Speedy Mexican Cuisine At Casa Del Rio

How I could have possibly overlooked such a happening Wadsworth dinner spot does not reflect well on my ability to feel the pulse of my hometown. I have covered much of the local, independently owned restaurants in Wadsworth over the last two years, but there was one that I had not gotten around to until tonight, Casa Del Rio. Situated back from the road behind the Sunoco station right at the exit onto Rt. 94 from I-76, the building has had a long history of restaurant locales. When I first moved to Wadsworth back in 1986, it was an L & K Diner. Then it became a Denny's for a while. About nine years ago, it turned into its current incarnation, Casa Del Rio.

I had eaten there prior to tonight, but it had been quite some time. At a recent meal at a completely unrelated restaurant, I overheard another patron recommend Casa Del Rio and this put a bug in my ear to return and check it out for myself. While the sign can be seen from the highway,


if you are programming the street address into your GPS, it would be 839 High Street, Wadsworth, OH 44281. They can be reached at 330-335-4001. Parking was in the lot surrounding the restaurant.

Here was a shot of the front entrance to Casa Del Rio:


When I pulled into the parking lot tonight (a Wednesday night) at 7:15 PM, I wasn't expecting a parking lot so packed with cars that it took me two revolutions around the restaurant to finally snag a spot. As I walked through the front door, there were people in the hallway leading to a secondary door which actually took you inside the eatery. The place was packed with at least a fifteen minute wait list. Since it was only fifteen minutes and I was fairly hungry by this point, I decided to wait for a table.

Fortunately, most of the dinner rush must have been finishing up their meals as only ten minutes later, the hostess indicated that she had a table ready for me. She left me with the menu to peruse:





Within seconds of my arrival at the table, salsa and tortilla chips quickly followed:


The salsa was mostly pureed and had a nice acidity from the tomatoes and the lime juice. It had a touch of spice from the jalapenos and personally, I would've liked a little more spice, but I can see how this level of heat would be good for the average customer. I could also taste the fresh cilantro, which gave the salsa a nice herbal flavor.


The corn chips tasted fresh, but were served room temperature. Perhaps I've gotten spoiled by other Mexican-American restaurants, but I do enjoy the chips more when they are still warm. That being said, I'll take fresh room temperature chips over stale, warm chips any day. The other interesting discovery I made was that Casa Del Rio serves tortilla halves instead of tortilla quarters. It didn't affect the flavor, obviously, but I did find that breaking the halves into smaller pieces made for easier dipping into the salsa for consumption.

Since I had already looked at the menu on-line before coming to the restaurant tonight, I already had a pretty good idea of what I wanted to order, the Burritos Decebrados:


I know that many of the components used in Mexican cuisine can be prepared ahead and at the time of service, most of the menu can be assembled a la minute and plated quite quickly. What I didn't expect was that a mere three minutes after placing my order, my entree made its way from the kitchen to my table. The gentleman delivering the plate warned me that the plate was extremely hot. Over the years, I have developed a personal theory that the hotness of the plate seems to be inversely proportional to the correct placement of the dish in front of you. In other words, the hotter the plate, the more it will need to be adjusted so that it is directly in front of you.

Only mildly heeding his warning, when I went to adjust the plate for a better photograph, I discovered that the plate was indeed 4000 degrees Fahrenheit. Okay, so maybe I am stretching the truth just a tad, but when they warn you that the plate is hot, they truly mean it. After getting a nice photograph of my dinner, I started to examine it a little more closely. The dish consisted of two flour tortillas filled with braised beef and topped with a chile con queso. Some of Casa Del Rio's refried beans were served along side and topped with just a touch more melted queso.

Here was a shot of the filling inside of the burritos:


When I got to the end of one of the burritos, I decided to open it up and expose the delicious beefy filling for an even better shot:


The beef was completely tender, juicy, and very tasty. Based on the what was in the tortilla shells, it had been braised with tomatoes, red peppers, and onions. The meat was seasoned nicely and would've made an excellent filling for a number of other dishes. The flour tortillas were fresh and the edges that hadn't been covered in chile con queso had browned slightly under the broiler. The chile con queso had a bold flavor and was both creamy with just a touch of heat from the jalapenos, but was a tad thin and rather than stay on top of the burritos instead pooled on the plate.

The refried beans were served in a massive portion next to the burritos. I tasted the beans by themselves and while creamy and quite "beany," were just a tad underseasoned. Mixed with some of the melted cheese, they were okay, but just to check, I grabbed a spoonful of beans and added just a small sprinkle of salt from the shaker on the table to see if that would fix the problem; it did. This was a minor gripe, however, as the beans were just shy of being well-seasoned.

When my server returned to check on me, I asked for the check. With water to drink, my check came to roughly $9.50 with tax. As with most casual Mexican-American restaurants, there was a cashier at the front of the restaurant where you actually pay the check. When I got to the front, I asked the gentleman running the register if it was always this crazy. He replied that until the national chain Chipotle had opened up several months ago in Wadsworth (where the Blockbuster used to be, in case you were wondering), it was like that every night of the week. Business died down a little after Chipotle opened, he surmised, because people were checking it out for themselves. When they realized that the food being served at the two establishments really was entirely different, business has once again returned.

My hat is off to anyone who manages to keep a packed restaurant seven nights a week. Based on the meal I had tonight and the incredibly quick turn-around between the time I arrived, was sat, and paid the check, even if there is a wait when you go, you won't spend hours until you have eaten and are ready to leave. The food was tasty and fresh and even if the beans were a bit underseasoned for my taste, overall the experience was quite a positive one. If you already happen to live near Wadsworth, there is no doubt in my mind that you should try out Casa Del Rio. Since I visit family and friends in Wadsworth often, I don't have to make the decision of whether to travel there just for a restaurant. Should you find yourself in this neck of the woods, definitely put them on your list of restaurants at which to eat.

Sometimes You Need To Bastardize The Homogeneity

Since I started writing this blog two years ago, I have stopped in occasionally to visit a childhood favorite of mine, Marie's Pizza and Chicken. This Wadsworth-based restaurant established itself on the south side of town where it's most major accomplishment was to win the Akron Beacon Journal's Best Pizza Award in 1976. From that point until the late 2000's when the new location opened up just north of I-76, the focus has been on what made the restaurant such a maven for locals: great pizza and simple, but delicious Italian classics.

When walking into the new building, one familiar with the previous location could immediately recognize that the new space tripled (and that's without the extra banquet room space) the amount of seating. In addition to starting out with a completely new space for the restaurant, the owner also decided to expand the menu, presumably in an effort to compete on a more level playing field with the likes of Applebee's just down the street, which never seems to have a shortage of patrons on the weekends.

Smartly, the dishes that made Marie's such a go to spot in the first place remained on the menu. Not-so-smartly, the expanded menu sought to include dishes that were well outside of their comfort zone, such as teriyaki-flavored dishes and sandwich wraps. When the new location opened several years ago, the place would be literally mobbed for lunch and dinner and in fact, I waited about six weeks before even attempting to try and get in. Since then, I have written about them three times, two of which were positive and the last, well, not entirely glowing.

I decided to include a fourth review not because I am a glutton for punishment, but because a) they have a newly printed and bound menu and b) I think I am at the point where I can conclusively recommend Marie's for only a handful of items on the menu, sadly most of the ones that made the original menu at their first location such a success.

When I sat down today, my server handed me the now tome-like menu. While not quite as bad as say, The Cheesecake Factory, it was certainly nowhere near the brevity of their first menu:











As I looked through the menu, I was actually filled with a bit of sadness. Besides the spelling mistakes I noticed, the menu spoke of the homogeneity of today's modern dining out experience. This menu had the same look and feel of almost every national chain restaurant; instead of standing out and counting on its individuality, the new menu instead emphasized the vast blandness of conformity. So sad.

While I have more or less stuck to the tried and true menu items from my youth, today I was feeling in neither a pizza nor pasta kind of mood. Since my last sandwich selection wasn't particularly good, I decided to try one of their newer additions, the Tuscan Wrap. While the sandwich came with potato chips by default, for an additional upcharge, I could add fried-from-frozen French Fries and a side such as coleslaw, applesauce, or cottage cheese. I chose the coleslaw, which came out first:


Essentially food service coleslaw (which, gentle reader, means that the kitchen simply portions each serving from the prepared and delivered container that someone like Sysco provides), this side was about as remarkable as every other version you could get at a national chain restaurant. Which is to say, completely unremarkable.

Things perked up slightly after our table received the complimentary garlic bread sticks and warm marinara dipping sauce:


Since I've described the bread sticks and sauce in a previous entry, I won't do it again here. Sadly, this was the high point of the meal for me.

After a little bit longer, our lunch plates arrived. Here was a shot of my Tuscan Wrap with French Fries:


Here was a close-up shot of the filling in today's wrap:


The Tuscan Wrap was a sun-dried tomato basil wrap containing grilled chicken, onions, green peppers, melted cheese and dried Italian herbs, I'm guessing oregano. While the ingredients in the wrap were definitely hot, my first taste of the wrap left me wondering if they had opened up an Italian Taco Bell in the kitchen as the flavors and textures reminded me of the chicken burrito I can get for $1.39 at the fast food giant. With how uniformly cut the chicken chunks appeared inside the wrap, it didn't take a stretch of the imagination to realize that the chicken had already been cooked and chopped and simply re-warmed for service.

Fortunately, the French Fries were the saving grace of this plate of food:


While they were fried-from-frozen (as confirmed by our server), at least they were fried properly, seasoned well, and were nice and fluffy on the inside. I ended up eating less than half of my wrap and about half of my fries before throwing in the towel and calling it quits.

Having eaten Marie's pizza about a week prior to this lunch, I do have to say that the pizza still captures a special place in my heart. However, should their pizza and pasta start to decline, even just a little, I would be entirely willing to write this once adored pantheon of carb-laden goodness off as a casualty of conformity.

As today's visit to Marie's was a celebratory one (my aunt's birthday was the day prior), we returned to my grandmother's condo to finish off the lunch with a small cake from Ann's Pastry located in downtown Wadsworth:


After expressing my desire to have a small cake (it was just four of us) that had REAL buttercream frosting and not the seemingly de facto standard of vegetable shortening sweetened with sugar, my mother managed to track down exactly what she needed at Ann's. While the cake had thoughtfully come adorned with just a single red rose, my mother decided to transform the cake into the poster child for breast cancer awareness by covering every available square inch on top of the cake with pink candles.

After singing Happy Birthday with some very, ahem, interesting clapping by my aunt (whom I promised I would not post the footage I captured on my camera), I set about slicing up four servings of the cake:


The good news was that this yellow cake was both tasty and moist. The bad news was that the frosting, although a buttercream, suffered from way too much sweetness; to the point where I had to seek out a glass of water to help tame it down a bit. I haven't had the opportunity to give a range of Ann's Pastry Shop products a try yet for the blog, so I don't want to condemn the entire shop just because the frosting today was over the top in sugar content. They've been around quite a long time (more than twenty years), so they must be doing something correct. I'll have to give them a more formal review at some point in the near future.

For those interested in checking out this quaint little shop, it can be found at 121 High Street, Wadsworth, OH 44281 and can be reached at 330-335-7441.

A Trip To This Galaxy Will Cost You

My grandfather was very loyal to certain restaurants. He knew the owner, the menu, and most importantly, the wait staff. A meal for him was much more than showing up, having a cocktail, eating food, and paying the check. For him it was equally about connecting with other people and learning a little bit (or a lot) of their life's story. For a number of years, he called Li'l Joe's Pub in Bath, Ohio, his home away from home. This was where he would go to unwind, have a Manhattan (or two) and order one of his favorites from the menu, like the linguine with white clam sauce. Sadly, Li'l Joe's closed down a number of years ago (although Papa Joe's is still going strong) and in its place today are the Ken Stewart power duo of Tre Belle and The Lodge.

Without a place to go on a regular basis, my grandfather sought the comforts of an eatery much closer to where he lived in Wadsworth, the Galaxy Restaurant. At the time it was just a restaurant and banquet facility, but over the years a pub, wine room, and small market have been added. While I have eaten on and off at this restaurant for over a dozen years since it originally opened, it wasn't until I saw fellow food blogger CJ's review on CJ's Real Deals on Meals that I realized that with all of the Wadsworth restaurants I HAD reviewed, for some reason I missed this one.

I decided to stop out today for a late lunch and do a formal review of them. The facility was located right off of I-76 and Rt. 94. The address was 201 Park Center Drive, Wadsworth, OH 44281 and they can be reached at 330-334-3663. Parking was available in a lot that surrounds the entire building. Here was the sign that delineated where the property began:


Once I had parked, I walked up to the entrance (there were several) that was most closely connected with the dining room:


Fortunately, once you are inside, there is a connecting hallway that runs the length of the building from the banquet facilities to the pub. The dining room seemed particularly empty and when the woman manning the hostess booth returned to her station, she said that I could eat in the dining room if I wanted to or I could enjoy myself (and the same lunch menu) over in the pub. Figuring that there would at least be a television or two to entertain me while I ate, I chose to walk past the small market to the pub entrance.

After being seated, I was handed the menu:





While the menu has evolved and adapted over the years, there were still some old stalwarts in existence on the menu today: The chicken salad has been a long-time favorite of my grandmother's. When I saw that they were offering hand breaded onion rings, I decided to pair them with one of the sandwiches. But first, I was in the mood for either a cup of soup or a small salad. Interestingly, some of the salads offered were plated in either half or full portions. When I saw the spinach salad with bacon and hard boiled egg AND that it was available in a half size, I was hooked.

Here was my spinach salad:


This was a HALF portion! It was huge. I can only imagine how large the full portion would be. The salad came pre-dressed with a red wine vinaigrette and while I was initially worried that it would come swimming in dressing, I was pleasantly surprised that it was dressed perfectly. Besides the spinach leaves, the salad had cooked and chopped bacon, egg, mushrooms, red onion slivers, shredded carrots, and in an unusual twist, fresh bean sprouts.

First, the good. The dressing had a nice balance to it between the sweet and the sour. The spinach was very fresh and crunchy. The bacon added nice bursts of saltiness to the dish. The bean sprouts, even with all of the other flavors going on, easily sang through the other flavors, but didn't overpower the symphony of flavors. Second, the not-so-good. The mushrooms were slimy. There was barely any egg in the salad. The dressing needed more salt. Nevertheless, I finished my portion.

While I already knew I would be upgrading my order today to take advantage of the onion rings, I wasn't quite sure with which sandwich I would pair it. I let my gaze fall across the "Sandwiches" section of the menu until it eventually gravitated to the Chicken Parmesan sandwich served on a toasted hoagie roll. This was what I would order today.

Here was a shot of my lunch as it arrived from the kitchen:


First, let's talk about the Chicken Parmesan sandwich:


The bun was fresh and nicely toasted, with the exception of the spine, where sauce had compromised the integrity of the bun and turned it into a marinara mush. The rather large and awkward piece of fried-from-frozen chicken didn't sit very well on the hoagie bun and I had to use my knife to more or less cut it into multiple pieces and wedge it between the two halves. The marinara looked a little bit scant in terms of portion size, but when I finally bit into the sandwich, it turned out to be an adequate amount of sauce. Picking up my newly adjusted sandwich, I took a bite and was rewarded with hot, but completely dry chicken meat. It wasn't dessicated, but neither was it juicy. The sandwich was ... eh, okay.

I next turned my attention to the onion rings:


First, the good. The breading was tasty and not greasy. Clearly these had been hand breaded just before frying. On onion rings that had some thickness to them, the sweet flavor from the onion was a nice balance to the saltiness of the coating. Overall, these were decent rings. Second, the bad. Not very many of the rings were thick enough to provide the proper sweet contrast to the savory outside coating. Many of the rings were so thin before frying that they became like onion jerky. Finally, clearly these had been hand breaded just before frying. Yes, yes, gentle reader, I know I listed that in the positives column. Let me explain. Because they hadn't had time to sit with the coating on them before frying, as you touched each ring, heck, if you breathed in the wrong direction, the coating on the rings would shatter and fall off. It became almost an exercise in futility to try and get a ring with coating into your mouth.

Accompanying the onion rings today was a side of Bistro Sauce. While it looked like Thousand Island dressing, when I tasted it, the additional flavors of sweet pickle relish and a spiciness of some type, perhaps cayenne, also came into play. The sauce actually went well with the onion rings, but because the rings were so nicely seasoned, I didn't use very much of the sauce. My server, distressed that I hadn't like the sauce because I had placed it on the table instead of on my plate, asked me if I didn't like it. I assured him that everything was fine and I had only placed it on the table to give me more room on the plate.

With tax and suitable tip, my lunch today (I had a glass of water) came to $19. Now, $19 isn't exactly cheap for lunch, and given the quality of the lunch I did have, I'd say the value today was a bit in question. While the Galaxy (and especially the pub) have served as a popular meeting spot for out-of-town friends who need a spot for a pint of their favorite frosty beverage and a bite to eat, for this kind of money, the food really ought to be stellar. I do intend to return to review the dinner menu in the dining room. Since lunch is the same no matter where you sit, I hope that this review gave you a good idea of what to expect should you decide to go for yourself.

Sometimes Homemade Just Isn't Enough

While it has been more than a year since anything about Marie's Restaurant in Wadsworth, Ohio has shown up here on the blog, that doesn't mean that it has been that long since I returned for a meal. Often times I end up getting the same thing on different visits and once I've written about a particular menu item, there really isn't a need to re-hash it again (unless it has dramatically changed). The trouble is that since Marie's isn't all that close to where I live, I only consider going when I am either a) craving their pizza or b) already in Wadsworth visiting with my grandmother. On this particular visit, instead of our semi-yearly visit to Miss Molly's Tea Room to celebrate my mother's birthday, she indicated that she'd like to go to Marie's instead. This was doubly good for my grandmother, who has certain food restrictions, because their menu does indeed offer some items she can eat without issue.

When Marie's first relocated to its present location in the northern end of Wadsworth, expecting to find an empty table at 11:30 AM on a Saturday would have been a fruitless endeavor. Fortunately, as happens with all popular restaurants, after a few months the hysteria dies down and you start to see more realistic numbers during the lunch and dinner rush. We arrived today and found a rather sparse crowd at 11:30 and by the time we left an hour later, it was busier, but certainly not packed.

Since I neglected to take a photograph of the front of Marie's restaurant on my last two write-ups, I thought I would include one now:


While the pizza has been my staple menu item for years, today I wasn't particularly feeling the love. I've had good success with their chicken Parmesan sandwich before, but wanted to try a twist today and decided to go with the homemade meatball sandwich instead. It seemed like a real no-brainer since the buns were homemade, the meatballs were homemade, and the marinara was homemade. Having already established that I like the buns and the marinara because of the chicken Parmesan sandwich, it seemed that the only unknown part of this equation were the meatballs. After having had a pretty bad meatball recently at Bellacino's Pizza and Grinders, I figured that Marie's couldn't be worse.

After placing our orders and dropping off our drinks, our server surprised us with a basket of garlic breadsticks and marinara sauce:


I had forgotten that breadsticks came complimentary with our meal. They were made from the same homemade dough that Marie's uses for their pizza. Here was a shot of my breadstick, sauced:


I've written about the breadsticks in a past entry, so I won't belabor the point of repeating myself. I'll just stick with ... these were pretty good.

Shortly after finishing the breadsticks, our lunches arrived. Here was a shot of my meatball sandwich and potato chips:


Hidden at the rear of the plate was a standard dill pickle spear. All sandwiches come with potato chips, and you can upgrade to another side for an additional fee. Obviously, I just decided to go with the standard potato chips today. Both the pickle and chips were of the grocery store variety and didn't go out of their way to impress me. At the same time, the flavor was precisely what I expected from this level of food product.

The meatball sandwich, however, was definitely worth talking about. I guess I had assumed that a meatball sandwich would be served on a roll-style bun; something with a spine that connected the two halves together. Marie's version was served on the same bun that the rest of the sandwiches utilized. For chicken Parmesan, this was fine since the fried chicken patty sat nicely between the split roll.

As you can see in this next shot, melted mozzarella cheese partially covered the ROUND meatballs:


And here was a shot of the sandwich, bisected:


Because of the roundness of the meatballs, taking a bite meant not only trying to get a mouthful of sandwich, but also preventing the filling from falling out onto the plate below. In terms of "Sandwich Science," either slice the meatballs in half so they don't roll, or put the round meatballs in a hoagie bun. That criticism aside, how did it taste? From a flavor standpoint, it was quite good. All the elements worked pretty well together. The meatball flavor was prominent and the acidity from the marinara sauce added a nice counterbalance to the fattiness of the meat. Sadly, the meatballs were a bit dry. I think that made the meatball a little bit tougher to chew than it should have been. Would I order the sandwich again? Yes, I would. Based on my other visits, I'm willing to consider the overcooked meatballs an anomaly.

Another oddity that came out on my plate hidden underneath the potato chips was this lone, strangely-shaped Jo Jo:


For those not from the northeast Ohio area, a Jo Jo is kind of like a potato wedge that may or may not be coated and then normally fried (and they can be baked, too). Somehow this misshapen spud managed to sneak its way onto my plate. Either none of us were in the mood for a potato or its uneven size made us all too scared to touch it as it sat lonely on my side plate. I have had Jo Jo's at Marie's before and they were at least on par with the rest of the Jo Jo universe.

While I still maintain that Marie's menu was unnecessarily enlarged to appeal to a wider audience, at least the Italian staples that made them a Wadsworth institution have remained solid and still tasty. While I have heard others state that they think Marie's has declined over the years, the food and service has always remained pretty consistent during my visits. While their new location doesn't quite have the charm of the original, the food still manages to take me back to my high school days when I'd stop in for some Italian American treats.

Making The Grade At Alexandris Restaurant

At a recent breakfast with one of my faithful readers and her husband, the suggestion was made that I ought to check out another one of Wadsworth's old stalwarts, Alexandris Restaurant right on the downtown square. I had eaten there many, many years ago when I was still in high school, but for some reason, it had fallen off of the radar until the moment when my breakfast companions suggested it.

The restaurant is located at 146 Main Street, Wadsworth, OH, 44281 and can be reached at 330-336-0203. I searched for a website and couldn't find an official one, although the restaurant is mentioned on a number of other related website (Urbanspoon, etc.).

I approached the front of the restaurant at around 1 P.M. As I prepared to take the photo of the front of the restaurant,


a woman carrying a carry-out container walked out of Alexandris and out of frame. At that moment I snapped the photo only to discover that she had only been delivering an order to the store next door. As I lowered my camera, she approached me.

"What are you doing?"
"I'm taking a picture."
"Why?" (Her voice began to escalate.)
"Because I wanted to."
"Is there something wrong?"

I knew I couldn't tell her the real reason why I was here as that could potentially compromise the anonymity of my visit and the quality of the food I would receive. I decided to play it cool and try and diffuse the situation.

"No, nothing is wrong. I just wanted a picture, that's all."

Seemingly placated by my words, I followed her in through the front door and promptly asked for a table for one person. She seated me at a table near the back of the restaurant and went back about her business, oblivious to the fact that I continued to discreetly take additional photos. The seating arrangements at Alexandris can be broken up into tables, booths, and the ever popular lunch counter. Here was a shot of the lunch counter:


To the left of the lunch counter is a small salad bar containing the ingredients for a green, leafy salad with all of the trimmings or a variety of homemade non-green salads such as pasta salad, macaroni salad, potato salad, and cole slaw.

I normally try and photograph the entire menu, especially for a restaurant that doesn't already publish theirs on a website, but unfortunately, there were FOUR menus to choose from today and I decided that it would be just too much. Here were some of the menu choices I had from which to choose.

The regular Breakfast Specials:


The regular Lunch Specials:


And the regular lunch and dinner menu:



I failed to take photos of the regular breakfast menu and the daily specials which were written on a dry erase board by the entrance to the restaurant. Clearly there is a lot of choice at Alexandris Restaurant.

Today I was in the mood for a sandwich and despite the fact that my server suggested I try the Triple Decker, when I saw that they offered a Patty Melt, I was immediately drawn towards that choice instead. With most of the sandwiches offered on the menu, it was only a $0.50 surcharge to add a bowl of soup, too. My server assured me that both soups today, Lentil soup and Creamy Chicken Noodle soup, were made from scratch in the kitchen. My choice of Lentil soup was greeted with approval as my server noted that "too few people order that, but it is really very good."

A few minutes later, my soup arrived:


The soup was actually very good and the lentils were nice and soft. In addition to the lentils, ham, carrots, celery, onion, and a good bit of black pepper made their way into this bowl. While I would order this soup again just the way it was, as I continued to eat it, I began to notice that it was missing something. The first flavor that popped into my head was rosemary. The second was thyme. I don't know that it needed both, but it definitely needed something herbaceous. A second tier of flavor, if you will.

After finishing my bowl of soup (which is a great deal for $0.50 extra), my sandwich and onion rings arrived:


Served with grilled rye bread, two kinds of American cheese (white and yellow) and grilled onions, the Patty Melt was slightly better than average. The bread and the cheese were fine, but unfortunately, the grilled onions still had a bit too much crunch to them and the 1/2 pound burger, which I had asked to be cooked medium, came out something more like this:


While the burger wasn't dry, it certainly wasn't medium either. Closer to a shade over medium well. I'm guessing that the grilled onions were started at the same time as the burger and only after the onions cooked long enough were they both removed at the same time.

My side of onion rings didn't fare much better:


The moment I tried to bite into these, the onion on the inside immediately released from the outer coating and I got a mouthful of cooked onion sans coating. I suspected that these were fried from frozen and when I asked my server about it, she freely admitted it. "Gee, we don't have time to do everything from scratch, you know?" This seemed a little strange given that they made so many of their other items from scratch and yet failed to see why doing fresh onion rings would make that much of a difference.

I finished up the remainder of my lunch and took my check up to the front of the restaurant where the woman who had first confronted me outside was standing behind the cash register.

"How was everything?" she quipped.
"Oh, just fine," I quietly answered.

Apparently she had been fortuitous enough to catch me snapping a photograph of the outside of her restaurant, but hadn't managed to catch me in the act of taking a dozen more once I sat down. I thought about telling her that I would be writing about her restaurant on my food blog (since I had already paid the check and comps weren't possible at that point), but then thought better of it. Of the many places I have reviewed so far, few have gotten that privilege and those that did had normally caught me in the act of taking pictures and asked enough specific questions about what I was doing that I had to come clean.

I'm torn about Alexandris Restaurant. The Patty Melt platter was $5.95. The additional bowl of soup was only $0.50 more. That makes for a check that is easy on the wallet. However, an excellent bowl of soup mixed with an overcooked burger and mediocre onion rings makes me think that while there was nice potential for a good meal, they definitely have room for improvement. While Alexandris Restaurant isn't someplace I would recommend to people who are looking for a destination dining type of spot, if you happen to be in Wadsworth, it's worth checking out.