The name Simply Salad is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it suggests that the ingredients are entirely natural with no crazy additives, chemicals and the like. It sounds like the sort of place you could trust.
On the other hand, a more cynical view might be that the name suggests no frills. If you’re looking for imagination, a salad with a bit of pizazz, that might not be on the cards. Fortunately, that’s not true at all.
There are 10 Simply Salad locations in this area, and we feel very fortunate that there’s one right here in Gardena. “Simply Salad, started in 2010 by buddies Bruce Teichman and Cameron Lewis, aims to fix the salad experience,” they say online.”They used to spend their lunch breaks searching for healthy, well-portioned food made quickly—for an affordable price. Since they were never able to find that combination, they decided to be the change they wanted to see. These days, Bruce and Cameron have said goodbye to the tiny and overpriced salads they used to eat, and so can you. Welcome to Simply Salad: the everyday excuse to eat healthy and fresh!”
One of the great joys of Simply Salad is that they’ve given you two wonderful menu-approaches. You can “simply” pick one of the prepared salads or wraps that they’ve lovingly constructed, curated and/or assembled. Or, you can play salad chef and build your own thing from scratch. The ingredients are so fresh that you really can’t go wrong.
There were two of us eating on a Saturday afternoon, and we both opted to build our own lunch. That said, one of us built a salad, the other a wrap.
You get to choose your leaf first, so we had romaine in the salad, followed by basic ingredients: black beans, corn, crispy onions, crispy wontons, and grape tomatoes. To really boost it though, we added shrimp and shredded parmesan.
The combination of the vibrant veg, the hearty beans and corn, and crisp of the onions and wontons, and the richness of the cheese was only enhanced by the juicy seafood. We had it with a creamy barbecue ranch dressing,, and the salad came with a triangle of pitta bread for dipping.
Similarly, we had romaine on the wrap with corn and grape tomatoes, but this time we added carrots, cucumbers, and edamame. Salmon was our protein of choice, topped off with an Asian soy dressing.
That also proved to be a winning combo, even of the wrap didn’t stay together outside of the paper wrapper. The dressing was on the side, so in theory you’d dip the wrap in it. That proved to be a challenge, but an enjoyable one.
Salads aren’t always simple.
Simply Salad is located at 1751 Artesia Blvd., Gardena 90248. Contact 310-756-6567 or visit simplysalad.com.
