Little of this and add some that.

Ingredient

www.ingredientrestaurant.com

3201 Farnam St., Omaha,  (402) 715-4444

I’m not sure whether giving an indecisive person so many options is a good thing or a bad thing.  I find myself often wishing at restaurants that I could tweak things just a little bit.  Meals are not often packaged just as I want them.  On the other hand, allowing me to assemble my dream list of ingredients may present me with too many options.

I was unprepared for Ingredient when my beau and I went there a couple weeks ago.  We were starving and likely to order the first thing we saw without fully evaluating our options.  Which is what he did.  I tried to show restraint and put together something tasty.  My hunger was distracting though and we rushed the process.  Especially as we didn’t really “get” how it worked.  For your benefit, here is how it works:

Ingredient offers a menu of salad, pizza, soups, sandwiches, and wraps.  The salads and pizzas are largely up to your own imagination from the extensive list of ingredients, or you can get a little assistance from a short list of “Customer Creations,” salad and pizza combinations someone else has come up with.  You choose your greens, up to 5 ingredients, salad dressings, and extras (if you want) such as salmon, chicken, tofu, steak, etc.  Pizzas give you the choice of sauce, three ingredients, and additional cheese.

My beau picked one of the customer creations of a Salmon Caesar salad with pine nuts, avocado, and who knows what else thrown in.  I managed to blurt out three ingredients to top my garlic oil pizza: balsamic onions, roasted red pepper, and ripped basil with gorgonzola cheese in addition to the cheese blend that comes on top. 

The preparations were well done.  The fault really was with us.  The fatty creaminess of Caesar AND salmon AND avocado needed to be cut with something acidic.  They just weren’t flavors that went well together.  The pizza was good, but the toppings were chopped smaller than expected.

I think this is a great concept and I am looking forward to returning, more informed this time.  The list of ingredients is enticing and salads toppings range from traditional (peas, mushrooms, eggs, olives, ham) to more adventurous (many fruits, sundried tomatoes, roasted beets, spicy cashews) to almost exotic on a typical salad (honey ginger carrots, fontina, hummus, plantain chips, glass noodles.)  All told, you have over 60 choices to top your salad and about 20 choices for pizza.

I plan to go back and give it another go with more thoughtful choices.  The many options are tempting.  Also tempting are their breakfast options.  Thirty wide ranging omelet ingredients; fifteen ways to mix up your oatmeal; fifteen choices to top your waffles or warm donut holes.  Mmmm…