Salata is a build-your-own salad chain from Texas, a state you wouldn't think of when you think of salad. The franchise is what you'd get if you took the salad bar at Souplantation, stuck it behind the counter, borrowed the operating model of Subway, and made the guy assembling it wear an apron and a chef toque.
For one fixed price that tops $12 if you want a seafood protein like salmon or shrimp, you build your salad by instructing the toque-wearing gent what you want to go into a gigantic metal bowl. You start with greens, then work your way down a selection of diced tomatoes, celery, chickpeas, fruit, basically a whole array of things you expect and don't expect at a salad bar.
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Then you get to the dressing station. They have a fat-free mango that tastes, well, like mango, and when you get to the end, they'll offer bread at no extra charge. Your chosen slices go through a conveyor belt toaster and includes a quartered French loaf slathered with butter and chipotle dust. In the meantime the salad is tossed, stuffed into a plastic shell. Later, when you start eating it, you realize the portion is enough for three people. It's about then that you remember that Texas thing.
2 Hutton Centre Dr. #102, Santa Ana, California 92707
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Before becoming an award-winning restaurant critic for OC Weekly in 2007, Edwin Goei went by the alias “elmomonster” on his blog Monster Munching, in which he once wrote a whole review in haiku.