TASTE

The good was awesome, the service was fast and friendly and the prices were great. Good parking. It had a hippie versus hipster feel, but they are playing sports on all the televisions

Ordered the slider and tomato soup. The soup was good but I would not write a long lost friend and recommend them. The service was nice and friendly but a little chill. The vibration of the place was in harmony with mine. Overall I give it 4 stars.

Everything is delicious! Great atmosphere: high ceilings, exposed brick, neat lighting, comfortable chairs, lovely wood ceilings, etc. A great remodel from the dated interior of the old bakery. Thank you for bringing a great eatery to this side of town! Plenty of parking, just be mindful of blinding outdoor seating patrons with your headlights.
— Garlic fries do not skimp on the garlic. Yummy!
— Try every dipping sauce they provide. Great aiolis and sauces. They have ketchup for boring people.
— Sweet pot fries are flavorful and have great texture and crispness.
— I have yet to find a slider that is not mouthwatering.
— The salads are unique and a tasty combination of ingredients I have not seen elsewhere.

Food: thoughtfully prepared. Fresh. Inventive.
Beer/​wine: nice selection.
Price: 10.00 for a duo — 2 or 12.00 for a trio
Portion: I highly suggest getting the trio to satisfy an average adult appetite.
I hadn’t been to Taste in about 6 months. I can definitely say they have scaled back on their portions. The duo used to be a great deal– tonight I was surprised at how much smaller the sliders are– cibatta buns are smaller and meat in the middle is thinner, less. Still delicious, but way less. The macaroni is phenomenal– but again, the ramekin size has downsized to a much smaller size. Leaves you hungry.
Salads are delicious as well.
So, no longer can one go to Taste and get a solid, tantalizing meal for 12.00. You have to add on fries and order more– defeating the purpose of going to Taste for affordable, filling, delicious food.
That’s the bottom line!

Wonderful meal… great beer, the best sweet potato fries ever! We had the lamb slider and the pork belly blt. A walk on the the wild side done right! If you haven’t been here in a wile, try it again. It’s been 2 years since we have been here and they have really grown into their potential! Well done, Gretchen!

We went on a Sunday afternoon. Although it was a bit busy we didn’t mind it at all. The waiter and waitress were all professional and checked on us on multiple occasions. We started with the garlic fries; no complaints they were great. Next our sliders and sides came out and they were awesome! The blue cheese and bacon Mac & cheese was amazing; I wasn’t expecting the taste to be as good as it was. You have just received two new repeat customers. Be back soon!!!

Nice service, slow food delivery when it’s busy. Décor okay food okay — nothing special. Popular with students so can get noisy. Nice little wine list.

4.5 stars really. Taste is a cool casual joint with a clever and effective food concept. We dined for lunch and arrived just before the rush on a Friday. I was a bit skeptical of the concpt of ordering duos or trios of food from a sliders, salads, mac-​n-​cheese and sides menus but the variety is quite good on the menu’s and it turned out to make great sense for lunch. For dinner they also have larger plates and full size salads are available all the time. I opted for a trio consisting of the Eve slider; a decent sized slider with fig jam goat cheese and some greens. I mated that up with smoked Gouda and bacon mac-​n-​cheese and some garlic fries. The slider was great the jam wasn’t too sweet and was balanced perfectly by the tangy goat cheese. The best thing was the neither flavor overpowered the flavor of the meat itself, very nicely done :-) The mac-​n-​cheese, had a great smoky bacon flavor and I could have eaten an entire bowl of it. Fries were good too, but the slider and the mac-​n-​cheese were the stars. The portions of each were plenty and I left comfortably full. All for $ 12 or so. Service was solid but at the peak of lunch they could have definitely used a second runner for the food. Lots of orders came up on the pass but the only food runner was getting bogged with customer questions and apparently he was the designated phone answerer as well. Simple Fix. Front of the house was decently efficient and the kitchen was on top of everything. Can’t wait to go back, lots of great stuff to try :-)

Fun concept…
Great Server…
Awesome food!
Loved the slider with bacon.

Charming yet subtly sophisticated. 6 tables on the patio with heated lamps and string lights. Flamenco music softly plays overhead. Great atmosphere.
Vegan options (veggie slider, portobello slider, & quinoa salad). The quinoa salad was AMAZING and had a variety of textures (they use real cranberries… not craisins in the salad). My veggie slider was too salty (olive aioli mainly), but edible with the hummus and grilled yellow squash as well as tomato and lettuce. Note: Earth burger is made with egg. Full wine and beer list.
Service was fantastic.
Great value for the menu with their duo specials.
I recommend!

Stopped here for lunch for the first time with my husband and son… They had a nice outdoor patio, but no room when we got there, so we sat indoors, which was still nice. I had the Duo (where I could pick two things), I had a Lamburger slider & The Very Berry Salad (?). It was the perfect portion, filling. And the Lamburger with curry & chutney… oh my! Delicious! Prices were reasonable. I would definitely go back!

This was a good find. Had the trio which I thought wasn’t going to be enough food but it was more than enough. Had the lamb slider which was very good with the Mac and salad. Great little place to have lunch on a Sunday afternoon.

Its about a 6.5÷10
Ordered the 8 garlic fries
They came old cold the garlic sauce was garlicky but I wish the fries were warmer .
Got three trios
The hamburger in my blue cheeseburger was very thin and couldn’t taste the meet blue cheese was good but the meals about a five out of 10 the service was good which is why I gave this case 6.5 they need to improve their burgers

Absolutely delicious. We got 2 trio dishes ($ 12 each) and chose the lamburger, swimming up stream (salmon burger), feta and spinach mac & cheese, gouda and bacon mac & cheese, soup of the day (seafood chowder) and hail to the kale (salad with citrus dressing).
It was all super amazing, except the chowder was just average. A GREAT value and the perfect place for lunch. Only con were the slow waitresses.

I like the casual upscale-​ish but not hipsterish or pretentious atmosphere. The only downside is the inside is WAY TOO LOUD!!! Unless you’re eating alone, this is a big problem.
Wonderful menu you can pick and choose — I recommend a salad and blue cheese bacon mac & cheese. They have interesting beers and wines — many of them local. The daily specials are usually interesting too!
I made a reservation for 10 people and they did tableservice which was great! They did say they can only do three separate checks but it wasn’t a problem for us.

A whole lot of positive meh. We came at an awkward time (3pm) and were helped by the bartender. No welcome. No hi. No freaking smile. Fine. Whatever. Food was good. We had an ok blackened salmon slider, ok garlic fries, ok spinach salad, and underwhelming smoked Gouda Mac n cheese.
Maybe we ordered the wrong stuff. I’d eat it again– but never go out of my way.

LOVE the concept of this place! For someone who is so indecisive when it comes to what to order, TASTE offers the perfect solution to that problem.
They have duos and trios where you’re able to order multiple items off of the menu, so ta-​da! My friend and I shared a duo ($ 10) and a trio ($ 12). We ordered the lamburger, an earth patty burger (?), spinach and feta Mac n cheese, bacon Gouda Mac n cheese, and the sweet potato fries. My favorite was the lamburger, they add a sweet and creamy component to the burger which I loved. I found the Mac n cheese to be fairly dry and lacking in the cheese department! I also fell in love with the sweet potato fries and the sauce that came along with it.
The ambience is very college kid-​friendly, but I also saw couples and adults of all ages. There’s a bar seating area and many people tend to order beers and wines. (I would have too if I hadn’t come from an orchard, brewery, and cider bar…)

Came during lunch, not too much business at that time. So delicious, nice presentation of meal. Competent but slightly inattentive/​indifferent staff (no drink refill, host complaining about customers to another employee, etc). Restrooms are outside around the corner, which just reminds me of road trip gas station stops. A lot of the kitchen is in view of the bar, which is not necessarily a good thing. Overall, the atmosphere is lacking, service may be hit or miss, but the food is a 10, so it evened out.

Taste is where you can eat like a high-​end gourmand on a watchful budget. Imagine being able to order a gourmet slider, gourmet mac ‘n cheese and a fresh seasonal salad for $ 12! Add to that a $ 10 bottle of wine (corkage fee) to pair with your meal. You get all those fresh, seasonal artisanal flavors without the sizable bill.
My friend was a bit unsure about coming here as he really wanted a full-​size dinner, not anything bearing any resemblance to a small plate. After a plate of sliders and mac ‘n cheese and some shared appetizers, he was happy and full and a fan of Taste. The others in our party had already been here a couple of times so they were already fans.
We started with a round of crispy calamari and the daily special pork belly with roasted brussel sprouts. The pork belly with brussel sprouts was deeelicious! Everyone loved it! The pork belly was rich, sweet and smoky and heightened to perfection with roasted, seasoned and pork fat-​laden brussel sprouts. They do a pretty good calamari (with caper lemon aioli sauce) too. Monterey has quite a few spots that cook up some amazing calamari but Taste does a very nice job… light, tender and crispy.
We all chose various trio plates (choice of 3 items, $ 12). I chose the gouda slider, jalapeño mac ‘n cheese and the Hail to the Kale salad. I usually get bored with one item so it was nice to be able to sample different menu items without over ordering. The mac ‘n cheese is crafted with fresh cheese, jalapeño slivers for a nice kick and fresh seasonings. The kale salad comes tossed with julienned apples, dried figs, red onion, blue cheese crumbles, roasted beets and balsamic vinaigrette. What a masterfully blended salad!
Taste is definitely becoming one of SLO’s hotspots, joining the ranks of McClintock’s, Guiseppe’s and Woodstock’s. Can’t wait to come back… this place will definitely be in my SLO rotation.

So all the other reviews mentioned how busy this place is. That’s why I made the choice to visit at 3pm on a Thursday afternoon. Still a 30 minute wait so… was that good? I have no idea.
The food, however, was very good. Went with a Trio (which at first I questioned myself on as not being enough food — 1 slider and 2 sides — versus the Union — 2 sliders — but ended up being plenty of food for a late lunch). The lambburger was awesome, on a ciabatta roll. The lamb was super flavorful and the curry aioli did not overpower either the caramelized apple or date chutney, because the whole thing was definitely more of a mildly sweet than a spicy-​savory.
The first of my two sides was a Hail to the Kale. I know… kale is the trendy superfood now, but it works here. The beets and the fig vinaigrette — which is a bit thick — completely overpower any bitterness in the kale. Unfortunately, it also means the raisins and walnuts are overpowered and add little besides a crisp-​chewy texture.
The second of the sides… Blue Cheese Bacon Mac. Weird to say, but this was probably my least favorite part of the three items. The blue cheese is mild but tangy and adds both flavor and texture to the Mac. The bacon, however, is somehow used so sparingly that it’s barely there. I mean… there has to be some dark magic going on for something as strongly flavored as bacon to not make its presence known in a dish and usually, chefs go overboard with it. Underbaconing a bacon dish has never happened to me until now. Either that or they got a batch of under-​cured bacon because I definitely saw pieces in there.
Excellent food and good sized portions for super reasonable prices. Friendly servers and trendy indoor/​outdoor atmosphere. I mean, other than the long wait, I have no negatives that would keep me away in the future.