Once upon a time there was a beautiful, blue-eyed girl named Paula.  She loved to go eat breakfast with her girlfriends, although it never seemed to happen all that often.  Then, in the space of 1 month Paula managed to eat not one breakfast-with-girlfriends, but two.

One breakfast did not go well.  At all.  But all fairy-tales have average starts and scary bits in the middle.  And, since fairy-tales are meant to have happy endings, we’ll start with the one that didn’t.  In point form so I am less inclined to dwell on things and ramble off into Debbie Downerdom.

• It turned out to be vegan.  That’s not necessarily bad.  I’ve had some fantastic vegan.  Right here on Capitol Hill.  I could eat THAT vegan all day long.
• The menu was confusing in that it used names for regular dishes that turned out to have nothing regular about them at all.  Eg. “Scramble” with no eggs.
• The whatever-the-heck-it-was-because-it-wasn’t-cows milk curdled in the coffee.  Repeatedly.  The server declared this to be normal.  Repeatedly.
• The “crepes” were almost inedible they were so hard and dry.
• The server treated us like idiots when we asked simple questions about the confusing menu.
• We felt like the great unwashed for not knowing the ins and outs of veganism.
• The service was slow.  Like molasses.  Oh, wait.  Is molasses vegan?
• There was a spine-chilling draft coming in under the wall, which is really a shutter that rolls into the ceiling in summer.  I am sure it’s lovely in summer.
• The food was generally tasteless and unpleasant to eat.
• Far. Too. Much. Salt.
• I went to Uneeda Burger afterwards and ate an enormous burger, because baby, did I need some MEAT.  (But that’s not their fault.  We just all had pre-breakfast expectations that involved pigs and chickens)

To be fair, they dished up a nice stack of pancakes, and we did laugh a lot.  Out loud.  Repeatedly.  About all manner of things.  Including the server’s antics, the menu, the food, the plants hanging off the walls, and anything else that could help raise a chuckle and enable us forget this was no fairy-tale breakfast.  None of us will ever enter this nightmare restaurant again.  Sorry, Plum Bistro.  We tried to love you.  It wasn’t you, it was us.  And to be fair the place was packed and there’s a lot of positive reviews out there.  Maybe it really was just us.

Here’s some pictures anyway.

The beautiful blue-eyed Paula determined that she would have her fairy-tale ending, and immediately made plans for another breakfast-with-girlfriends as soon as possible.  The search for a fairy-tale breakfast ended up in West Seattle with another beautiful blonde named Donna.  So 3 blondes, all wearing the same color blue, at a table in the window and a lot of girl talk.  How could it possibly not end well?

Fresh Bistro seemed to have all the right qualities for a happy ending, and in real life it did not disappoint.  Honestly, I couldn’t tell you what cuisine Fresh Bistro is.  All I can tell you is that it was interesting, and unique, and delicious.  Everything a fairy-tale breakfast was destined to be, including great service, a lovely ambiance and wonderful food.  You know the saying, “People might not remember what was said, but they’ll remember how they felt”?  It was like that.  Too long ago to remember much detail but I remember we had a gorgeous & tasty brunch with great conversation and plenty of giggles.  And very beautiful cups of hot chocolate to boot.

And they all lived happily ever after.

The End.