Chocolat Cremerie - Hillcrest

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Earlier this week, I went out to lunch with a few friends. We went to the newly opened Chocolat Cremerie in Hillcrest. I'd read both positive and negative reviews about it, but WTF, we wanted to check it out for ourselves. See reviews here and here. This is the former location of Mille Feuille, which unfortunately closed last year (see my old posts here and here ).
The interior is quite slick with a blingy crystal chandelier and cool track lighting. The front counters held artisan chocolates as well as desserts. The counter at the far right had their gelatos.

There are also mini ottomans for seating that are covered with creepy and hairy cow hide. The photo below has a bar...see the guy behind the bar? I don't know if he was the owner but he was going around making sure everything was okay at each table. He was Italian and from Milan. One of my lunch companions had gone to school in Italy so they conversed a tiny bit in Italian. We found out that the guy once worked for an Anna Wintourish hellion in Italy and was fired from his job because he didn't get Elton John's birthday present delivered to him on time!

There are a lot of things on their menu...salads, cheese and bread bar, pizzas, and pastas..Seems a bit much for a tiny place like this.

While I had plain old water, my two lunch companions both got the Pomegranate Green Tea by Republic of Tea (I liked the bottle). It wasn't overly sweet but I couldn't taste the green tea in there.

Salads have to be ordered separately. We both ordered the mixed greens ($3.95). I chose to have the balsamic separate and gave it to my friend. I dressed up my salad with olive oil, salt, and pepper.. My friend had his with Gorgonzola.

After a nearly hourlong wait (which to me, is pretty shitty considering what we ordered wasn't time intensive) our food finally came out. My friend had ordered the eggplant and goat cheese pizza. There is a bluish cast to this because I was playing with the setttings. I only tried a tiny piece of her (sans the goat cheese) - it wasn't too bad, but you can see that it was burnt around the edges. C'mon folks - it's a thin crust pizza that shouldn't take 45 minutes to make....

My glorified ham and cheese panini (Prosciutto and gruyere) which was overpriced at $9.95. If came with salad, then that would have been a little more worth it. I know, it's paying their rent...

My friend's had the crepe with sausage and roasted peppers...garnished with a sprig of basil ($8.95). His portion seemed more worth it to me and it tasted better than mine as well:

As you can see, the pizza was not precut. That kind of sucked.

Although we did not order dessert, the Italian guy brought us a cup of gelato with a trio of flavors: milk chocolate, white chocolate and pistachio. Considering we didn't order dessert, that was pretty nice of him. I'm not sure if I would go back here for the slow service. The servers themselves were competent and the Italian guy was very nice however, it seemed like it took too damn long just to get a pizza, sandwich and a crepe.Here's a tip, if you park in Hillcrest, try to park in the neighborhoods a few blocks away. You'll save on parking $$ for the meters.

Here's a sticker I saw on the car parked in front of us. Awww...so cute!