In the midst of throwing together my bags and papers before the flight yesterday, I met my friend at Toast in downtown Durham for lunch. The first time I attempted to eat here I was thwarted by a sign stating the restaurant was closed for a week back in the summer. Disappointed, I was looking for an opportunity to try again.

We arrived just before the lunch rush and ordered our food at the small counter and grabbed an open table with our number sign and drinks. They serve all sorts of specialty sodas and beers as well as the standard tea and water.

It only took about ten minutes for our food to arrive. I ordered a lentil, speck and parsnip soup that was very pleasant and had a interesting minty flavor to it. I also had the bruschetta with NC shrimp, pancetta and raddichio. I could have handled more pancetta and less raddichio, but the overall flavor was good and the bread was perfectly toasted. They should probably add garlic to the list of ingredients, however!

My companion mentioned that her three cheese sandwich was a bit greasy, but good, and her turnip soup inspired her to try something with the root veggies currently sitting in her pantry.

It got quite noisy in the small place as a crowd piled in for lunch, but I saw the food servers consistently delivering food, so it didn’t look like people waited very long. Overall, I thought the price was reasonable for the amount of food and everything tasted freshly made. I would definitely go back.