Rosebud Bar & Kitchen — Restaurant in Somerville

Unfortunately not a good spot at all — the new transition in ownership is quite evident in our lackluster experience. Staff struggled to communicate and were inconsistent in their service, which would be forgivable but was quite difficult to navigate with a gluten-free person in our party. However, the worst part of our meal was the absurd extra charges for frankly unpalatable food.

We ordered the gluten free chicken and waffle, and gluten free chai french toast — I think the photos below speak for themselves. The typical French toast comes with 3 thick brioche slices and home fries (all of which is written explicitly on their menu!), but the gluten free option, which cost $3 extra, was literally two pieces of sad, tiny bread with the smallest chunk of butter on it (they couldn’t even spare to at least give the same number of slices of bread??), and fully left out the home fries. We were only able to speak to a waiter after expressing our disappointment, and he assured we’d be able to get spicy home fries — before bringing out normal, unseasoned French fries 10 minutes later. Charging $23 for two pieces of bread on a plate (not even an exaggeration…) is frankly insane, and we were honestly more shocked than upset when it was presented to us.

The gluten free waffle was also barely edible (couldn’t even bite through it, honestly as plasticky as it looks in the image, unfortunately), but even worse, we suspect that the chicken wasn’t actually gluten free. After raising our concerns to the manager, we were assured that gluten, nut, meat, etc. containing foods are prepared in separate fryers, but this doesn’t seem believable, as our gluten free member experienced significant negative symptoms indicative of having consumed gluten.

After speaking to the manager, primarily to explain our disappointments to help them improve, we were offered a tiny discount of removing two coffees from our tab — not even half the cost of a single food item on their menu (and we got other drinks too, but clearly removing ALL the drinks would have been too generous!). After expressing that removing the drinks didn’t really seem like a sensible solution to the problem, the manager implied that this was a negligible problem, and offered to deduct the cost of the coffee from the toast, instead. Only after fully explaining further did he finally agree to take the French toast off our tab — not that the money was even the root issue, but it seems insane that removing this item wasn’t the first, or even second, move to rectify the situation.

Overall, while it’s understandable that a new restaurant will have its struggles, this is an absolutely insane level of distinction and unprofessionalism. The prices are outrageous (a $10 mango lassi…), but honestly just that would be fine for a brunch spot. The bigger problem was: Charging significantly extra for gluten free food Even offering these inedible, pathetic gluten free options Leaving out significant portions of these meals, which cost EXTRA (not less), without any warning from the servers — and not just removing gluten containing things, either (still so confused at why you would decrease the number of slices of bread on a gluten free order, especially when it looks so much worse anyways??) Servers not being able to communicate fully and understand allergy concerns — we had to specify and clarify several times that we wanted gluten...

UPDATED REVIEW

I recently tried Rosebud for the first time since its rebirth as an Indian-American diner. The menu items all look very interesting, but I of course had to go for the chicken and waffles again for a fair comparison.

The kerala fried chicken and waffle ($20) was pretty disappointing. The chicken was pretty flavorless -- you could just taste a coconut fragrance and some chili powder, but it was severely lacking salt. The texture of the chicken was otherwise fine. The waffle though! It was basically inedible. Not only was it soggy, but it also tasted undercooked and floury. The green chili part is just a couple of slices of green chili mixed into the batter. I cannot anti-recommend this dish enough. I'm sad because I used to love the chicken and waffles at Rosebud!

The tikka tater tots ($11) were tasty, though! The gravy was flavorful. This was fusion done right, in my opinion.

It seems like the menu can be a bit hit or miss, so I'm mildly apprehensive about trying Rosebud again.

PREVIOUS REVIEW (under different management)

I've passed by Rosebud countless times over the years but only recently gave it a try, and now I've been there three times in the past month! I'm not usually keen on breakfast/brunch-focused places, but I was pleasantly surprised by how Rosebud approaches their menu. Their dishes are rich, creative, and well-balanced, and they do chicken and waffles extremely well. I'll definitely be back more in the future.

The first time I went, I had the chicken and waffles from the dinner menu ($20). I had never had chicken and waffles before this, but I knew this was no ordinary version. It had this maple crema sauce that tasted like caramel, a delightfully punchy calabrian chili layer, scallion/jalapeno/bacon garnishes, and extremely flavorful and juicy fried chicken. It was pretty incredible. My only complaint was that the waffle was pretty soggy from the get-go (maybe from the maple sauce) -- everything else was amazing. Not your typical diner food!

The second two times I went, I had the chicken and waffles from the brunch menu ($18). The waffles were much more crispy both of these times (maybe because there's higher waffle turnover in the brunch crowd), which I was happy about. The chicken was just as good and plentiful and the gravy was perfectly rich and flavorful. Super tasty. It's hard to say which version of chicken and waffles I prefer -- they're both so delicious!

On the sidelines, I also tried a couple of the eggs benedict options. I really appreciated the side salad for the kick of acidity (really helped balance out the rich chicken and waffles), and the eggs were perfectly poached.

We also tried a couple of cocktails during the brunches -- the blood orange mimosa and the boozy Capri Sun. The boozy Capri Sun was delicious and exactly what I'm looking for in a drink. The mimosa wasn't exactly my style (felt a bit watered down).

Overall, I was really pleasantly surprised by Rosebud and it will certainly be my go-to brunch spot. The restaurant was a lot more packed during weekend mornings than the time I went in the evening -- I would definitely recommend brunch reservations! Would highly recommend any version of their chicken and waffles, and will be back for it myself...

Went to Rosebuds for birthday brunch. Have been going there for years; always had great experiences: service wonderful, food always delicious. We are wondering if there was a change in management because the food and service were very different. We had reservations, so no waiting to be seated which was good. However, once seated, no one came to our table at all - to say hi, to take drink or food order - nothing for about 15 minutes. It was also not busy where we were seated plenty of empty tables. After 15 minutes, I had to go up and ask the host to find our waiter. When our waiter did come over, he was completely unapologetic. We ordered; he didn’t write anything down. We got our drinks and food. But the waiter had forgotten a side order. We tried to flag him down, but couldn’t. We eventually grabbed another waiter. We asked to please check on our side, and that we’d like another orange juice and refills on coffee. Our waiter came back, gave us the side, and put down white colored liquid My wife asked what the white colored liquid was and was curtly told “orange juice.” She tasted it and immediately made a horrible face and downed her water. I took a sip; it was lemon juice. Now, we aren’t sure if that was done on purpose by our waiter because we had gotten him in trouble, we hope not and erred on the side of it being a mistake, but it was still galling. We called them back and got another orange juice, but even though we asked again we also never got coffee refills. The food itself, which is usually very very good, was mediocre at best. Eggs were over done; French toast was not the really delicious French toast we were used to. It was very bland and meh. We did note on the bill that they did not charge us for the lemon juice, so we guess the comped the second orange juice. We left a normal tip, as we hope it was inexperience and a bad day, but we’re not sure we’ll go back. There are tons of brunch places in Somerville. Might be time to try others.

*Update: Wow! We were so surprised by our experience that we checked the other recent reviews. I guess we were right. New management. We should have checked reviews before we went, but we didn’t realize it had changed hands. Well, we certainly won’t be going back unless we read some reviews that are actually positive and/or until management actually addresses the obvious problems. We originally gave 2 stars to cut them some slack, but are reducing to one as it seems like our experience is not unique/ and or an off/bad day, but is...