Review: Corner Bakery Cafe - Bacon Tomato Mac & Three Cheese

Corner Bakery Cafe's Bacon Tomato Mac & Three Cheese features pipette pasta (pipe-shaped pasta i.e. macaroni), applewood-smoked bacon, and diced tomatoes tossed with a blend of three cheeses, and topped with toasted bread crumbs.

$6.59 nets you a good-sized bowl and a piece of toasted garlic bread.

When I heard Bacon Tomato Mac, I was expecting a tomato-cheese mixture, but the diced tomatoes are fresh and seem to have been tossed in after the mac and cheese had been cooked. The flavor is not as intense as stewed tomatoes, but there's a freshness to it and it gives a slight tinge of that to the cheese sauce.

There was plenty of bacon to go around and while not crunchy, it lent a tasty smokiness to the dish.

The pasta was tender, but not mushy.

There was a nice and hearty sprinkling of toasted bread crumbs that were audibly and satisfyingly crunchy and added a welcome bit of texture.

The sauce was really creamy, fairly cheesy, and came in abundance. Too abundant really. The cheese-to-mac ration was a bit off, and the tail end of my bowl was mostly just very rich and creamy cheese sauce interspersed with the occasional macaroni pasta.

The included toast was crispy, but not warm. It had a deep garlicky flavor set off by a bit of olive oil. It was pretty good, but would have been nicer warm or hot.

Overall, Corner Bakery Cafe's Bacon Tomato Mac & Three Cheese was good, but a bit too rich and saucy for my liking. The tomatoes actually figured in nicely, but I would have liked more cheese and less cream.

My brother and cousin also tried this. My brother felt it was too rich, and my cousin did not like it at all (which is weird because she pretty much likes everything).

Nutritional Info - Corner Bakery Cafe Bacon Tomato Mac & Three Cheese - Combo size
Calories - 650 (from Fat - 320)
Fat - 36g (Saturated Fat - 19g)
Sodium - 1090mg
Carbs - 55g (Sugar - 5g)
Protein - 28g