Dainty Maid Food Hall & Event Space — Restaurant in South Bend

This venue has been a popular spot long before I've started coming here but there's a good reason behind it. The venue is clean, has a great vibe, relaxing music and friendly wait staff. It's the perfect spot in the downtown South Bend area where you can grab a quick bite to eat or relax with friends over afternoon libations.

A dining hall with a unique idea. You can order from any of the restaurants, coffee shops or bakeries that inhabit the hall and the food is brought to your table. And the variety is surprising; you can get your coffee and breakfast sandwiches on the go but the Dainty Maid Food Hall also has breakfast ramen available to fulfill any sodium cravings first thing in the morning. So that's exactly what I ordered; one oat milk and honey coffee with a savory bowl of breakfast ramen.

The coffee was presented by the waitress/barista in an appealing mug complete with the milk froth leaf design. Honey drizzled on the side with graham cracker bits created a delicious cup of coffee. Sweet, strong and a pick me up to start the day.

The breakfast ramen has everything a growing boy needs to cured a morning hangover. Braised pork belly, noodles meant to be slurped, marinated mushrooms, bok choy cooked just right to retain the crunch, broth that I could drink every day and a fried egg to complete this dish. The biggest highlight though are the soup dumplings. Filled with flavor, the soup dumplings was the biggest delight; I only wished there was more.

If you couldn't tell, I enjoy the Dainty Maid Food Hall every time I come to South Bend for a business trip. It's a gem of an eatery in this college town. If you're a local, you probably know about what the venue has to offer but if you're visiting Notre Dame, do yourself a favor and check...

Uber Eats/Grub Hub in a Building : Visiting from Miami trying out the Dainty Maid

Pros Coffee was honestly the only reason I gave this place a star because it was very elevated with great flavors. Best matcha I’ve had. I would only go back for the coffee.

Variety. lots of variety and options to choose from.

Cons QR menus and online ordering. Basically like grub hub but you sit down and they bring you the food. I see why older generations would have a hard time but even as part of the young generation this was so annoying. At least in grub hub I can make modifications with a special comments section to a certain plate but at this place modifications are much harder to make and totally eliminates the face to face interactions that are made. I really hated that aspect because I can just grub hub or Uber eats food somewhere else and it would be literally the same. They swear it’s a “new concept” idea but it’s grub hub in a building.

tipping. Since you pay for everything first, like on Uber eats or grub hub, you pay for 25% tip before they even serve you. Also as someone who as worked in the food service this is an insult to me because all they do is bring you the food and that’s the “service” you tip for, whereas other places are working their hardest to bring the best service.

food - some of the dishes were pretty good but for the price most of the food was quite average and just tasted like something I would get off a food truck or at a normal breakfast place. The quality of the food wasn’t really anything amazing.

Honestly do not recommend. Especially if your going with family from different...

I don't normally dislike restaurants, but boy did I dislike this one. I'll start with the positives. The atmosphere and the concept of a minimal contact dining experience is really interesting. I would like to try more restaurants like that, in those regards. Now on to the negatives.. firstly, I was overwhelmed by the amount of choices on the menus from the different vendors. I enjoy variety, but in this case, the menus online were a bit annoying to navigate and each menu was similar to a full restaurant menu, making it feel overwhelming. I got the bloody Mary, crispy potatoes, and pork dumplings. I spent nearly $30 on just my order. I felt that it was way overpriced. Everything I ordered was way too salty. The potatoes were burnt, not crispy. The dumplings were okay, but way too salty. Now, the worst part of my order was the bloody Mary. I should've known not to order it when the description said it has 100+ seasonings in it (why in the world does anything, let alone a bloody Mary, need that many seasonings?!?). It was so over seasoned that I didn't even drink half of my drink. I love a variety of seasonings and trying new seasoning combinations, but whatever was used in the mix was not it. This was a $10 drink, nearly 1/3 of my total bill. I was so, so, so disappointed. I wound up going to a different restaurant afterwards to actually get what I was hoping for. This has probably been one of the worst food experiences I've ever had. I'm not usually difficult to please as I'll give everything a chance or 3, but based on this experience I have no intentions of ever going back or giving it a...