Sweet Tomatoes wins “best buffet” just as it’s set to arrive in Dallas

Peter Stawicki, says:

The quote “Dining is and always was a great artistic opportunity – Frank Lloyd Wright” adorns the main dining wall of the Addison location of Sweet Tomatoes. This always has struck me as a very strange statement in this restaurant. While yes indeed there is dining, the gods honest truth is there is nothing here artistic, nor is there a architectural aspect that you might expect from a place that would hold Frank Lloyd Wright in their esteem. The building as well as the decor is very Ikea-esque. Functional and light.

Sweet Tomatoes is a salad bar. Advertising the freshest of fruits and vegetables (...24hours after being harvested from the ground.) and all salads, soups, chili's, and bread products made from scratch daily.

Like other Salad Bar chains (Souper & Salad), the restaurant attempts to show its flair not in the number of vegetable options or numbers of dressings but instead in the specialty items like the eight daily soup choices, and their kitchen favorites section.

Not unlike competitor Golden Corral, you find breakfast choices before noon. (Get in before 11 on Sundays to beat the after church crowd)

The breakfast fare is sparse with a serving of scrambled eggs and the oatmeal as well as cold cereals in the main salad lines but they also offer Focaccia's (Breakfast Pizzas) and an egg or zucchini Fritatta (An egg souffle) None of the choices is truly standout except maybe a breakfast pasta dish that they do come up with thats rather tasty.

Unlike local Dallas favorites Cafe Brazil, the major low point of the breakfast experience is the coffee. Coffee is served in one of three pump thermos bottles, one is decaf and neither of the other two is generally full or well watched (You almost have to request someone to make another thermos). The flavors are not adventurous, the scents are not aromatic and tempting as coffee might be to draw the crowd, and worst of all, their cups are very small. I know, not everyone is a coffee drinker, but lets face it, early Sunday morning, more than not your crowd will be focusing on a pick me up after Pastor Pete's long and thoughtful sermon.

My one major plus for this restaurant is the same thing I think about attending a Texas Rangers game. It's a great place to people watch! Within feet of me right now is an Octogenarian couple, very sweet and complimentary with each other. They have been slowly eating and chatting for the last hour (without a trace of the arguing that I normally find with my own parents), two old southern ladies, one with a big floppy gardening hat who have been extolling the virtues of what they find tasty with mouths full and happily vocal, an Asian American family with three children below the age of 5 who have eaten without a word (Not something you normally find with children) and a table of church going parents and grandparents (They stopped and said grace) with their prime focus on their newest grandchild, a month or two old and protectively watched over a first time mother and ex-frat boy husband. (He didn't say grace). You also have the half dressed, the badly dressed, the badly hung over, and those who not unlike me, crept directly from slumber, unable to find a brush (I did shave).

All said, Sweet Tomatoes is not a standout among the brunch fare of Dallas, but it is a great place to sit and watch a true subsection of life pass by.