Shine Cafe

I don`t like breakfast. I am not a fan of eggs, so when people invite me out for breakfast or brunch i usually pass. Shine has been the only place that i will hit up for brunch. They made a really good chicken wrap and it was a bright and fun place to go and chill. I have also had friends who worked there and really enjoyed it. i like to eat food that happy employees make.
That being said, i went a few weeks ago and the food was sooooo bad! no more chicken burger at all. Ok, i get the fact that you now make your burgers from scratch so you have taken t down to just beef or veggie. cool. I like beef burgers. i happen to make them at home sometimes so it`s nice to have chicken when i go out, but whatever, i will en joy it. I notice that the burger came on a whole wheat bun but that they had another sandwich that came on focassia. I don`t like whole wheat buns very much and am a total sucker for foccasia so I requested that they trade the buns and add some caramelized onions to my beef burger. And this is why that meal was fucking sucky:

1. The meat. Plain and simple it was plain and simple. Ever smelt plain ground beef as it cooks. it tasted like that. no seasoning, no love. I make burgers at home so i know how easy it is to make a really good burger. if you wanna do things from scratch, awesome! but you should make sure that you do justice to the ingredients you use. That poor cow never had a chance.
2. When you have caramelized onions as an option on your menu, please caramelize them. fried onions that have been sitting in a bin since yesterday will taste nothing like caramelized onions. If caramelized onions are too time consuming maybe make an onion confit. you can keep it in a bin and it will still taste good and keep longer.
3. The bread. FUCK!!! where did you get this stuff!!! it is like the Antichrist of foccasia bread. we live in a city of great bakeries. there is no excuse for this kind of tired out, bitter dried herb, stale loaf. it was in now was able to stand up to the meat and topping, and was just totally offensive flavour and texture wise. it was the kind of thing you would expect to find on the shelf in a really crappy corner store. Go to cascadia  and try theirs. no excuses, you can do better and if you can`t you shouldn`t sell such a crap product.
4. the fries were way too salty. easy on the seasoning salt!!!!
5. the chipotle mayo was just red mayo. no flavour, no spice. Boooo!

So my friend had the eggs benny. i don`t eat eggs so i have no idea what they should taste like but i know what a good meal should look like. I cook eggs for my love all the time. when someone requests medium poached that means that the eggs white should be all white, no clear slime and the yoke should be thick but still a little runny. this egg had gone to the other side. it was so over cooked that there was no way that the yoke was moving anywhere. add to that the fact that the avocado was totally sick looking and you have a breakfast fail on your hands. This is one of the bigest problems with victoria restaurants. You are allowing food to leave your kitchens that you wouldn`t serve to friends who came over to your home for dinner. and you expect people to pay you for it!!!!I understand that you need to make some money out of this and that food needs to be used, but not if the end product suffers.
So i will give shine a few months and see if they can get back on track. I hope they can. They are a great little place to eat and an awesome restaurant success story  in our city.