Restaurant Review - Verve.

This is a local place in Bangor, Maine. Their first store is located in Orono, Maine. This review is solely based on the Bangor, Maine location, I have no experience with the Orono location, nor have I ever been to any Verve previously. Also keep in mind that I am a pescatarian.(I do not consume anything meat besides fish.)

The meaning of the word verve is vigor and spirit or enthusiasm. A common synonym is zest. 

I'll admit that I had some pretty high expectations when I walked in the door, their facebook contains a lot of favorable reviews. However, the restaurant's decor isn't anything remarkably memorable. It was really open-spaced, with oddly small tables.It felt more like a coffee shop than a burrito place. None of this had any remnants of vigor, or enthusiasm, and definitely not "world moving", Personally though, I don't find decor as important as the food itself, but even some tacty local art on the walls would do it some justice.

I ordered the "Veg-head" breakfast burrito - Scrambled eggs, Gimme Lean vegetarian sausage, black beans, cheese, salsa, and sour cream. $5.25

It didn't smell like a whole lot. It was just a very bland black bean smell, with a hint of cheese.

I'm not really sure where they buy their products, and how much of it is made in house. I'd like to assume that they make everything minus the obvious. (Sour cream, tortillas, veggie sauce) Usually with ingredients listed, they are in order of amount. The burrito was rather large, but I think its safe to say there may have been only single egg's worth of scrambled eggs. The most dominating thing was the beans, which were extremely bland. I would almost say they came from a can, which is sad because if it were true, it isn't much effort to buy raw beans (Cheaper, too) and cook them with more flavor themselves. I mean, at least add some chili powder and salt. It's suppose to be Mexican food right? Mexican food is very flavorful.  The vegetarian sausage? Tasted like charcoal, hard as a rock and burnt to hell, though, its amazing I could taste it at all, considering there were only two small pieces. Salsa and sour cream were not even in the flavor profile. I wouldn't even know they were there. 

The price was right, the flavor? Was not. It's amazing that a business like this has the balls to expand; it's food would be considered cafeteria food at best. In fact, my college's lunch at around the same price, with more food, is better tasting. I'd like to also add that the employee preparing my food, wore no food safety gloves, and two other employees were just sitting around screwing off on their phones. (I was the only other person in the restaurant, which makes sense, people like good food) 

Verve does not live up to it's name. Perhaps they should add some more "Zest".

This wasn't a rating out of pity, it was edible, and I didn't die. Would I recommend the place? Nope.