LB Kitchen — Restaurant in Portland

LB needs to learn how to celebrate natural sugars in fruit and nuts.

Grilled Banana Bread: bananas naturally add sweetness and moisture yet this was dry and wheaty. Skimped on the banana but the banana is the whole point. Adding heat and butter helped a bit with the moisture, but the menu and recipes should be built around the expectation that items are not served hot when they are 100% takeout.

My other loaf order was sold out.

Sourdough bread and cashew cheese shmear: the sourdough bread was fine but also wheaty. On the other hand, the shmear was so sour. It was like intense sour cream. I added both honey and strawberry jam to balance it out. It was pretty decent at that point but the cashew flavor was completely lost.

Velvet Underground: tasted like watery beet juice. The ingredients in this smoothie should result in something that is smooth and naturally sweet but not too sweet with a subtle warm spiciness and a little cacao nib crunch. Nope. I got watery beets with chunks. So gross. At this point, I'm wondering if they literally just ran out of bananas and thought it didn't matter. I added a little honey to this as well which was the only reason I drank a whole third of this drink before giving up on it.

Cacao Turmeric Wellness Latte: this was the only redeeming item in my entire meal. Unfortunately, it was in a kiddie sized cup. 3 slurps and it was gone. I've gotten similar drinks in larger cups for a similar price in much higher priced cities.

My husband's Super Basic Toast was okay. As he put it: "It's fine. It would be hard to do this poorly."

Overall, really poor executions of good ideas. I'm giving two stars for the good ideas. I hope...

Google says it's a dine in. I waited 30 minutes for an Uber to come here and it's takeout only. 😩 They should at least take the "dine in” of of their choices and update their description. Course, the button says order online, but other restaurants have a dine in option and an order online button. It pays to ask questions on Google and/or call the establishment. Too many variations and better to be safe than sorry.

I had the blue chai (hot). It's typically made with water but you can ask that hot be made with milk or plant based milk also. I also ordered the avocado toast with egg on top bc the beet hummus was sold out. I ordered the egg between om and oh, if that's a thing - the egg came out oe = fail. Even after the walk back to the hotel, the egg had time to cook a little extra packed up in the box and it must be a very good insulated box. The egg was still runny - ewe. Gotta pay attention to the details! The avocado was layered on thick (extra points for that - must be two avocados on this toast. Speaking of which, the toast is a think piece of sourdough, wow. Did you know that gluten sensitive diets should opt for sourdough bread as it eats the gluten during the cooking process. Amazing right?!

The service was excellent and staff was helpful. There was a line here when I came but...

We came here two years ago before the pandemic and it was such a cute place to dine in with really healthy, tasty food. You now order outside as they have converted the dining room to be more kitchen space. I can’t fault them for that, as I’m sure it’s helped to keep them open and maximize labor cost and rent expenses during a time that has been so difficult for restaurants, but I wish it had been made clearer that you cannot actually eat here anymore. Their Google listing still shows “dine-in” as an option, and eating on a bench out front does not count as dining in.

Also, their matcha latte, while decent in quality, is $5.75 for 10 ounces! That is ridiculous. I have never seen it be that expensive anywhere, and I actually drink matcha almost every day, so I know its cost. That is the standard price for 16 ounces, so to not even serve it in the same 12 ounce size my husband got his latte in is deeply disappointing. Breakfast bowls run up to $17. We will probably not be returning here, but hope they can continue offering these kind of healthy options to those willing to pay...