Restaurant Review: Scratch

Restaurants that are not your typical Californian fare (Asian or Spanish) are pretty hard to come by in downtown Mountain View. Don't get me wrong, I love sushi, chinese (that doesn't have MSG because I'm allergic), and sometimes I do have a hankering for Indian. But as a whole my favorite cuisines are usually on the savory side (like Italian, French, etc.) not the spicy side. So when I was out for my friend, Kristen's, birthday and she told me about this restaurant her boyfriend works at, it took a lot to not leave her party in Santa Cruz and rush over to Scratch. She described the menu as fancy American comfort food. Umm...have you seen my Mac and Cheese recipe? Or my chicken pot pies? Or burgers? Do you know about my love for butter and all things cheese? My stomach secretly thinks it's Paula Deen's granddaughter.

After I found out about the restaurant I schemed ways to get myself there and managed to make lunch plans with 4 different groups of people. I really only expected one of these plans to work out, but somehow every one did and I went to Scratch 4 times in 2 weeks. I think the waitstaff probably thought I was a freak. But I was able to try a huge portion of their lunch menu and hang out with awesome people, so it was worth it!

The first time I went I had the Scratch Burger with fries and it was phenomenal. I rarely get burgers outside of The Counter because I am so picky about how I like them, but this was so juicy and delicious. I ate everything on my plate. I have no idea how I did it because there was so much. But I couldn't let it go to waste. Since then I've also had the grilled cheese (which was also good, but mine was overcooked. Boo to burnt bread), their signature pizza, and the Americana pizza (which is essentially margherita). It's so hard to come by decent pizza here and the Americana pizza was just what this picky NYer wanted. It's not like I had a whole NY style pie, but the personal sized pie was really good and I now have a place to go to when I've got a craving for something better than Domino's. My friends have gotten salads and the cuban, among other things, and other than the relatively small sized portion for the salad, nothing has met with complaints. I've never had enough space to eat dessert (that tends to be a dinner thing for me), but half the menu looks like things I'd love to get (including seasonal creme brule and butterscotch pudding (both of which come with really yummy looking cookies) and a smores bar). It's too bad the dinner prices are not as affordable as the lunch ones. Or well, someday.

Time for a couple of pictures from the website of food!



Drool.