Freshii: A Nutritionist Recommended Allotment of Dressing Just Doesn’t Work for Me

Freshii opened this month, with the official grand opening last week. I took advantage of the grand opening specials and tried a fresh healthy salad and two of their rice bowls.

At Freshii, you can chose from premade Chef’s selections, which makes it super easy, or you can create your own. If you are a food ordering O.C.D. perfectionist like me (This is a serious condition. I constantly have anxiety about ordering the best things on the menu wherever I go. Luckily, it usually ends up working out for me and the people eating with me) you might end up spending way more time than you planned picking the perfect combination.

Cranberries, beets,and goat cheese will tempt me every time, so I ordered the Soho Salad, a Chef’s selection. The spinach is plentiful, and all of the toppings were really fresh(ii?), but I am the type of person who likes a salad that is equal toppings as actual lettuce or whatever green is being used.  This was also my first hint at the dressing inadequacy issue. They keep their salads dressed realllll light, probably at the amount that fitness magazines tell you to use, definitely not the amount that is optimally delicious.

I tried another Chef’s selection, the Spicy noodle bowl ($7). The only good things I can say about this is that there is a huge amount of  respectably textured noodles and the tofu and edamame were good. Its all downhill from there. Apparently, Freshii thinks it is delicious to include a copious amount of small pieces of hard, fibrous, lemongrass in their food.  This is the opposite of pleasant. It rendered the dish inedible. I tried picking out the pieces, but it was a futile gesture. Besides the lemongrass, the other “spicy” element of the bowl came from hard pepper flakes that were almost as unpleasant as the lemongrass. The lemongrass curls and pepper shards worked in harmony to ruin a dish that was already failing. The noodles were totally bland beyond the spicy factor. It didn’t even seem like there was a sauce on it at all.

Does this look like something you want in your food? This is just a fraction of what I picked out.

I wanted to give Freshii one last chance, and I created my own rice bowl. The standard rice bowls starts at $5.99 and then you get add-ins, with proteins and other toppings at an addition cost and a list of other toppings and the dressings that are free. As I suggested earlier, picking the perfect bowl is hard. Many of the dressings (like Caesar, Balsamic, Honey Dijon) are more suitable for salads rather than for rice or noodles. I loaded up on the free stuff and my choices were a bit disjointed; beets, artichoke hearts, sweet corn.  I added in buffalo chicken and topped it with the cucumber dill dressing, thinking of maybe a Russian inspired bowl… I know, its a stretch. Toppings are definitely the strong suit at Freshii, the ones I chose were the best part.  But once again, not enough dressing even though I asked for extra, and I am left with some sad dry noodles

When compared to yesterdays review of Picnic, it looks like UCity is this week’s winner on the healthy dining front. I think your best bet at Freshii is to stick with the salads and get some extra dressing on the side.

THE + (What somebody who likes this place would say)

  • Open windows with a view of City Hall
  • Everything is good for you
  • Fresh toppings

THE – (What somebody who doesn’t like this place would say)

  • Nothing is dressed or flavored enough
  • Eating hard pieces of lemongrass is a day ruiner

Freshii, 1414 S Penn Sq 215 977-7123

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3 Comments

  • User has not uploaded an avatar

    Jamie, that’s too bad about the inedibles. I have to agree with you on the greens/toppings ratio being a bit off. My Cobb salad had a *big* serving of spring mix greens that were mostly fresh, but the toppings only made a guest appearance (e.g. four pieces of crunchy underripe avocado) although everything was very fresh and really tasty. I have never seen a Cobb salad a) without onions or b) with default dressing as honey-mustard though.

    • User has not uploaded an avatar

      btw the lemongrass overload was a complaint I had about the chicken curry at the Thai place in Reading Terminal. It absolutely REEKED of lemongrass.

  • @mary, I am ok with an overpowering lemongrass aroma, but not uncooked chunks in every bite of my food. not good.

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