Here and there, random thoughts on food, photos, marketing, & customer service

So after waiting for the buzz to settle down, me and the family finally took a field trip to P.F. Chang’s in Annapolis. It’s located on the Route 2 side of the complex right up the street from Chevys. For those of you that don’t know the Parole shopping center that was once home to Sears and was promptly killed by the building of the Annapolis Mall. You can revel in the wonder that is now Annapolis Towne Centre at Parole. The extra “E” in Towne signals that this is an expensive place to hang out. One place that’s sure to attract the folks with extra dollars is the new Whole Foods Market. I’ll talk more about that later.

You can get all of the details on this troubled development at http://www.visitatc.com (Not a great domain name if you ask me.). It’s got a bunch of swanky places to shop like Brooks Brothers, Talbots, Origins, and Coldwater Creek.

I had taken a peek at the P.F. Chang’s menu on-line and and I already know that they had lots of vegan options. Nice! I also have VeganExpress on my iPhone which I highly recommend. It tells you who has vegan food choices and what they are. So unlike most places where there’s one or two things we might be able to eat, we have a large selection of stuff we could eat at P.F. Chang’s

I called at 4:45 PM to make reservations, and they said they could seat us at 7:30. I told them I would call right back to confirm. I waited too long, because when I called back they only had reservations available for 8:00. No biggie, I took it. I don’t know if it was true or not, but I suspect that that they “told” me that this was the “last” table for four they had. Right away they are creating buzz with an air of exclusivity. I’ll likely tell the rest of my party or friends that “I got the last table”. Wow! they must be packed all the time, so they must be really good. We’re programed to relish the hot spots with lots of buzz, so if they did this on purpose, then wow, what a great Jedi mind trick to create buzz about your brand! The other two things that I tuned into, was they had intelligent people on the phone, and when I called the first time, they answered on the first ring, and the nice lady that picked up was ready to help and there was no need to lead her in to the questions I had. She was smart, friendly, and ready to do her job. Refreshing. I was looking forward to calling her back, but when I rang back I spoke to a guy who was just about as nice. I made my reservation (he was the one that said this was the last one for 8:00 PM) and he asked if I had any special requests or needed anything special. I wish I had a request, but sadly no. I did tell him I was coming to get some vegan food. I don’t think he had an answer, but no matter.

I got there early and waited in the car for the rest of the family to walk over from Whole Foods. They ended going in before me as I was parked out back. When you walk in the “walk-in” hostess it front and center. When my wife said she had reservations she told our group to step around the corner where the “reservation” hostess whom she named by name would help us. They were going to seat us as a small table, and we asked for a booth instead. There was no fuss, and the nice person who seated us, had to run back to the hostess to check, and she said that we could sit where ever we wanted.

This is where we started to have some issues. It took awhile for our waitress to find us. It was obvious right away that she had too many tables. A little of the special feeling started to go away. The restaurant is very nicely decorated and it’s pain to see that they paid attention to how to build a free standing eatery. When she did show up, the first thing she wanted to know, if there was a special occasion, or if we were celebrating anything. We said no, and she replied that with Navy commissioning week there was alot going on. Too true. Maybe this was not the best time to come try them out??

It was after all 8:00 PM so we were all starving! We gave our drink orders and put in an order for the Crispy Green Beans, a favorite of ours from other places we’ve been. It took awhile for our drinks to arrive. Nothing hard, just a lemonade, two ginger ales, and a few waters. we’re pretty sure we saw our order of Crispy Green Beans delivered to another table, so we were worried about that. It took a while for our server to notice that we did not have our order. Here’s were she made a good move. I think she must have noticed on the way back to the kitchen, and when she game back she did not come empty handed. She showed up at the table with a free order of P.F. Chang’s Lettuce Wraps. Sadly, they are made with chicken, so the kids ate them, but our string beans arrived soon after. We also put in an order for spring rolls as we were still starving and we wanted to try them. they came out pretty quickly. Both the lettuce wraps and the sting beans were taken off of our check without us having to say anything. (The lettuce wraps were not on the check to begin with.)

Our dinner took longer to arrive than I would have expected, but everyone was happy with it. I’m guessing part of the P.F. Chang’s formula is to go with smaller portions. My son and daughter both ordered meat dishes as they on get non-vegan when we’re out. Both of them were smaller then I expected for the price. If you had not had appetizers, you would want to order desert. The vegan dishes were noticeably cheaper that the meat based ones. Nice! I got the Budda’s Feast “stir fried”. It’s a mix of veggies with tofu. I was looking forward to some good tofu, but my dish was noticeably light on it. I was a little sad about that. It was good, and it was a bit greasy and had a pretty strong peanut overtone. I did eat it all, so there were no problems. My wife got the Chow Fun, with tofu, and it too was a little greasy. Both of the vegan dishes were noticeably large portions than the meat based dishes.

The server was on her game, our waters and my lemonade where never empty. She did want to keep touching my wife on the shoulder, so that could be a small complaint. She also kept using terms of endearment like “sweetie” and “honey” on my kids. They are both teenagers, so that kind of talk might be better reserved for the kiddies.

She knew the service was not up to snuff, and she did the best should could under the circumstances. If you recall that I mentioned that we got the “last table” for 8:00 PM. I was looking around and either they want to keep tables open for walk-ins or the story about the last table was not entirely true. Shortly after 8:00 I did notice there were a number of empty tables. Also, I wondered how they could keep up with their reservations if the service was so slow. There is NO doubt, we cut into the next round of diners. I guess things might start to taper off after 8:00 PM?

You can read more about their business model here: http://consumerist.com/5262103/

It appears that when the economy started to slow down, they looked at everything they could do, and whatever they’re doing appears to be working.

Everyone I’ve spoken to, loves P.F. Chang’s, so I feel that they’ve figured something out. I think they’ve made the dining experience feel special, and found a way to trade on that. The article on Consumerist which quotes Newsweek in their coverage, says P.F. Chang’s is sort of the Applebee’s of Chinese food. I’m not sure if I agree with that. There’s nothing special about Applebee’s and with only Salad with fruits and veggies AND “oil” being the only two vegan food options on the menu, there’s certainly nothing there for me. I think P.F. Chang’s has captured what was the Outback Steakhouse sort of feeling from ten years ago, and NOT made it about price, but kept that special feeling. Outback is now trying to lure folks back on price with some meals as low as $10. My friends that have eaten at Outback recently say the food and the service was bad. Outback is now trying to recapture diners on price, and now they have diners that don’t suit their target audience, and pissed off servers because nobody is tipping.

P.F. Chang’s seems to have avoided all of this by being smart on price and totally with it on the atmosphere, menu, and overall dining experience. They are to be commended for having a number of vegan and gluten free menu items. In fact I’d have to say it’s more then any other main-stream restaurant. P.F. Chang’s is currently a hot ticket and P.T. Barnum would be proud.

Here’s what we had and how much it cost:

Spring Rolls (4) $5.95
Crispy String Beans $5.95 (Taken off bill for being late)
Chang’s Chicken Lettuce Wraps $7.95 (Free)

Buddha’s Feat $7.50 (I give it a 3 out of 5 light on tofu)
Veggie Chow Fun $7.95 (Wife gave it 4 out 5 said it was bit greasy)
Lemon Chicken $12.95 (Son gave it 4 out of 5)
Crispy Honey Shrimp $$14.95 (Daughter gave it 3 out of 5, sad it was “okay”)

All came with choice of white or brown rice.

Total bill with $11 tip $72

We agreed that we prefer Lemongrass in Crofton to P.F. Chang’s, but our bill there would have been over $100. I really like that the fact that the meat free dishes at P.F. Chang’s are reflected in their price. That is usually not the case at most places. Also, I think that if you’re ordering s menu item WITHOUT meat or cheese, they should give you a break on the price. At most places, they don’t. Ledo’s Pizza is vegan without the cheese, the most expensive ingredient, but if you order it without the cheese, they charge the same price. That’s alot of extra profit. How about a free extra topping if you hold the cheese or $1 off??

P.F. Chang’s can be found here: http://www.pfchangs.com.

Update 1/18/12 This was recently posted in the comments. I have yet to verify on my own yet, but this does appear to be legit. -Dana

Thank you for contacting Panera Bread. With the exception of our Jalapeño Cheddar Bagel, we have recently introduced a new natural bagel base in our bagels that does not use l-cysteine or cysteine. Please note that neither was ever an ingredient in our Artisan breads.

Thank you again for contacting us. We appreciate your interest in our menu items.

Sincerely,
Casey
Customer Comments Coordinator

–

Orignal Post:

Everyone like bagels, and I sure do. I eat one almost everyday. By way of an awesome business arrangement we end up with a nice cache of Panera gift cards from time to time. I had been getting the Mediterranean veggie sandwich – hold the feta. By all accounts, totally tasty and all vegan. The only problem is a veggie sandwich is not very manly, and thus not very filling. The free pickle (I hope that’s vegan) is a nice added bonus!

I had taken to ordering an extra plain bagel “to go” in order to top off my appetite later if the veggie sandwich did not completely do the job.

Panera does a good job of listing all of their ingredients on their website, so we knew for instance that the “French Toast” bagel was not suitable for vegans. No biggie, I can deal with a good old plain bagel.

I wrote to Panera a few days ago to ask about more clearly labeling the bagels so people would know that some were NOT vegan. I also wished for some sort of bakery item, as none of the baked goods at Panera are vegan. Sad, they look so good! Damn!

Here’s my e-mail to Panera:

Dear Panera,

You should more clearly label the items that are on your menu as vegan. Some of the bagels are and some are not. Also, it would be super cool if you offered just one vegan bakery item, a tart, a cookie, a brownie, or a cake. If you did, I would buy one every single time I stopped in for lunch or dinner. While I don’t care if it’s gluten free or not, it might be possible to have a gluten free, vegan treat and solve two problems at once.

Dana

Here’s the super friendly Panera response:

Dear Dana,

Thank you for contacting Panera Bread. The mono & diglycerides in our breads and bagels are all vegetable-sourced. Our cheeses, except for Asiago, Feta and Gorgonzola, are processed with non-animal enzymes (Dana says: I assume this is in reference to Casein a protein that is found in milk. It is often found in cheese, and it’s almost always in cheese alternatives).  Please note, that our current ingredients’ vendor has informed us that the amino acid l-cysteine used in our bagels is derived from an animal source.

L-Cysteine is a minor constituent of the bagel base commonly and widely used in the baking industry as a dough conditioner.  It is an amino acid obtained from a number of sources by means of hydrolysis (a lengthy refining process).  The end product is extremely remote from its natural or synthetic origin.

There are many choices on our menu for vegetarians or for those who watch their diet for religious reasons. However, if it is a serious concern for you, or you are a vegan, rather than a vegetarian, you will always want to check ingredients before you order. I have also noted your request to our product development team for future consideration.

By definition, “Vegan” means foods with NO animal products: NO meat, poultry, fish, eggs, dairy (including whey and casein) nor their by-products. Some strict “Vegans” may even avoid honey, white sugar, beer, vinegar and yeast.  So we do not label any of our products as specifically Vegan because of these various differences of opinion.  We do list all the ingredients of all our menu items on our website (and in notebooks in our bakery-cafés, which are available for viewing on request), so we leave it up to you to check on specific items to see if they fit your own definition of “Vegan.”

Thank you again for contacting us. We appreciate your business and value your thoughts on our menu.

Sincerely,
Alice
Customer Comment Coordinator

Sadly, NONE of the bagels at Panera, are vegan. What? That’s crazy. What’s in a bagel that’s not egg and that’s NOT vegan. The answer is L-Cysteine. It’s a tiny part, but it’s used as a dough conditioner, and apparently it’s pretty widely used. You can read the sicking details on it here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cysteine

The non vegan and also the non vegetarian forms are most commonly made from duck feathers. Yeah, you heard me, duck feathers. I suppose that’s better then the other non-delightful version that’s made from human hair (there’s some question if this qualifies a cannibalism. Wow!). Now they do process this stuff to extremes, so as Panera mentions in their e-mail to me, the source is far, far removed from the end product, but it’s still not vegan.

Update 11/10/09: Dunkin’ Donuts’ bagels are not vegan either. See this link for a letter that reads like the the one above from Panera. Sad.

This post gets quite a bit of attention from folks searching for info on bagels being vegan or not (BTW some bagels ARE vegan).

So I got word that there was true vegan pizza in Fells Point. With family and in-laws in tow, we had to check it out. We had to wait a bit to get our order in, but when we did it was worth the wait. It’s been about 2 years since I’ve have real pizza from a real restaurant, with anything that even comes close to cheese. This is something I’ve been missing since I went vegan. When one of my son’s friends sent him a text saying that BOP Pizza had “vegan pizza”, we put it on our list. Now I don’t think vegan pizza is what’s BOP is famous for, but it’s nice that they offer it. Some places do offer soy cheese, but that often has casein in it, a common ingredient in soy and veggie type cheese. I e-mailed BOP Pizza to check to see if that is their cheese has casein. They confirmed that their soy cheese is casein free. Nice. Also cool that they took the time to e-mail me back the same day. I told “Mike” that I would be in soon and I was looking forward to it. He said “get ready for the best”. Now that’s taking a strong stance. I guess if Kevin Bacon says “BOP should stand for Baltimore’s only Pizza”, I can take his word for it. I did not have to, as they have about a dozen “Best of Baltimore” plaques hanging on the wall. One of them matches the one I have for MacMedics for ‘Best place to take your sick Mac”. Funny.

I ended up with half of a black olive and mushroom, while my wife opted to go for just plain soy cheese. They also has a vegan soy salad that looked like it might have been a fresh mozzarella thing. We forgot to order it. The pizza was awesome and it was more than what you’d expect for the price. Here, when you order a “large” it really is large. It’s Fells Point, so parking was a bit of an issue, but not a big deal.

We also felt very safe. Two of Baltimore’s finest undercover police offers were there. That was a little bit of shock, when I looked over and say what looked to be a 40 caliber Glock sticking out from under his jacket with the sleeves ripped off. Lets just say if these guys came running after me, I’m not so sure I would have stopped. The guy with the jacket had a bleached ponytail about 18 inches long, and he might have weighed about 240. They kept looking over at me in my muted tone Under Armour and Coyote brown 5.11′s. I guess I did not look like a force to be reckoned while I was eating my vegan pizza.

I stepped outside to take a picture for Facebook, and about 7 or 8 other police officers in tactical
uniforms went in to BOP, so I guess it’s popular place with the police.

I’m looking forward to two slices of left-overs tomorrow for lunch at MacMedics.