Teaspoon — Restaurant in Arizona

UPDATE: March 4, 2025: I'll start, this time, with my loud applause for {teaspoon}'s (that's how they spell it on the door and menu) "Croque Madame". Wow. Eggs exquisitely correct, the bread (kind of an egg bread) nicely toasted so it holds up under the moisture of the ham, cheese, egg-over-easy and gravy, ooooohhh sooooo tasty. Goodness, even the 'salad' that came with it was impressive.

My next applause is for the coffee. Despite the fact that a simple cup of coffee now costs $4.00 (so be sure to drink a LOT), I have to say, I've only had about a handful of cups of coffee in my life which were that good (and none of the coffee I get at Starbucks is nearly as good). It would be nice, though, if they'd give you actual cream when you ask for cream, instead of whole milk. Makes a difference in the taste.

My wife enjoyed her scrambled eggs and (twice the order of) 4 pieces of bacon; and my friend's (standard) Eggs Benedict was, he said superior. He's a coffee connoisseur and he thought the coffee was excellent too.

As usual, though, I really didn't want to go there. The decor is uninspiring, dark and poorly illuminated, and when you have to sit looking out the window from your darkened seat, the glare is annoying. One would think that the managers of {teaspooon} and The Parish were conspiring to keep us all in the dark. Just kidding. But, if {teaspoon} thinks that their 17 scattered around 3 watt lights (just kidding, there must be 18 at least) are adding to some kind of allure, my thought is that people, like me, come to {teaspoon} in spite of the decor, not to enjoy it, because the food is so damned good.

When reviewing restaurants, people often start with their complaints. My only real complaint about Teaspoon is that I didn't realize it would be so cold this morning, and I forgot my jacket. So, when we arrived 8 minutes before it opened at 8:00 a.m., I "had" to wait in line (there was a line!) in the cold until it opened. So, that is really a complaint against me for not planning ahead, not Teaspoon.

Teaspoon is a nicely appointed place with VERY well prepared foods and coffees. While my friend, who is a coffee afficianado indicated that he likes the taste of Starbucks coffee better (he likes 'burnt' coffee, which is pretty much what Starbucks has always sold, until they started selling their "Blonde" roast for people like me who don't like "burnt" coffee), he thought that Teaspoon's coffee was tasty and worth drinking.

I also found the latte I ordered to be one of the best I've had in Tucson -- but I understood what my friend meant. The flavor of the coffee was just ever so slightly below optimum.

Yet, the eggs benedict my friend had; and the southwestern skillet that I had, were both excellent and well prepared. The eggs on both dishes were as ordered (and, shock of shocks, the waiter actually asked my friend how he wanted his poached eggs cooked on his eggs benedict!).

So, I've given Teaspoon pretty much the highest ranking I give restaurants of this sort. The food was good, the coffee was good, the waiter was friendly. The only thing I'd prefer is if it opened at 7:00 a.m., instead of 8:00 a.m. ... working people can't usually wait until 8:00 a.m., and retired people don't like to wait that late in the morning.

Finally, Teaspoon is not, really, all that hard to find. You do have to follow the signs, because it is inside one of the alcoves that make up the Casas Adobes shopping center, and we did have to walk a few feet because we could not see it from the street or parking lot. But, it was a lot easier to get to the Teaspoon than, say, to get up (from the tour bus stop) to the El Tovar Hotel/Restaurant at the Grand...

I don't really review places all that often but I thought the experience I just had at Teaspoon would be worth mentioning. My co-worker and I went there on a business lunch today. I'm a relatively well known attorney and I like Teaspoon because it's close, food is usually pretty good, and the atmosphere is nice enough to make clients and associates feel special while not formal. That being said, I usually start the meal with the crab cakes. They're usually really good. This time, as my main entrée came in, I was putting the last bite of crab cake in my mouth and bit on something hard. I took it out and saw that it was a rock about half an inch in diameter. Honestly, I didn't care that much about it. My coworker and I just laughed about it. I know that in the whole chain of service from where that crab was caught to getting into my plate, a white and grey stone half the size of a dice can easily be missed. It wasn't the end of the world. However, I pointed it out to my waiter who told me he would let the kitchen know. Five minutes later, this employee comes out to our table and states that she spoke with the chef and that because she made the crab cakes fresh this morning, there is no way they could have missed the stone. I told her I wasn't asking for a free lunch, I was just pointing it out. She repeated that the stone was not from their end, thus insinuating that I placed the stone there myself. My coworker and I were speechless. Teaspoon basically accused us of trying to scam them without trying to discuss the incident or anything. My crab cakes were not comped. I even paid a good tip because this wasn't the waiter's fault. But let's put it this way, the amount of money I've been spending at Teaspoon over the years will be going somewhere else. Look I don't need a $16 free crab cake. An apology would've been fine but honestly even a "Hey sorry, things get missed sometimes" would have been ok. But to be accused of trying to scam them in front of the whole dining room was pretty egregious. Teaspoon, not only will I not be recommending you, I will be discouraging all my attorney friends in the community from patronizing your establishment. Hope it was...

We got there about 12:30 yesterday which was a Sunday. Place was packed as usual. I really enjoy the ambience of the place and it’s decor. I’ll be fair in my review and give it a 4, because I do want to see a Teaspoon succeed. I will go back, and my entree, the crab eggs Benedict, was very good. I do however have some complaints. My fiancé and I are bar eaters, we dislike sitting at tables because you typically get better service at the bar. It’s also more social with other patrons and bartenders. It’s also much faster to be seated as it’s first come first serve. Yesterday though, the bar sat dirty and we had to wait for a hostess to clean it before we could sit. They wouldn’t even let us claim the seats until it was cleaned. This took s out 10 minutes. Once we got in and sat down. We realized why it took so long. The bartender Maria was slammed. There was one bartender working the entire restaurant. She didn’t have time to clean. What kind of establishment has one bartender working when the entire restaurant is full and on a 45 minute wait? We also noticed that many tables were left unbussed. No wonder the wait is so long. Anyways back to the bar. We could tell Maria was stressed out and it took another 5 minutes to even greet us. When she finally did, we ordered the bottlomless mimosas with the entree. The mimosas were great. Our food arrived at a reasonable time as well. I ordered the crab eggs Benedict and really enjoyed it. She ordered a skillet with sausage and peppers. Her food was slightly cold and the peppers hardly cooked. We told the bartender she didn’t like it. We thought maybe she would take it off but she said the manager would only take 8.00 off when the entree only cost like 15.00. That upset us a bit. I worked at multiple restaurants and if a customer didn’t like something, you either correct it, give them something else or remove it from the bill. Overall things were good, but if this restaurant is going to survive, it has to be properly staffed. You also have to fix issues when a...