LA Gourmet

Work in the building, so it’s long been one of the only fast options around. That’s changing and the neighborhood has a lot more options now, but LAG doesn’t seem to care. The buffet is okay, but god forbid you order something at the counter. Easily 50% of the time they get it wrong. Ask for a cheese omelette with ham on the side? Get scrambled eggs with cheese tossed on top and the ham under the cheese. Ask for eggs over easy on open soft bread with bacon on the side? Get hard fried eggs and bacon in a sandwich. Roast beef on soft roll with cheddar and a little bit of mustard? Get dried flaky beef with american and so much mustard you could drown in it. It’s my last place to go, only if I don’t have the time to go anywhere else. And don’t even get me started on catering — the number of times they’ve screwed up orders and even when the errors are pointed out they don’t correct them. They were bought by new management about 2 years ago, and ever since the place is one horrible screw up!

I come here almost everyday for lunch because of proximity to work, and the price (if you buy the right things).
For me, the right thing is when you find a good weight of food at the hot buffet. The options are relatively diverse and it helps me control my portions, save money and pick healthy options. It’s really easy for me to grab a decent portion of raw spinach and pair it with a protein of my choice. The protein rotates between variations of fish, chicken, pork and beef. They also usually have just a few options for cooked vegetables — i wish they had more here.
If the hot buffet is not for you, there are some meals for breakfast that are pretty decent in price considering the portion.
I can’t say the service here is the best though…

L.A. Gourmet is my go-​to spot every morning I work in the LIC office. There are tons of options not to mention amazing customer service.
Even if there weren’t as many options, this place gets a 5 because Julio greets me by name (and sometimes song) and remembers the exact meal I want when I go in (and it’s a very particular request). And I see him interacting that way with many customers. How nice is that?
It is the best a quick, moving-​fast, café can be. Good coffee and tons of fresh options for breakfast and lunch. At least a handful of people from my office order from it daily.
I wouldn’t know what many of us would do without it.

The soup was lame, the bread was good. The didn’t send my side order — small chicken noodle soup. I was pretty disappointed.

i ordered two pizzas for a farewell party a day in advance. This place is located in the lobby of where the pizzas were to be delivered. I was told they would be delivered a little before noon. I called at noon and they had completely forgotten about it. I paid credit card and when I called she said, will you be paying cash? OMG. DO NOT ORDER FROM THIS PLACE.

Pleasant service but come on now, If I’m going to pay $ 7 for a simple LTS tuna salad sandwich then the bread should be fresh. The roll was super stale

The lunch and breakfast menu I feel are fairly priced. They usually have a wide variety of options for foood.

Good, fresh food, wide selection. What makes this a 5 star «joint» however is the Gustava. She takes my order on the phone most times and is super sweet, courteous, and always professional. Once I did not like the selection of soups of the day and so Gustava asked me what my favorite was so she could have it made for the next day. I told her and forgot about it until the next day one of their delivery men bought me a flyer with a note from Gustava saying that my soup was on the menu that day. It may seem silly but if there ever was an example of going the extra mile Gustava is it.

I have been eating here since 2014, but I have noticed that the quality has significantly dropped. If you’re going to serve food at manhattan prices, I expect quality to match. While the staff are very friendly and service is fast, I cannot over look the fact that vegetables used are not fresh. I will upload two pics, most of the Brussels sprouts were not cleaned well — the outside still have marks bitten by insect and I even found one hidden under the 1^st layer.
The potatoes, if you look closely have browned and bruised on the outside. I question how fresh they are and how well the kitchen staff cleaned and prep their food.

Every time I buy something from this place after the new management took over, I regret it. The last time I was there, I ordered a liverwurst sandwich and ended up with bologna (deli guy doesn’t know his deli meats – makes you wonder, doesn’t it?). This afternoon, I got maybe 8 slices of pepperoni on a very hard, very stale roll for a pepperoni sandwich. Why in the world do I still go to LA Gourmet? Because they are right in the building and a lot of the places are closed after the lunch rush. I only go to LA Gourmet for a really quick bite on a super busy day and I am desperately hungry.
The extensions of LA Gourmet is better (that’s what the ONE star is for) but not by much:
–The chopped salad place has has funny tasting dressings and costs almost $ 10 for a standard salad.
–The pizza is edible but costs $ 4+ for a slice. I once got a salad slice really late in the day. Not only did they charge me full price ($ 4.50) for the slice, there was some very spicy peppers in there that burnt my face off. I love spicy food, and I can take quite a bit of heat too but the peppers in the slice of pizza made it inedible.
–The sushi and noodle spot is really pricey for ok food. $ 10 for ramen noodles with veggies and a protein. It’s NOT ramen you get at a ramen joint, which is really worth the $ 10+ because of the broth, etc. The «broth» you get here is the soup packet from Nong Shim instant noodles. When you order ramen, they really pop open a packet of Nong Shim instant noodles and cook it for you. The sushi is made every morning, and they sit in a cold fridge so by the time one buys sushi during lunch time, the rice is now hard. Who wants cold hard rice on their sushi? Don’t even think about asking them to make you something else; you’ll get scolded.
–The girls at the juice bar are kind of dirty. I watched one clean the fruit and vegetable pulp from the juicer with her bare hands, as in NO GLOVES. Keep in mind that this is where all your fruits and vegetables go to get juiced, folks– so whatever that was on her hands is now in your juice. During the same visit, the other girl was wearing gloves but she scratched her butt (which I am sure touched at least a subway bench) and she played with her phone. Gloves girl was stacking/​playing with the fruits and veggies. I was ok with paying $ 5.75 for a cup of juice up until I was not sure what extra stuff was going into my juice.
The saddest part to all of this is LA Gourmet used to be my go to breakfast and lunch spot prior to the management change!

Ordered a B11 breakfast — $ 5.99 for french toast or pancakes and eggs with turkey sausage or bacon. Seems like a good deal.
I told them I wanted to Pancakes and sausage. The woman who took my order told the cook that I wanted B11, pancakes and sausage. Then she asked me what I wanted, pancakes or French toast. In the same breath.
The cook asked me if I wanted eggs. I said no, thinking that maybe it’d be cheaper. It was not. (My bad.)
I got pancakes and bacon. $ 5.99.
One star for service and for being annoying.
Two stars for being amusing.
??? stars for breakfast food because it’s really hard to screw up breakfast food.

9-​part MEGA Review!
Korean — YES. Bibimbap is great (sauce is spicy though so don’t just dump it on there).
Sushi — Ok, I like the lemon included with some of the items, a little above standard deli quality.
Noodle bowls — BLAH. Way too salty, basically $.79 ramen with some vegetables and meat.
Pizza — Meh. Filling but bland and expensive. If you buy 2 slices they give a «free» can of soda.
Salads — Yes. Good choices and dressings, free piece of bread, not bad.
Grill — NO. Burned fries every time, soggy under or overcooked burgers, always out of ciabatta bread. Ok for cold sandwiches only.
Buffet — meh. $ 8 a pound, super greasy.
Breakfast — Yes. Very hard to mess up a toasted bagel with cream cheese.
Convenient Store (not sure if this is part of LA Gourtmet) — NO. about 50% more expensive for most everything. Go to one of the cheaper stores around the area.
Also, the women working the register at the grill are like friendly soup nazis. NEXT!

I’d like to begin this review by saying that I am primarily reviewing LA Gourmet’s coffee and the AM coffee experience.
I work in the building where LA Gourmet is located and get my morning coffee from them 5 days a week. First, I love the coffee. It’s a medium roast which I much prefer over the ultra strong and bitter coffee that is available at other nearby locations. They also always have several flavored coffees to select from if you’re a flavored coffee kind of person.
As I’m a «regular», I feel a bit like Norm from Cheers when I walk in. The woman who runs the show behind the counter is excellent and extremely organized — keeping a very busy counter and register running fast and smooth. As soon as she sees me walk in, she shouts out my coffee order (as I always order the same thing) and my coffee is most often ready and paid for in about 30 seconds. It amazes me how quickly they are able to work through the AM rush with such ease. It is clear that the business recognizes that most people are grabbing a coffee on their way to work and have no time spare. They keep tings moving fast to get everyone on their way.
So the bottom line is, this is a good spot to pick up your morning coffee — especially if you live or work in the area.
The one thing I would recommend is that the business adjust the prices of the coffee so that with tax the number isn’t as oddball as it is now. A large flavor is $ 2.17 and a large regular is $ 2.06. The change thing is annoying, especially with pennies. If there was a way to readjust so that the totals with tax were for example $ 2.05 and $ 2.15 or $ 2.20, that may be a little easier to deal with as a customer as well as the cashier.
Finally, I don’t often buy breakfast or lunch here. The few times I have however I have enjoyed what I bought (bagel, panini, soup).

Breakfast is okay, but too expensive. Lunch is barely edible – always a gamble. All the food looks like it’s been sitting around for days. The manager seems friendly, but the cashiers can be extremely rude. Not a great experience.

This is more of a problem with management.
You get a free soda for 2 plain slices
but you do not get a free soda if you buy 1 plain and one higher priced peperoni.
So you get penalized wanting to spend more money
I guess the manager fell asleep during marketing class
The pizza itself is hit or miss. But we really dont have that many pizza choices around LIC 1.

I work 2 blocks away from this place, and eat breakfast and lunch from here 3 – 4 days a week since it is so convenient. L.A. Gourmet is more of a food court than a restaurant or a deli. For instance, you could walk in here in the AM and get breakfast which could be anything from homemade Oatmeal, a Bagel or even an Omelet made to order. But lunch is where you really get spoiled for choice. On any given day, you could walk in here and have to think about what you Really want — from Paninis/​Sandwiches to Tacos to custom-​made Chopped Salads to Ramen and Udon noodles to Bibimbap to a Hot Bar to a selection of Soups or Sushi or Pizza or Burgers or freshly-​squeezed Juices. It’s like the management wants all the breakfast/​lunch business in a 3 – 4 block radius, but somehow they can’t seem to get it right. Quality is inconsistent, prices for some things are ridiculous ($ 4 for a slice of crappy Pizza?! while the awesome Bibimbap is $ 9?), delivery sucks, and the management’s attitude is often brusque… which is why I am giving this place only 3 stars. If only they can get their act together, they may be able to go back to being the local favorite that they once were!

This place did not go down a notch. It went down three whole notches. The only reason it didn’t go down more is because they at least mop the place still.
The arrogance of management to completely get rid of the only things worth eating there was stunning. The new ownership took what worked and turned it on its head.
Quality went down.
Prices went up.
Apparently the owner never went to business school, because that is EXACTLY what NOT to do.
After the number of bad salads, the quantity of sub-​par hot plates, and ridiculous (and by ridiculous I mean you’re in fricken Queens and you’re more expensive than Manhattan? GTF outta here), and i mean RIDICULOUS prices, I couldn’t be more done with this place. At this point the only thing that would lower my opinion is if I found out they were a front for ISIS/​Al-​Qaeda/​Hamas AND the reptilian moon monsters.
REVIEW OVER.

LA Gourmet… where can I start. First, the positive. The pizzeria could be worse. On it’s own it would rate a 2.
The rest of the place, though, rates a 1. The first time I ever had their food was a nasty burger. I asked for well-​done and got medium, at best. I ate a few bites before throwing it away. For awhile I went here in the morning to get a croissant or muffin, but the employees were just brusque and rude. I switched to another place down the street. After a management change I decided to stop by again. They had a new menu up that showed chili-​style beef hard-​shell tacos. Sounded good so I placed an order. Stood there for 5 minutes waiting for my food only to discover no one was making it. So I ordered again. The guy then proceeded to make me chicken soft tacos and when I pointed out that this was not what was on the menu he just shrugged. And I left… 15 minutes lighter on time and with no lunch.

Edit/​Update:
June 2014 — there is new ownership now. The pizza place across from the deli is OK at best. At least they are quick. 3.50 for one slice is kinda high but it is a huge slice. not enough sauce (almost none) but acceptable for a quick slice i guess. giving them an upgrade to 2 stars due to pizza.
I’ve seen them wipe down the counters and put new dough in the oven so it is an OK occasional option.
Previous review:
Terrible deli in the Citi building in LIC. Definitely get the sense that they feel they have a monopoly on the lunch business in the area so they can just charge outrageous prices and treat you terribly.
About 4 months ago got terrible stomach pains after eating a chicken wrap here and never went back since. Since then they also fired most of their original employees, raised prices 40%, and are just as nasty. The prices were already high before!
Also, 1 SLICE of mediocre at best pizza at the pizza place now costs a whopping $ 4.
So in summation:
Minus 1 star for stomach ache /​medicore food
Minus 1 star for attitude
Minus 1 star for higher than ever deli prices
Minus 1 star for $ 4 slice of pizza worth $ 1.50 max
1 star, avoid.

Prices went up again and the wisenheimer at the register tried to blame it on the «machines» for charging tax. Sorry, toots, that’s the same excuse you gave when prices went up a couple of months ago. If you’re going to raise prices, just say so, don’t try to lie to your customers. You already started charging tax a few months ago, so I’m not going to fall for that, unless there’s some new tax that nobody else in the world charges.
And I still never understood why they didn’t charge tax on my takeout coffee for six years and then when the new management came in, they started charging it. But whatever, doesn’t matter anymore.
I’m done… I hereby officially resign as the duke of this dump. They are no cheaper than anywhere else now and they’re just not worth it.
This is really worthy of zero stars, but until they get some real competition, they’re going to stay in business.