RESTAURANT REVIEW: Green Leaf branch bright, tasty

Panko crumbs made the coating crispy for the ranch chicken with low-calorie chipotle gravy and wild rice, plus Brussels sprouts and a broccoli/cauliflower medley, for a “Simply 600” lunch at Green Leaf Grill Express.
Panko crumbs made the coating crispy for the ranch chicken with low-calorie chipotle gravy and wild rice, plus Brussels sprouts and a broccoli/cauliflower medley, for a “Simply 600” lunch at Green Leaf Grill Express.

There are plenty of places to eat in downtown Little Rock. There are relatively few options, however, for folks who want to eat "healthy."

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Honey hoisin chicken breast with side dishes (a medley of pea pods, onions and tomatoes, and carrots with red bell peppers) was a recent “Simply 600” lunch at Green Leaf Grill Express.

So welcome, if you will, Green Leaf Grill Express, an offshoot of the Green Leaf Grill (in the Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield building on Little Rock's Gaines Street). That's more of a sit-down establishment (it also serves breakfast). This one is a little more centrally located, sort of, in a good-size nook in the corner of a bank building that formerly housed a Quizno's.

Green Leaf Grill Express

Address: 401 S. Spring St., Little Rock

Hours: 11 a.m.-2 p.m. weekdays

Cuisine: Grab-and-go sandwiches, wraps, salads, soups and “Simply 600” entrees

Credit cards: V, MC, AE, D

Alcoholic beverages: No

Reservations: No

Wheelchair accessible: Yes

Carryout: Yes

(501) 378-2521

It's bright, spacious, clean and full of knowledgeable, friendly people in kitchen uniforms anxious to please. The menu changes more-or-less weekly. There's seating for a handful of customers along a window bar (and another dozen-plus seats on a fair-weather patio), but this is pretty much geared to "grab and go" -- pre-made sandwiches (which they'll heat on request), salads, soups and, duplicating a service of the main restaurant, "Simply 600" entrees.

Thus explained, from Green Leaf Grill's website (greenleafgrill.com): "Create your own 600 calorie meal in 3 easy steps. 'Simply 600' is a daily lunch entree prepared each day with the help of our registered dietitian [that] provides a balance of protein, whole grains and vegetables. Every 'Simply 600' meal will contain less than 600 calories, 20 grams of fat or less, no more than 5 grams of saturated fat and less than 600mg of sodium."

We strongly suspect that the earlier you order a "Simply 600" entree ($7.19), the better off you'll be.

Therefore, we enjoyed more our noontime crispy ranch chicken with low-calorie chipotle gravy, a large, panko-crusted chunk of chicken breast, initially seared on the grill and oven finished/baked. The mild chipotle "gravy" gave it a bit of an accent but not much of a kick. It did taste fresh, and so did the side cauliflower-broccoli medley. We were a little less enthused about the roasted Brussels sprouts, which were a bit chewy.

Our post-1 p.m. honey hoisin chicken breast, however, didn't hold up. By the time we got to the smaller piece of grilled chicken (nothing wrong with that -- remember the goal is 600 calories), it had been sitting under a heat lamp for a while, and didn't absorb enough of the honey-hoisin "sauce" to keep it moist. And after sitting out for more than two hours, the vegetables -- a pea-pod-onion-tomato medley and carrots with red peppers -- looked, and tasted, wilted and sad.

We probably would have done pretty well with any of the four deli sandwiches ($6.99), but for some reason the roast beef grabbed our attention twice: roast beef with spicy onions and blue cheese, and roast beef topped with cheddar, lettuce, tomato and herbed mayonnaise on sourdough. We'd order either, or both, again.

We initially thought that $4.29 was a bit pricey for the cardboard-cupped portion of chicken noodle soup, but we later figured that we'd certainly paid as much or more for smaller portions of less worthy soups. The corkscrew-shaped noodles were plentiful and practically al dente -- quite an accomplishment after the amount of time they'd been soaking in heated broth -- and since a server separately added a plenitude of fresh roasted chicken cubes, they, too, were pleasantly firm and not mushy. The broth was delicious and quite filling.

We also gave high marks to the New England-style clam chowder: creamy, tasty and with a good balance between potatoes and clams -- one of which was practically the size of a blue whale.

We do have one complaint. The daily soups and the "Simply 600" entrees are posted at greenleafgrill.com, but not the rest of the menu; that you must find at the restaurant, via signs posted in front of each station (also on an overhead monitor, but that has been out of order for a couple of weeks).

And for a while, the Green Leaf folks were printing out, on hard copy, the full week's offerings, which you could take back to your office and so know in advance whether you'd want to make the trip there for, say, Thursday's soup or Friday's entree (sandwiches are pretty much set for the week). But at least as of the top of this week, they'd quit doing that for a couple of weeks as well.

Weekend on 12/01/2016

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