Bears, Beets, Battlestar Galactica

My coworker Patty and I were at the end of a long hard week a month or so ago, and we made the short walk to Banc, a surefire standby.

I wasn't super hungry, so I opted for the layered beet and goat cheese salad. Whenever I even think about beets, I can't help but chuckle as I remember one of my favorite scenes from "The Office." Go ahead, enjoy. I'll wait here for you....

Back on topic...I was picturing multiple layers of beets and cheese, more like alternating discs, but it was really a stack of chopped, roasted beets with a top of goat cheese. Either way, still tasty. The tangy, slightly-creamy goat cheese went so well with the mellow, sweet beets, all on top of a bed of bitingly-fresh arugula.

Patty ordered their Cobb Salad. It was more like a deconstructed take on a Cobb salad. She ate it and enjoyed it, but said that it was so far off from a regular Cobb salad that some folks might have different expectations.

We were still a bit hungry, so we opted to split a dessert. The pavlova sounded tempting, even though meringue is not my favorite thing. I figured it would be light and perhaps the least calorie-packed dessert available. It looked quite lovely, but I wouldn't get this again. The consistency of meringue (crunchy meringue, not soft meringue like that on a meringue pie) kind of gives my teeth the shivers. I know, I'm weird.

Like I said, looks pretty, tasted just okay. But I'm weird about textures. Something about the super-cold ice cream and the meringue didn't work for me. But you can't go wrong with the beets! And as always, our service was great--they're friendly and never, ever hustling us out the door.