It’s not the most creative thing to name a restaurant after the street it resides on. It’s slightly more creative to name a restaurant after a distant street and the experience that the restaurant is trying to recreate. However, there are very few places that dare to be named for a street that’s right nearby, but not actually running by the place. Such is the case for Green Street in Pasadena, which happens to be on Shoppers Lane. Apparently Shoppers Lane just didn’t have the same ring.
Alas, Green Street is a very American restaurant, specializing in sandwiches, salads and burgers. On this day I was in need of a sandwich and chose the Grilled Southwest Chicken Sandwich. This thing was a match made for an unvegan, being filled with pulled chicken breast, pepper jack cheese, cilantro pesto and chipotle aioli on sourdough. There was truly nothing that needed to be removed, which is such a rarity in this world of ours. I chose fries for my side and awaited the food.
The result was a very tasty meal. The bread was perfectly toasted and the ingredients were in a great balance with each other. The pesto stood out to me as especially good, adding a unique flavor in an otherwise not-so unique meal. The fries were of the steak variety and also executed well.
Despite the overwhelmingly creative name, Green Street did not serve up a lot of exciting dishes. Yet, Green Street does not exist for excitement. It exists to deliver well-executed food for real Americans (read: everyone) and in this sense it certainly succeeds.
