Grub Crawl - Lake Ivanhoe District: El Greco (Closed) and Norma's Italian Eatery (Closed)

I tried these stalls at The Hall (closed in 2024) on Tuesday at lunch. To go because they charge if you sit. The place was empty. Most stalls had only one employee. The Mexican place in the corner switched to another Mexican place (Itzayana) since my last visit. The Hall is closed on Monday.

El Greco - Because of Edible. Ok to good chicken gyro with fries for $19 (the Hall carges for credit). Good pita. Average thigh meat. Needed trimming. Large portion. L, T, O and Tzatziki. Seasoned fries. The first properly done ones I've had in a while. Side of some red pepper dressing.  They sell 6 apps (ie flaming cheese at $15) and 2 salads at $16 and 4 handhelds up to $25 and 4 entrees (ie branzino $38 or lamb ribs $35). You can see the prices a unjustifiable. Even for a "real" restaurant's overhead/responsabilities. And that is across the board. Most stalls were a worse bargain. You can tell they never learned that it is best to pick a sales price and then work backwards on adjusting costs to make your desired profit margin. And if they argue that they won't sacrifice quality, I'll have to belly laugh. This is marginal food. Marginally better than a mall food court.

Norma's Italian Eatery - Ciao, Norma. Now vaffanculo. The department of health should shut you down. The $15 Caprese Chicken Sandwich you served me would have been thrown in your face had I eaten it there. How old was that chicken breast? How much freezer burn? How many times was it defrosted and frozen again? It had the texture of rubberized plastic. I can't find an analogy. Like tough pork. Just terrible. The roll was equally as tough. The tomato was tasteless and rubbery. The mozz was dry and spongy. The only ok element was the Caesar salad. And it was just cheap mixed greens that had a few strawberries and blueberries in it for some reason. The dressing was bad too. Their other poisins (for example) are: $9 garlic knots, $38 charcuterie board, $16 pizza, four mid-$20s pastas. You don't need me to tell you that I'd be suspicious of any of them. Quality is obviously not Job 1.

*Driving around to my initial destinations, I saw that this is the state of the union around this area. Pigzza is no where near close. The new ramen (Kamen?) place at Virginia and Mills isn't open either. You shouldn't be able to show your sign until you are. At Shine and 50, Moderne (what will they be?) isn't open. Haan Coffe was. An ice cream place named something like Mesaquinta seemed done, but, no one was in there. There is also another chain tea place open near that Asian market a little further east. And I drove by The Strand. Another recipient of a Bib Gourmand. Another head scratcher. I don't remember them being anything special. But, then again, they also singled out Z Asian and Bombay Kitchen.  Two more head scratchers. I almost disliked them. Their "Recommends" made more sense. Even if they weren't complete. It's a list a tourist would make after a week's immersion. Well, I guess that is what they do after all.