A Not-So-Traditional Patty Melt

T Meldrum's was a suggestion from a previous Massillon resident who grew up eating at this restaurant. It is located at 2144 Wales Road NE, Massillon, Ohio 44646 and can be reached at (330) 833-4729. There is no website currently at this time.

After listening to him talk about his experiences at the restaurant, I decided to leave work a little early and give T Meldrum's a try. They are open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but do be aware that they close at 8 pm, so there won't be any late night runs for a burger or a malted. As you travel north on Wales Rd, as soon as you pass Hills and Dales Road, you will see this sign on your right:


The building sits in the middle of a parking lot for a larger strip retail outlet. It's hard to tell from the outside, but once inside, it looks as if the original T Meldrum's was added onto over the years as there are distinctive sections to the restaurant. Here is a photo of the exterior of the restaurant:


Once inside and seated, I got down to business of perusing the menu:


And a shot of the inside of the menu. Note the message to the customers:


And a shot of the condiment tray at the end of every table:


The food at T Meldrum's is based on pretty traditional diner fare. However, after looking at the menu, I noticed that they do their own twist on the classics. What finally convinced me to give them a try in the first place is when my friend said that they offered a really great Patty Melt. I am such a sucker for a really good Patty Melt. The combination of the juicy burger, the crispy rye bread and the grilled sweet onions is just something I crave every now and again. The best Patty Melt I've ever had is at Mary Kelley's in Dublin, Ohio, and it is the standard against which I compare all others.

T Meldrum's version is actually a "Sisco" Patty Melt. It is served on grilled sourdough bread and offered with not only grilled onions, but also grilled green and banana peppers. I decided to go with that. Here is a shot of my sandwich when it arrived at my table:


And a shot from the side showing the layers:


This was an excellent sandwich. I opted to go with the 1/3 pound burger instead of the 1/2. This made the burger not quite as juicy as I normally like it, but between the two kinds of cheese and the grilled vegetables, the sandwich as a whole worked nicely together. The big surprise to me was the grilled banana peppers. They added a nice acidity which helped to cut some of the fat of the sandwich and grilling them first helped to tame some of their heat. I definitely recommend including those on your sandwich.

I decided to upgrade my sandwich to a platter for a couple of dollars more. This gave me my choice of two sides. My first side was the Macaroni and Cheese casserole:


This definitely had a homemade feel to it. It was nice and cheesy but wasn't overly so. It had that "baked" look to it; somewhat dry from the heat of the oven without being too dessicated. It wasn't the best mac and cheese I've ever had, but given the location I was eating in, it was certainly acceptable.

They did offer fresh cut fries, but instead I opted to go with the home fries. The difference? Home fries are essentially another name for hash browns. Here is T Meldrum's version:


These were okay, but definitely not nearly as good as the hash browns I had at Wally Waffle. Having worked at Bob Evan's my senior year as a short order cook, I know good hash browns. These were just a bit overcooked. And unfortunately, the seasoning was off just a bit as well. A little ketchup corrected that problem as well as added a nice acidity.

Overall, I enjoyed my meal at T Meldrum's. The Patty Melt was good, but definitely didn't blow my mind. If I were to order it again, I'd definitely get the 1/2 pound burger instead. I think it would end up being juicier. I'd stick with the Macaroni and Cheese casserole as my side again and perhaps order something other than the home fries. The menu is quite large and you could return many times without ordering the same thing twice.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: Eadie's Two Locations

Sometimes it pays to take a chance.

I happened to be driving down Wise Avenue today in North Canton for a completely unrelated reason when I first noticed Eadie's Fish House. Slightly intrigued and making a mental note to maybe return one day, I noticed that right next to Eadie's Fish House was a little drive-up place that advertised beer batter fish and onion rings also sporting the name Eadie's. I'm ALWAYS a sucker for a good beer batter fish and unfortunately, so few places really deliver a good one. With what seems like a split-second decision, I pulled into the parking lot and decided to give this little roadside stand a try.

Here is the building from the front of the road:


I walked up to the front and started looking over the posted menu:


I knew what I wanted; fish and onion rings, just like their sign advertised. But, as I looked over the menu several times, I was having a hard time seeing it listed. When I finally asked the woman running the order window, she said that they didn't serve the fish here. They only served it at the main restaurant next door. Well, crap! I was kind of in the mood for that and now I had to decide what I wanted to do. At that moment I wasn't really in the mood for an entire sit-down meal. So instead, I just decided to get a small sampling of the food here. I ended up ordering a BBQ pulled chicken sandwich, a small order of fries, and a small chocolate malted shake. I was a little nervous about the BBQ pulled chicken sandwich because I was concerned that they might use one of those over-the-top sweetened BBQ sauces. I needed have worried about the sweetness.

After about 10 minutes, my food finally came up. First, the chocolate malted shake:


This wasn't bad. It had just a slight hint of malt to it. Personally I would've preferred a more intense chocolate and malt flavor. The texture was super thick, causing me to basically leave it for a while and then drink it when it was more melted, lest I suffer the headache induced by sucking on the straw too hard.

Next up, the fries:


When I went to pick up my order, I asked the young man behind the counter whether the fries were fried from fresh or frozen. He gave me this almost ghastly look and said, "Oh, frozen. We just wouldn't have enough time to make them fresh." Sigh. Apparently they didn't have enough time to cook them from frozen, either, because these were greasy, flaccid and seriously undercooked. Honestly, who wants to eat undercooked fries? I ate about three of these before giving up.

Finally, a shot of my BBQ pulled chicken sandwich, both wrapped and unwrapped:



Visually, this was just unappealing. The bun was smashed and the filling that peaked out of the sides looked ominously similar to what it might appear like later on were I to see it again (I'm trying to be delicate here). But, being a brave little culinary soldier, I tasted it. My worry about the BBQ sauce being too sweet was mollified; it wasn't. However, missing from this sandwich was any kind of really stand-out flavor. And unfortunately, the filling was so wet that the inside of the bun had essentially turned to mush. This definitely required a toasted bun to stand up to the filling. Three bites of this and I decided that something was seriously amiss at this little roadside stand.

On the side of the building is an advertisement for 24 different flavors of soft serve that they offer here.


Upon checking out the website for the company advertised on this banner, I came to discover that this "system" for offering so many flavors is nothing more than artificially flavored syrups that are added to a standard frozen custard base, whizzed up, and served in the vessel of your choosing. I was seriously unimpressed with my experience at this roadside stand.

Having only eaten three bites of my sandwich, three lousy, limp fries, and about 1/4 of my shake, I decided to see if the mother restaurant located right next door might redeem my shaken faith. I wasn't in the mood for a sit-down dinner before, but I quickly decided to change my tune. And since the beer batter fish and onion rings were only served there, I figured, what the hell. It couldn't get any worse, right?

I didn't manage to get a photograph of the sign or the building known as Eadie's Fish House as it had started to rain and I didn't particularly want to get wet. After walking in and getting seated, I started to peruse the menu. I began to see items on the menu that made me believe that I should've just chosen this place first. Proprietary beer battered cod, special beer battered onion rings, smoked chicken wings with lots of interesting sauces, the list goes on. They did have fries on the menu as well, and in fact, most of the dinners came with them by default. Worried that these would be the same awful fries that were being served by it's sibling namesake, I decided to pay the extra $1 and get the onion rings instead.

I ordered the two piece beer batter cod and onion rings. Here is what came out:


Hallelujah! Homemade, homemade, homemade! You could tell just by looking at these that they had never seen a freezer in their lives. The fish is kind of buried under the MOUND of onion rings they give you.

Once I ate a few rings and repositioned the rest, I was able to get a better shot of the fish:


While ketchup is on the table when you sit down, when you order the fish and onion rings, the following two condiments show up with your meal:


On the left is a chipotle horseradish mayonnaise for the onion rings and on the right is a homemade tartar sauce with sweet pickles. Before even tasting a single thing I could see a 100% transformation from what I had been served just 30 minutes prior. But the proof, as they say, is in the tasting.

For the most part, the meal lived up to my expectation. Both condiments brought to the table were excellent and definitely complimented the food with whom they were meant to be paired. Normally I would eat my onion rings with ketchup, but the chipotle horseradish mayonnaise was a nice foil for the onion rings. And the tartar sauce added a nice bit of acid and sweetness to the fried cod.

The crust on the onion rings was wonderful. Light, crispy, flavorful. I loved everything about the onion rings except one thing: the rings were too thin. They just weren't meaty enough to allow the sweetness of the onion flavor to compliment the oiliness of the outside of the crust. That's not to say that the onion rings were greasy. But there will always be some inherent grease remaining in any fried product. The batter on the fish was wonderful and crunchy, but unfortunately, even my nice thicker pieces of cod were just a tad bit overcooked and kind of dry. The excellent tartar sauce helped to mitigate the dryness factor, but things being what they are, this could've been a slam dunk if they had managed to keep the fish moist.

Oh, yes, the cole slaw. Almost forgot about that. It was nice, but nothing out of the ordinary.

Across from my table was a sign that read the following:


Something about the irony of the sign just caused me to chuckle. Can you spot it, too?

I will definitely be going back to Eadie's Fish House; Eadie's the sit-down restaurant. The drive-up stand next to Eadie's that actually advertises the fish and onion rings on it's banner? Um, not so much.

After I finished my meal at Eadie's proper, I returned to my car with my leftovers only to discover that I had left the 3/4 of my malted shake in the cupholder. It was now the perfect consistency to drink. It had melted just enough that it was still cold but was finally drinkable without having to resort to a vacuum cleaner to get the liquid up the straw. And while I agreed with my earlier assessment that this was not a great malt, it at least gave me a sweet way to finish my fried fish meal.

For Those Under 30, LP Stands for Long Play

Herbie's Good Grub (formerly Herbie's Heroes) is a quaint little Massillon, Ohio sandwich shop that offers up a real funky ambiance with made-to-order sandwiches, pizzas, and subs. They are located on Amherst Road just north of Lake Avenue in the same shopping plaza as Marc's. They have several tables set up outside and several more inside, so unless you try going during their busy times, you should be able to snag a seat to eat your meal.

When you first walk into Herbie's, you can't help but notice the entire menu written on several blackboards along one wall:


The friend who clued me in to Herbie's suggested I try the cheeseburger sub and fries. After looking over the menu, I decided to go with his suggestion. I paid for my meal, sat down and started looking around the room. The nostalgia of Herbie's is captured on the walls with old Rolling Stone magazine covers as well as LP record album covers of 1960's and 1970's bands such as Elton John, Led Zeppelin, and Fleetwood Mac. The individually sized pizzas that they offer on the menu tie into this time period theme with such concoctions as the Heavy Metal, Psychedelic, and Disco.

On every table is a pamphlet about Herbie's. Here are a few shots of the outside and inside of the menu:




After about 10 minutes or so, my food finally arrived at my table nice and piping hot. First up, a shot of my cheeseburger sub and fries:


And a shot from a different angle:


And a shot of the burger from the side showing you all of the layers:


A couple of things to note. First, while you can pretty much construct your sub however you would like it, but by default it comes with your choice of cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, and Italian salad dressing. I choose to nix the onion, but kept everything else. Second, as you can see in the photo, the sandwich is actually composed of two burger patties laid next to each other on a hoagie roll. Thus, when you cut the sandwich in half, you get the equivalent of two regular burgers. Finally, you have the option of having your hoagie roll toasted or not; I opted for toasted.

Before I go into my description of my meal, I just want to note that while I love hearing about new places to try from the tens of you out there who read my blog, it can be kind of a thin line to walk. On the one hand, you clearly wouldn't be recommending the place if you didn't think it had something unique and/or tasty to offer. At the same time, I have to balance being as real to my experience as I can without running the risk of destroying someone's cherished childhood memories about a favorite eatery. It's wonderful when a restaurant's past accomplishments can live up to today's realities. But it doesn't always happen. That being said ...

As you can see from the pictures above, the patties were nice and juicy. And the tomato was really very good. It was a brilliant red and completely ripe and sweet. For a conventionally grown tomato this tasty in May, they must have a very good supplier. The shredded lettuce and American cheese were exactly as you would expect them to be. The hoagie roll was nice and fresh and you got that little extra bit of texture from the toasted inside.

This was a good sandwich. Unfortunately, this was not a great sandwich. The Italian dressing definitely added something interesting to the mix. But it didn't do what I think it should have and add that much needed sour note to balance the fattiness of the burger. The other problem I noticed was that it just didn't quite have enough salt to zero in and maximize the flavors of all the ingredients. Sure, the cheese and the dressing added some salt, but when I managed to taste a bit of the hamburger patty itself, it was as I suspected, too lightly seasoned. Now that being said, it wasn't as if this was missing salt altogether. And to be fair, salt and pepper shakers were available to add additional seasoning. However, I am of the opinion that food should come out of the kitchen ready to eat, no additional salt required.

The fries were definitely the star of the plate. Crunchy on the outside, creamy on the inside, not greasy, nicely seasoned with something more than just salt, these were a real winner. No ketchup even required. You could tell that there was more than just salt on the fries by looking at them. It was quite obvious by seeing a good bit of red and black flecks, that this was a blend of some type. The friend who suggested Herbie's originally thought it might be seasoning salt, but I'm not convinced of that. Most seasoning salts I've tasted have a weird metallic taste to them and I definitely didn't pick up on this as I was eating my fries.

I was excited to learn that on Fridays and Saturdays, Herbie's breaks out the BBQ pit and actually slowly cooks up pork shoulder in order to be able to serve pulled pork sandwiches. Being a lover of pork myself, and especially of a good pulled pork sandwich, I may just have to make a weekend trip back down to Massillon to check them out again.

I think Herbie's does a lot of things right. And if they took some time to dial in those last few elements to some of their food, I think they would be outright delicious all around. When I return for the pulled pork sandwich, I hope to be able to sample a few more items off their menu. I hope that if you are in the area, you'll give them a shot and make up your own mind.

Kiflis Bakery & Restaurant

Recently I came across fellow Akronite food blogger Kathy and her site called Carano's Cucina. In one of her more recent blogs, she details the discovery she made one day when she and her husband decided to stop at a local Cuyahoga Falls bakery just down the road from Kreiger's Market on Graham Road called Kiflis Bakery and Restaurant. What drew her in was a sign outside the building advertising fresh "burek". Keenly interested in what burek was, they stopped in to find out. As you can no doubt see from her blog entry, they had discovered someplace unique offering something unique.

Having driven by this intersection hundreds of times in my life, I was stunned to learn that this building housed a wonderful ethnic bakery that was offering up homemade and heartfelt goodies for the local community. They are located at 526 Graham Road, Cuyahoga Falls, OH 44123 and can be reached at 330-926-2123. There is currently no website, but as owner Mire Udovicic mentioned to me, he is currently having one designed for him. To make locating the building that much easier, the bakery is essentially on the corner of Graham Road, Bath Rd, and 8th Street.

Here is a view from the outside (notice the drive-thru service window on the left side of the building):


I was a concerned about the availability of fresh burek when I first pulled up because there wasn't a sign outside advertising the fact. Once inside the door though, a sign immediately to my right put me at ease:


And it turns out that I showed up on a good day. Not only was there cheese burek, but also beef, spinach and cheese, and apple. Burek can be either sweet or savory. Since Kiflis is both a bakery and a restaurant, I decided to take a look around at some of their offerings.

First up, the handwritten menu on the wall:


There are between 5 and 6 tables available to sit at and eat your meal. Given Kiflis's hours of operation, that would most likely be breakfast and lunch. They close at 5 pm during weekdays and on 3 pm on Saturdays. As you can see from the menu above, the most Mediterranean item on the menu would be the gyros. Everything else is mostly American style sandwiches.

Next up is a shot of one of the pastry cases that houses some of the burek available. All the burek is rolled in the same manner, so you can't really tell which type you have just by looking at the outside. Here we have spinach and cheese on the left and plain cheese on the right:


The cheese is a mixture of Feta cheese and American cottage cheese. The use of cottage cheese in this didn't really surprise me. I researched a Russian dish several years ago for a party I had catered and the recipe called for Sulguni (or Suliguni) cheese. The recipe noted that if I couldn't find that, a mixture of cottage cheese, Feta, and mozzarella cheese could be used in its place. The cottage cheese is used to add a nice softness and creaminess to the drier and more crumbly Feta.

In the next case over are some of their pastries that they offer by the slice:


Here you can see some of their cookies on the top shelf and the poppy seed and walnut strudels on the middle shelf.

Next up is a shot of several varieties of cookies that they offer. They generally fall into two categories, those with no jam (such as almond cookies) and those that do. I didn't get to try any of the cookies this time around, so a return trip is definitely in order!


And in the rack behind the cookies was shelf after shelf of strudel:


As with most small ethnic bakery / restaurants, Kiflis also offers some harder to locate ingredients in case you want to try and make these treats at home. While Kiflis doesn't have as large a grocery section as some other Akron ethnic stores I have visited, they did offer quite a variety of not-so-easy to find items. The prices also seemed quite reasonable.


On one of the walls by the grocery area, an article from 2001 from the local Cuyahoga Falls newspaper heralded the arrival of Mire and his wife and their new bakery:


I didn't actually taste anything at the store, but I did spend about twenty minutes talking with Mire and how he runs his store and decided to leave with tastes of four of his treats: a cheese burek, an apple burek, a slice of poppy seed strudel, and a slice of the walnut strudel. He assured me that they would be absolutely fine until later tonight.

First up, a shot of the two strudels, walnut on the left/bottom, poppy seed on the top/right:


While just a touch dry, the overall taste on both was exactly what I expected. They were sweet, but not too sweet. The dryness of the dough didn't particular bother me because I knew that a) I had asked for slices of strudel from an already cut whole strudel and b) I bought them at 1:30 pm and didn't try them until 9:30 pm later that day. The walnut filling had a wonderful nutty taste and combined well with the heady cinnamon spice. It was ground completely smooth so there wasn't any texture to it. The poppy seed was equally as good with that wonderful lemony citrus undertone to it. Both of these were excellent examples of a well done European strudel. You could definitely enjoy this in place of a nice coffeecake in the morning.

Mire pointed out that burek is traditionally a Turkish dish that he has given his own spin to. Literally. Traditionally burek was a layered type of pastry. Finding this method to be too time consuming to be profitable, he decided to do the version he offers today. Essentially they take handmade phyllo dough that they make on-site, layer a few sheets, place the filling along one end and roll it up sushi-style. Then they take the long filled pastry rope and wrap it around itself in a circular fashion. Brush with lots of butter, bake, and you get this:


Although you can't tell from the outside, this happened to be the apple burek. This is big enough for one hungry adult or could easily be split between two less hungry people. This is such a wonderful treat. The phyllo dough on the outside is so nice and tender and flaky. The filling was slightly sweetened, but not so much as to mask the natural apple taste. The filling had a nice integrity to it as you could still get the chunks of apples on the inside. Canned pie filling this was not! With just the right seasoning from cinnamon and sugar, this was a real winner.

The cheese burek was equally as good, although this was savory and not sweet. Feta by itself would've been too overpowering, too salty. The cottage cheese was used both as an extender as well as a way to cut the sharpness of the Feta. Just delicious. I ate both of these at room temperature and they were both absolutely outstanding. Mire indicated that you could gently reheat them if you chose to do so, but it really isn't necessary.

This is exactly the kind of place I love finding. Local ethnic mom and pop shop making wonderfully unique and delicious food that truly everyone can enjoy. I encourage you to stop in at Kiflis to meet Mire and his wife and try some of their truly tantalizing treats.

A Trip to Wooster for Lerch's Donuts

If you happen to find yourself near Wooster, Ohio, you might want to take a moment to find one of it's hidden treasures. A friend of mine alerted me to the presence of Lerch's Donuts (Twitter feed here) and suggested that I give them a try. Unfortunately, I had a problem. The website only lists their permanent location as "Portage Square Plaza". Both Google and Yahoo had a hard time putting an exact address to that search term. Fortunately, another Wooster-related site that allows users to comment on local businesses had an entry on Lerch's along with their location information. Specifically they are at 2312 Akron Road, Wooster, OH 44691. Akron Road also happens to be Rt. 585, the same one that connects Barberton to Wooster.

Unable to verify when their hours were (having a website is nice, but leaving off things like a street address and business hours seems a little pointless, no?), I decided to throw caution to the wind and drive down anyway as it was a lovely day. After weaving around left and right turns on Rt. 585, I finally came to the intersection of Akron and Portage Roads and immediately saw what I was looking for, a tiny little fair-style cart sitting in front of what used to be Hawkins Market (which has huge lettering by the way, hard to miss) on the right hand side of the road.

I pulled off and found a place to park and walked up to this:


The menu is simple: donuts, French waffles, and freshly squeezed lemonade. And even the donuts were simple: plain, sugared, or cinnamon sugared. While this one location I was at is permanent, there are two other carts that travel local fairs and festivals. Clearly the menu is short and sweet because they know what they are good at and this is exactly the food product they are trying to provide. No artifice at all.

Looking over the prices, I decided to get the "6 donuts for $3" deal. Two of each please. I walked away with this:


I normally try to avoid getting parts of my hand in the shot, but it was an extremely windy day today and had I let the bag go, it would have either a) fallen over or b) been moving so much that I wouldn't have gotten a good photograph. I decided that I'd better do the taste test while sitting inside my car.

Having worked so well for my Swensons post, I decided to do the food-on-the-knee photography again. These are smaller donuts (much like The Fractured Prune) so there is no need to feel guilty about eating a couple at a time. Here are the three kinds:


At the top is the plain, at 4 o'clock is the cinnamon sugared and at 8 o'clock is the sugared. They are all made from the same basic cake donut batter, but then finished in different ways (again like The Fractured Prune). Here is a shot of the interior of the plain donut:


I was quite surprised when I went to lift the donuts up off the napkin to finally eat them. I found no grease spots whatsoever. This lack of greasiness definitely translated to a wonderful light-tasting experience when eating them.

In doing my research on Lerch's before making the decision to go, on more than one occasion I came across comments from both websites and people who said that these made-to-order donuts were superior because you received them right out of the fryer. Now this may very well be true if you hit them up first thing in the morning or when they are close to running low on inventory, but when I got there and ordered my six, the woman simply walked over to a set of trays, slid one out and filled my bag. I didn't have the presence of mind to ask when the donuts had been fried, but it had been long enough that they were the same temperature as the outside air.

When I finally had a chance to try them, I decided to start with the simplest of the three, the plain donut. It had an interesting "crunch" to the outside. More of a resistance than a crunch really. I liked it. The donut itself was nice and fresh on the inside and what really surprised me a lot was the controlled level of sweetness. It wasn't cloyingly sweet like a Krispy Kreme is. I also found that even with the cinnamon sugared and sugared donuts, they were equally as restrained on the sweetness factor. I found that I rather enjoyed them.

I ate three of them sitting in my car and then brought the other three home with me. I tried them again several hours later and found that while the flavor was still the same as it had been earlier, that elusive "crunch" was now missing; effects of the room's humidity no doubt. I'm going to go out on a limb and propose that they are probably at their peak when right out of the fryer and dredged in the cinnamon and/or sugar coatings.

Would I purposely drive the forty-five minutes it took me to get there again just for these donuts? Probably not. If I was within fifteen minutes of their location, would I change course for some of these donuts? Absolutely. And if one of the two extra Lerch's carts happened to be at a fair or festival I was attending? Perfect.

And before I forget to mention it, I asked the woman working behind the counter what their hours of operation are. Hours of operation are from 6:30 am - 6:30 pm, although the closer you get to 6:30 pm, the less inventory they may have available to sell.

While these donuts probably wouldn't appeal to the extreme sweet tooth readers out there, for everyone else they are a nice treat and I definitely recommend them.

Medina Destination: Miss Molly's Tea Room

When it came time to decide how we would be celebrating my mother's 60th birthday, it didn't take long to come to the conclusion that something special was in order. We had to consider the restaurant carefully because one of our party members has food sensitivity issues. So, putting all of those requirements together, we decided to make the trip over to Medina, OH and have lunch at Miss Molly's Team Room and Gift Shop. We had reservations for Saturday at 1 p.m. and I heartily recommend that you don't just "drop in" without them. The place was PACKED. And it stayed that way the entire time we were there. I'm not sure how busy the restaurant is during the week, but on weekends, I can assure they are not lacking for patrons.

Miss Molly's is just west of the downtown Medina square. Here is the sign as you drive up:


And a shot of their storefront window:


Remembering from a previous visit how dimly lit the restaurant is, I decided to take my regular camera with me instead of relying on the camera in my cellphone. I was worried at first because I didn't want surrounding patrons to get annoyed by the camera flash. As it turns out, I had little to worry about because it became quite clear that there was a lot of picture taking going on around me. The difference? Other people were taking pictures of their friends. I was here to take pictures of the food. My dining companions and I laughed when I pointed this fact out.

First, a few ambiance shots:


And a ceiling light:


And finally, the table setting at our table:


Of course, you can't go to Miss Molly's without having the preferred beverage of choice, tea! They have a long list of both bagged and loose teas. I decided on a Cinnamon and Orange Ceylon tea. After a few minutes this came out to our table:


Very quaint, indeed! I can see why patrons think that Miss Molly's is an indulgence from days long gone by. In fact, my other dining companions were a little puzzled by the contraption sitting on top of the empty teacup. It is a two-piece metal strainer. The strainer part they got. The piece sitting underneath the strainer (which you really can't see very well in the above photo) was what got them scratching their heads. It is actually a metal cup that you place the "used" strainer in once you've poured your tea.

Unfortunately, I didn't manage to get a picture of the actual tea, but I have to tell you that this was a brilliant cup of tea. The cinnamon, orange, and clove notes were exactly what I hoped for. And in an odd sort of twist, the tea almost tasted sweetened (I generally don't sweeten my tea). In fact, had someone poured me a cup of this, I would've assumed they had added just a touch of sugar to it. Two of my dining companions ordered the blackberry tea and were equally as pleased with their choices.

As a starter, I decided to go with the daily soup special, a crab bisque. This came out at the same time as the hot tea and with all the pots and cups and beverage glasses now on the table, it took me a minute to rearrange everything so it would all fit. Here is a shot of the bisque:


This was mediocre. I was hoping for a nice creamy soup with lots of crab flavor and that wonderful unctuous "bisque" mouth feel. What I got was something a little more gloopy that looked like it had been thickened with just a bit too much roux. A little bit of acid, perhaps some lemon juice or a nice sherry vinegar, would've really helped to brighten up the flavor a bit as well.

Unfortunately, things didn't improve when I finally received my main meal, the chicken divan:


From what I read on the menu, I had assumed that the chicken would come out as a whole breast. In actuality, the diced chicken breast is mixed with broccoli in a cheese curry sauce, topped with the buttered breadcrumbs and baked as a mini-casserole. To the right is the cucumber salad and at the front of the plate are the slices of bread from a French batard that the menu advertised. Not being from the era where chicken divan was at its most popular (somewhere between the 50's and 60's according to what my dining companions speculated), I've not had the pleasure of eating this dish with any regularity. Thus, I really have nothing on which to compare it. But as a casserole, I found this just 'okay'. The layer of oil that had separated out at the bottom of the dish wasn't all that appetizing either.

The cucumber salad, on the other hand, was a bit more promising. Thinly sliced cucumbers and onions had been marinated in what tasted like a sour cream, vinegar, and sugar mixture. This had just a wee bit of heat to it, so I'm guessing there was probably a small amount of cayenne pepper in the mix, too. This tasted fine, but due to the liquidity of the dressing, it was a bit messy to eat.

Finally, there were the slices of bread from the French batard:


Now, I've made many a batard or two in my days and unfortunately, I couldn't verify that it was an actual batard because I never saw the loaf from which it was cut. This was a whole grain bread that had been studded with several kinds of seeds. On the positive side, the bread was incredibly fresh and not the least bit stale. The initial nose test didn't reveal the presence of any type of pre-ferment (think of how sourdough bread smells). What surprised me after tasting the bread was the noticeable lack of flavor; it seems the baker didn't use enough salt. Just to verify that my assessment was reliable, I gave two of my companions a bit of my bread to taste. I then asked them for their opinions having not told them what I thought. Both of them responded that the bread had no flavor. Disappointing, to say the least.

Finally, having never tried strawberry and pretzel salad before, my one dining companion (and the birthday girl) let me try a bite of hers:


Honestly, other than the tea, this was probably the best thing I had today. This is a fairly straightforward "salad" consisting of crushed pretzels on the bottom, a sweetened cream cheese layer above that, strawberries in gelatin above that, and finished with whipped cream and walnuts on top. It definitely played well to the notion of a balanced dish: sweet, salty, creamy, crunchy.

I'd also like to put in a couple of thoughts on the service we received today. Everyone was friendly and helpful and our server brought our food out just as we ordered it. However, service was extremely slow and while I realize that the house was packed the entire time we were dining, our server's absence was noticed on several occasions. Especially towards the end of the meal when we were trying to get the check so that we could leave. So, if you decide to go during a peak time, plan on being there at least 90 minutes to two hours.

At the gift shop in front of the restaurant, there are lots of tea-related items for sale, including the tea pots and cups used in the restaurant. If this type of dining experience is your cup of tea (come on, you knew I was going to do it at some point in the review!), then you'll probably find the gift shop a place you'll want to peruse after your meal.

Overall, this is a quaint restaurant with a very unique identity. My dining companions enjoyed their food more than I did, so I can't say that the food is overwhelmingly good or bad. I just wouldn't be surprised if you get two different culinary experiences on two separate visits. Be sure to get one of their fresh-brewed teas though as it is consistently delicious and definitely a strong point.