not wowed by it. Several items were good, but nothing was outstanding, except perhaps the kale salad with portions of egg in it. So even though it was a decent meal I was a little disappointed because I was expecting more. I would not rate it as an "event" restaurant, one for a real special occasion.