The Good Grain
The Good Grain is an artisanal micro-bakery located just off waiyaki way. I’ve always heard good things about this place so I was very excited to check it out. It’s quite a small space (hence the micro) but still spacious enough to not feel crowded when customers stream in and out. Love the little patches of green at either side of the entrance where you’ll most likely find 2 - 3 people sprawled on raffia mats basking in the Nairobi sun while enjoying a coffee and a pastry or two.
There’s seating strategically placed along the entry way which I find cool too so you can enjoy the fresh air seated outside instead of being limited to indoor seating.
I came here for lunch with a friend and we wanted to try a little bit of everything. As we settled on a table, one of the servers came to let us know that we needed to go directly to the cashier to make our order - no order would be taken from our table. And that goes for everything. If you’ve made your order and sat back down and maybe a while later you feel like you want a bottle of water or another pastry, you have to get up again and go order from the cashier. I didn’t like that at all
That style of service feels unnecessary and quite exhausting to the customer with the whole get up, go to the cashier to order every time. They seem to have a good number of servers and the place is small enough for the wait staff to get orders from the various tables so I’m not sure why they just don’t do that.
The menu is a big display fixed inside the bakery, by the pastry display. This is probably why you have to get up and go to the cashier every time because they also don’t provide physical menus or QR menu codes. The menu is succinct and offers just a number of items which is a good thing because it means they focus on quality more so than quantity.
We decided to try the chicken Caesar sandwich (KSH1700), the mango chutney grilled cheese (KSH800), the butternut, sage & cashewnut quiche (KSH480), some sourdough donuts (KSH290) and the miso chocolate chip cookies (KSH320). The cashier was nice enough to let us taste some focaccia on the house since the one on display was a bit different to the one used for the chicken caesar sandwich. And of course we washed all that down with some great drip coffee which they source from Hikuri Coffee.
The butternut, sage and cashewnut quiche was really good! Loved the butternut and cashew combo, it had a really tasty crust, and a nice tomato surprise in the middle giving it a nice burst of sweetness to balance out the savoury flavour. I’m not big on quiches because I generally don’t like anything egg-based but of late I’ve been challenging myself to eat eggs more so this quiche was a nice introduction to my taste buds of a baked egg pastry.
The mango chutney grilled cheese was as delicious as it sounds! Made using sourdough bread too?? Delish! Because of its sweet base - I asked for some chilli sauce to dip it in and that elevated the taste even more. Though their chilli is very hot so be careful with it when you try it.
The chicken caesar sandwich is clearly their star product and I can see why. It’s quite large first of all and using focaccia as the bread of choice makes it very filling. I only had half of it and I was stuffed! That’s a sandwich you can have for both lunch and dinner and be satisfied. It tasted just like a Caesar salad except with more bread and very fresh.
The mixed olive and rosemary focaccia was a delight but I felt like it could have been fresher maybe? It was a bit tough to the taste yet fresh focaccia is usually a fluffy almost soft texture when you taste it fresh. I asked for some butter (which I had to get up to go to the cashier to order 🙄) because apparently they charge for butter. A little tub of butter was charged at KSH100… another thing I wasn’t a fan of. Especially because I confirmed that they don’t make that butter in house but they buy it from the supermarket like the rest of us - so why charge for it?
If they need to justify the cost of buying butter they should just add it on their product prices instead of charging it separately because as a customer - I would expect bread to be served with some butter.
The sourdough jam donut was a 10/10, absolutely tasty! It has fresh raspberry jam oozing out the middle and that sweet tart taste was so good paired with the tangy-ness of the sourdough. The miso chocolate chip cookie was rich on the chocolate side and had a nice sprinkle of salt flavour from the miso side - had to get an extra one to take home.
The service here was a bit wanting truly because even with making us get up every time we wanted to get something else, the servers were still not attentive and forgot some orders which we had to remind them about.
The ambience is nice and peaceful, very serene especially during this rainy season. The afternoon sun seeps throughout the bakery and they also have a gallery space where local artists can showcase their work from. I caught the Sara Waiswa & Joel Lukhovi photography exhibit last week - it’s running until May 16th so be sure to check it out if you’re ever at the good grain in the coming weeks.
It’s a great place to work from for those who’d like a change of scenery from the office or your house. It’s also a nice place for a coffee date or a quick catch up/meeting. They make great pastries even for delivery so you can order for special occasions or just because you felt like having cookies and quiche one day.
I think because it’s a microbakery they can get away with a lot of things but if they do want to ensure longevity - they definitely should look into their customer service and add the cost of butter into their product pricing - just my two cents on that.
Ratings
Food: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Service: ⭐️️⭐️
Ambience: ⭐⭐️⭐️⭐️
Menu
Related Reviews