3 Square Café

It's not called Foursquare, its named 3 Square Café.

That's interesting.  Because it's not rated four stars, it's worth three stars on Yelp.

I've dined at 3 Square Café a couple of times, hoping that the next experience will be tastier than the last.  I definitely like the food the parent company (Röckenwagner Bakery) puts out, but this restaurant doesn't seem to tweet my twitter or pace my facebook.  It just bugs my blog.

My culinary journey launched with the avocado fries with fire-roasted salsa.  It's one of those items thats sounds better than it actually is - a reconstruction of salsa and guacamole that charges you $7.00.  Nice to download once - silly to save it on your desktop.

Next was the pretzel burger with caramelized onions and swiss cheese ($9.50).  Pretzel burgers are hard to come by, so I had to take the opportunity to jump on it.  I wouldn't say the burger was bad, but in a town where you're competing with Umami, Steingarten, and countless other burger joints, a $10 burger better be good.  Unfortunately, I found this burger to be on the dry side and lacking sufficient flavor in the bun.  This is where an alert box would pop up on my computer to tell me something went wrong.

The main bit of the show was a flat iron steak with purple potatos and salad ($19.95).  This dish was actually pretty good, but is only offered ocassionally as a special.  It went well with the wine the waitress offered me, which is definitely a plus.  

Looking back on my experience at 3 Square Café, I would definitely give it another shot if they improved some of their dishes.  They have excellent presentation and creativity, but they need to work on the flavor.   3 Square Café has a great selection of beer and wines to compliment the German-Californian cuisine, and are located right along Abbot Kinney which makes for good people watching.  I don't want to wipe them from my hard drive just yet!  

I should mention, their sister restaurant Röckenwagner Santa Monica Bakery makes exceptional baked goods.  I would definitely recommend their souffle cakes!