I desperately want to love Shaka Farm To Beach because this is exactly the type of place I want to eat. A place where the food is wholesome, nutritious, delicious, and served in right sized portions. Sure, it's a little more expensive. Real food costs more than foodservice grade commodities. But it's worth it.
The restaurant-cafe itself is super cute. There is an outside patio. If you can find a spot, there is even an adjacent parking lot, which is rare in this beachside town.
Shaka's menu is quite diverse for its small space, offering lunch sandwiches, salads, savory bowls, sweet smoothie bows, avocado toasts, and even sushi. If you are craving kombucha, Shaka has your back, or if you need a double espresso to get you through they have that too. Amazingly, the varied menu hangs together remarkably well.
I went with a grilled sandwich and my better half got a poke bowl.
Where things fell short were speed of service, execution, and quality control. Even though this is a counter service operation, food is cooked and prepared to order, so I was expecting a wait. Still, our wait was excruciatingly long. We arrived with two other couples who ordered first, and by the time our food arrived, our friends had completed their dishes. It was also obvious that our friends were eating slower than usual to try and help close the gap, but to no avail.
When the food did arrive, my Italian Job sandwich, advertised to be "toasted to perfection" was grilled beautifully on the top. However, the bottom piece of the sandwich had been burned. The kitchen cleverly put the "presentation side" up. But that also means they saw the burned grilled bread, and decided to serve it anyway.
Maybe that decision was driven by the fact the order had already taken so long to bring to the table? But whatever the case, it speaks to a level of quality control and integrity that left me hanging.
Yes, when food is made by hand by fallible human beings, mistakes can happen. The important thing is to acknowledge those mistakes and take responsibility for them, instead of trying to pass off a substandard effort and hoping it goes unnoticed. If our friends had not been waiting so long for our food to arrive, I would certainly have brought this up to the staff in the moment. Instead, I simply ate my half burned sandwich thinking about how much better it could have been. Even it ints substandard state, it was tasty, filling, and wholesome.
Should I ever find myself back at Crystal Beach during the season when Shaka is open, I would certainly give this place another shot. But I might skip the grilled sandwich and go for one of the quinoa power bowls.
N.B. Hours are limited and this is a seasonal business so double check before heading out. read more
