Out of the Kitchen for a Day

As you have probably noticed, I don't often write posts about the restaurants that I eat at. This is a big area in the foodie blog world, but I tend to stay out of it for several reasons. First off, I am working with a simple point and shoot camera, and while it's great and I've really been getting the hang of using it, it's difficult to take good food pictures with my camera in dimly lit restaurants. Another reason is because I tend to want to just devour my food when I'm eating out, instead of pausing for a second to take some pictures of it. Third, I just love cooking so much that I spend most of my food budget on ingredients to make my own creations instead of eating out!

Yesterday though, when my roommate, Caitlin and I decided that we wanted to go to Fat Face, a restaurant I've been dying to go to, I knew I had to take my camera so that I could let you all know about what was bound to be an amazing meal! Jaymes Luu started out her business serving the much-talked-about popsicles at the Davis Farmer's Market on Wednesdays and Saturdays. She rotates her flavors depending on what is in season and what ingredients are available to her. Often, her ingredients also come from the farmer's market. I love this concept! Buy locally from the Farmer's Market to make your own creation and then sell it right back at farmer's in it's new, delicious form. Her business name has jumped from Pink Rhino to Aisu Pop to Fat Face. Yes, the popsicles are good...no, they're really great-as I said to Caitlin, I don't think I will ever enjoy another popsicle unless it is one of Jaymes' creations-but her newer addition of sandwiches and soups is pure genius. I don't think I could imagine a better lunch in Davis than half a sandwich, a cup of soup and and a popsicle for dessert from Fat Face.

Fat Face
425 L St.-Suite C
Davis, CA
Lunch served Wednesday-Friday 11AM-3PM
Breakfast and Popsicles served Saturday at the Davis Farmer's Market

I immediately fell in love with the location upon stepping foot inside the door. If there was one word that combined the words "quaint", "urban", "minimalist", "homey" and "cozy", I think that could almost sufficiently describe the atmosphere at Fat Face. The kitchen was completely open to the public so that we could see everything that was going on back there. I didn't get a good picture of the seating area because I didn't want to creep on the other patrons, but it was adorable! There were drawings and paintings on the walls of popcicles and pigs which eally added to the homey atmosphere. There was one big table that looked just like a dining room table and had several different groups of people sharing it. To the side of that, there were two, two-person seating areas, where two chairs were situated around a couple milk cartons stacked on each other for a table. Okay, I loved this. Again, I need all of the above words to combine into a single adjective in order to accurately describe the feeling that I have about the fact that I ate at a milk carton table. I took one of the two-person "tables" while waiting for Caitlin to arrive. As I was sitting there, I noticed something kept happening that made me love Fat Face even more-all without even taking a bite of any of Jaymes' food. About half of the people that came into Fat Face, Jaymes and the other employee knew by name. One woman was waiting for take-out and she must have been a regular because the employee asked her her name so that she could remember next time the woman stopped by. I loved this! What a nice, personal touch.

Roasted Winter Squash Soup $4

I've actually been wanting to make a winter squash soup lately, so I was really excited to see it on the menu. Caitlin and I split an order (so what you see in this cup is half of an order of the soup). It was so tasty! The perfect winter soup. It was earthy and almost tasted as though there were some sort of greens in it (though the color makes me think there wasn't). One order of this soup would make for the perfect lunch, but I'm not sure I could step inside Fat Face and not order a sandwich. 

Beer Poached Figs, Caramelized Onion, Arugula, Goat Cheese $7 full/$4 half
Okay. This is GOOD. I love figs any way, but figs AND goat cheese? Heaven! Caitlin and I ordered a half of this sandwich and then split that half in half, but if my stomach would have allowed it, I would have eaten about 3 of these without getting tired of it, one bit.

Cold Smoked Salmon, Herbed Cream Cheese, Beets, Onion, Lettuce, Caper Berries $8 full/$5 half

Wow. Jaymes asked Caitlin and I if we had a favorite out of the two sandwiches after we were done. I hesitated before answering because I wasn't sure. At the time, I said "no" because they were both so different that I had a hard time deciding. But upon further consideration, this one takes the cake! The Smoked Salmon was the perfect consistency and the smokey flavor didn't overpower the salmon flavor at all. Likewise, the beets weren't overpowering like I feel that they sometimes can be. Instead, they were the perfect accent to all the other flavors. I'm guessing that the Herbed Cream Cheese had lemon zest in it because I definitely tasted something of the sort. Overall, this was nice and light, but ever so satisfying with the smokiness of the salmon. This was simply an incredible sandwich.

2 halves of 2 half sandwiches and a half cup of soup

Thai Tea and Sweet Potato Popsicle $2.50
The grand finale. What Jaymes is known for! And oh, was it tasty! I really couldn't resist this flavor and I'm very glad that this was the first popsicle I tried from Fat Face. It was far from a disappointment. If you've never had Thai Iced Tea, I'm not sure I can describe it, but I can tell you to get yourself over to a Thai restaurant ASAP to have some (or to Fat Face to have the popsicle) . This popsicle tasted so much like Thai Iced Tea, but the sweet potato cut the sweetness a bit so that it wasn't overbearingly sweet. I am serious when I say that ordinary popsicles will never be the same! It's ALL about Jaymes' popsicles from here on out.

If I had known this morning when I woke up that I would be having such an amazing lunch, I would have jumped out of bed and gotten ready in 5 minutes flat, and I would've been out the door before Caitlin knew what was going on. Splitting the two half sandwiches and an order of soup was perfect and allowed us to have dessert and still not feel overly full. It was an amazing lunch and I highly recommend that anyone from Davis to stop by as soon as you get the chance!