Between 9th and 10th Streets on Willow is a café serving up some culture with their sandwiches.
D’s Soul Full Café offers a store front window to performing musicians and their walls to artists to display their work. It’s a great but underrated concept, and they even offer a discount to musicians who are willing to perform. Unfortunately, of all of the times I’ve walked by, I have yet to see a musician playing in the window. The art on the walls, however, is pretty cool.
Now for the important part: the food. Known for their sandwiches (including breakfast), D’s is perfect for the college crowd. The store front is really just that: there’s only two tables with some chairs, and their website encourages delivery (which is free) and takeout. This, of course, also doesn’t necessarily help the performance aspect. D’s prices are also college friendly, as none of the sandwiches are above $9, and most fall around the $5 or $7 mark.
Wanting to sample a range of their offerings, we chose a spicy drunken turkey wrap, spicy buffalo chicken sandwich, ranchero breakfast burrito, and spicy mesquite pulled turkey sandwich for takeout.
Being the expert on spicy buffalo chicken sandwiches, my companion dug into that. To his dismay, he watched as the breading slid off of the chicken and the other contents of his sandwich fell out of the bread, and not in a good, “my sandwich is over-stuffed” kind of way. We both enjoyed the unique flavor meld of the hot sauce, sweet peppers, and blue cheese dressing, but yes, the chicken and sandwich structure could have been better.
Moving on, I was quite excited for the spicy bourbon sauce, pepper jack cheese, avocado, and chipotle mayo promised by the drunken turkey wrap. I bit into the heated wrap expecting an explosion of flavor and was left disappointed. The wrap was not bad by any means, not even close, but the anti-climax of the product as compared to the menu description was quite a letdown. The wrap was definitely good but not amazing.
It was a similar story with the pulled turkey. The idea of spicy pulled turkey in sweet and savory barbecue sauce balanced with the coolness of cucumber dill Greek yogurt dressing more than piqued my interest, but when I bit into the sandwich, my taste buds felt as though something was missing. The spice was there, though not overwhelming, but there was no depth to the flavor. The sandwich sadly could only sing a single flavor note.
According to my companion, the breakfast burrito tasted fresh, but being used to actual Texas ranchero breakfast burritos, he again felt as though the combination of eggs, potatoes, cheese and diced tomatoes was missing something.
All in all, the concept of D’s, like their menu descriptions, sounds fantastic, but the execution has a tendency to fall flat. I’m not saying don’t go, not at all; I will probably go back myself, as D’s is a good break from all of the traditional Italian delis, but what I am saying is don’t expect to see musicians there (unless you, as a talented reader, want to perform) and don’t expect outrageously amazing food.
