When I heard about it, I thought it was too good to be true . Salads made with produce from the Santa Monica farmers market — offered at half price during happy hour? That’s the 5 o’clock spot for me, I thought, and biked over to West 4th/Jane for healthy local nibbles.
Turns out, a pub with a loud Lakers crowd’s not the best place to order a locavore’s salad. Yes, the greens came from the farmers market. But forget the thinly sliced or julienned goodness of decent Asian pear salads. The pear in West 4th/Jane’s Asian Pear Pecan Salad was haphazardly hacked apart, chopped into slices with widely variable widths. And when I asked to get the balsamic vinaigrette on the side, I was given straight up oil — in a disposable plastic container.
Really, I can only blame myself. What kind of crazy girl goes to a Santa Monica bar — that’s trying for the NYC West Village pub vibe, no less — hoping for a delicious Asian pear salad? And then to ask for no blue cheese due to lactose intolerance, and to top it all off, pair it with a dry riesling? At a pub? Yeah — That silly woman would be me.
Which is to say that the drunken Lakers crowd downing beer and sweet potato fries looked a lot more satisfied than I did. West 4th/Jane, to its credit, tries to keep it local with seafood from Santa Monica Seafood (caution: most of SaMo Seafood’s yummies isn’t sustainable), cheese from Andrew’s Cheese Shop, bread from Rockenwagner Bakery, and produce from the farmers market for its salads.
But while the pub offers half priced local salads during happy hour, these salads are very untasty — and the chicken in two of the four salads isn’t local or sustainable, according to the server I asked for more details. And while the wine’s also half price on Tuesdays during happy hour, none of the vino’s organic.
West 4th/Jane does offer at least one organic beer though. So if you what you really want is pub fare — an organic ale with fries, say — give this pub a try. But if what you really want’s locally-grown greens in a delicious salad paired with a good Californian wine, meet me at Greenleaf or Tender Greens instead.
West 4th/Jane. 1432 4th St., Santa Monica. 310.395.6765.
It’s a shame they didn’t try to follow through on the “Farmer’s Market” salad idea with more sustainable goods. Do we really need another “import” sports bar that’s trying to be a gastropub?
Comment by Bryan Koch — April 30, 2010 @ 3:26 pm
Well to be fair West 4th/Jane’s greener than most pubs — and they are at least making some efforts to get more local and sustainable options in there. It’s just that the execution’s sort of half ass and unfortunately in the case of the farmers’ market salad, not so yummy. At happy hr, the salad was $6. If I’d paid the full $12 price for that, I’d have felt really really ripped off.
Comment by Siel — May 2, 2010 @ 1:46 pm
After Siel told me about the salads, I wound up ordering a hot dog, whose price isn’t disclosed on the main menu… nor was the fact that the hot dog was actually a veggie dog. Again, to be fair, West 4th/Jane does make an effort to get in some local and sustainable options, as well as to suit the needs of vegetarians. But I back Siel’s assessment: the execution is incomplete.
Comment by sirinya tritipeskul — May 4, 2010 @ 3:23 pm