A Menu Befitting A Former Vice President

[Ed. Note: After a disastrous attempt to fulfill our intended reservations at Miss Molly's Tea Room, our group decided to try and salvage our birthday luncheon trip by attempting to locate another downtown Medina eatery that one of the attending members had eaten at before but couldn't quite remember where it was. I whipped out my Internet-connected G1 phone and attempted to let the "little blue dot" guide me to the proper spot.

Don't worry about the story of Miss Molly's ... all will be told in the next entry.]

As it was a nice day today, we decided to leave the car parked in Miss Molly's lot and walk the block to the main part of the square in downtown Medina. I dutifully followed the little blue dot as we apparently were moving closer and closer to where Google Maps had identified the restaurant being located. By the time we had reached the southeast corner of the square and had yet to spot the restaurant, I began growing frustrated. Fortunately, by tapping on the icon on the map, the phone number for the restaurant became available and I called.

"Hello, Main Street Cafe. How can I help you?"
"Um, yes. I'm standing on the southeast corner of the square, by the public library. I'm trying to find you guys using Google Maps on my phone, but am having no luck. Where are you?"
"Okay, you want to look to the west side of the square and we are right in the middle. Even though Google lists the address as being on Public Square, we are actually on Court."

With that out of the way, we retraced our steps and finally came to the restaurant. Here was a shot of the front of the restaurant:


Of course, this begs the question: Why is the restaurant named Main Street Cafe, when it isn't actually on Main Street? Wouldn't it more aptly have been named Court Street Cafe? If any of my gentle readers has a plausible explanation, please feel free to leave a comment.

Fortunately, where we had been met with an unacceptable situation at Miss Molly's, the hostess at the Main Street Cafe was very polite and quickly seated us at a table near the front of the restaurant. From my vantage point at my table, I could tell that the establishment was one of those long and narrow places. In addition to the seating at the front of the restaurant, there was also a bar area and additional seating in the rear of the hall, too. There were stairs descending into the depths, but I wasn't sure if that led to a third part of the restaurant or was simply just a basement / storage area.

Our hostess left us with the lunch menu. Here was a shot of the front:


And the back:


While many of the items on the menu sounded good, I was concerned with the number of spelling mistakes I was seeing on the paper in front of me. Not surprisingly, the obvious faux pas of seeing the French Dip sandwich come "with au jus" didn't surprise me; however, at Main Street Cafe, their version came "with aus jus." The most glaring error was the spelling of "potatoes" used in their Guilt-Free Fries listed in the appetizer portion of the menu (which, incidentally enough, only means that they were fried in transfat-free oil). Main Street Cafe's version? "Potoes." For a quick moment I considered the possibility that Dan Quayle had entered into a lucrative new career of writing up menus.

We entertained ourselves looking over the menu for additional mistakes until our drinks arrived. Here was the iced tea I ordered:


I don't normally comment a whole lot on iced tea, but this one was quite good and suitably refreshing. I may have been slightly biased because we had just finished walking all over Hell's half-acre trying to find a suitable lunch spot and I was pretty parched. Regardless, I could tell that this was freshly brewed.

Our server, who reminded more than one of us at the table of a slightly older Cindy Brady from the ever popular late 70's television show, was helpful in taking our order, especially my grandmother who has to be very careful what she eats. Several items on the menu sounded appealing to me, but when I read that the ground beef for the burgers was done in-house, I thought that this was a promising sign that the kitchen was dedicated to providing the best burger possible. While my dish came with potato chips by default, I decided to upgrade to a side of the Guilt-Free Potoes (yes, that was intentionally misspelled) instead.

After about fifteen minutes, our lunch finally arrived. Here was a shot of my burger platter:


Let's talk about the fries first. On the positive side, they were hot and not greasy. For a fresh cut fry, these weren't too bad. However, I like my French fries to have a little more meat to them and sadly, these lacked that. Then again, there was truth in advertising on the menu and I can't fault them for serving this style of French fry when that was what the menu advertised.

I had decided to go with the cheddar and bacon cheeseburger. As you can see from the above photograph, you definitely got a LOT of bacon on top of the burger. The problem was that more than once as I was eating my burger, I came across a piece of bacon meat that was so overcooked and dessicated that it was literally unchewable. When I say unchewable, I don't mean "kind of tough." I mean, my teeth actually hurt when I bit down trying to get through it. The burger was seasoned appropriately, but sadly, the burger itself was cooked more to a well-done than the medium for which I had requested when my server asked while taking our initial order.

Everyone else seemed to enjoy their food and before long, we had finished our lunch, paid the check, and I went to retrieve the car from Miss Molly's hoping that management hadn't decided to pull a hat trick and have it towed. Fortunately it was still there, unticketed and sitting in a now largely empty lot. We returned to my grandmother's condominium for cake and presents. While I have no intention of covering this post lunch soirée, I do think the look on my aunt's face pretty much tells it all:

(the obviously happy Birthday Girl)

As for the Main Street Cafe, once I managed to find it, I would say that my experience was good. While my burger and some of my bacon was way overcooked, overall it was still a decent meal and lunch prices were reasonable at a range of $7 to $14. Seeing that my other three lunch companions all stated how good their meals were, I'll have to acquiesce slightly from the impression of my own meal and give the restaurant a recommended rating.