A Vegetarian-Friendly Meal At Parasson's

If you've been a reader of my blog for any length of time, you will no doubt already know that I tend to return to restaurants that I have connected with in some way. Perhaps the food was fantastic. Perhaps the service was exceptional. Or perhaps it was just something that I grew up with and tend to return because I'm trying to recapture a piece of my youth. I suppose most men about to enter into a mid-life crisis would buy a red convertible or seek the embrace of a smokin' 22-year-old blond; neither was a likely option for me. What better way to remember the halcyon days of my youth than through eating a meal at Parasson's?

Parasson's is one of those places that I never set out to visit. It is only while I am in transition from one part of Akron to another that the thought pops into my head. The siren's song of their meat sauce and the alchemical combination of the garlic toast and Marzotti's French dressing obviously work their magic well enough as I visit perhaps every other month or so. Today, however, was different. I felt the draw of Parasson's, but knew that the spaghetti with meat sauce wasn't an option as I needed a break from all of the beef I had been eating lately.

I don't really advertise the fact, but every now and again, I love a good vegetarian meal. I feel like somehow it is cleansing and helps to restore balance to my yin and yang. Then again, with almost everything except the red pepper flakes being fried for tonight's meal, it probably didn't help out my yin and yang all that much. But, I digress.

Upon opening Parasson's menu after being sat at my table, I was almost immediately drawn to the sandwich portion of the page. Specifically, the eggplant Parmesan sandwich. Knowing that I wasn't super hungry, but also wanting to get the best value for the dollar, I went ahead and ordered the "whole" sub. I figured I would just take the other half home and eat it for lunch the next day. With my sub, I received one free side. Since I had been on a onion ring kick lately, I decided to go with those.

"Oh," my server exclaimed, "those are my favorite!"
"Oh, really," I replied, my curiosity now sufficiently roused. "Are they homemade?"
"No, they're frozen. But they have a coating that is made just for us."

I honestly would've felt let down that they were fried from frozen, but I had assumed when I ordered them that they were, so I really couldn't feel all that disappointed. That being said, I've had a pretty darn good fried-from-frozen onion ring or two in my time, so I was eager to see how Parasson's version stacked up.

What came out first was somewhat surprising to me:


I assumed that since I had ordered a sandwich, garlic toast would seem a bit redundant. Nope. As I sat there looking and smelling the garlic toast, I began wishing I had a container of the French dressing to dip it in. But, I decided that I would save my garlic toast and take it home with the other half of my eggplant Parmesan sandwich. I could then eat them together. If you want to see what the garlic toast tasted like, check out my previous post on Parasson's.

Soon afterward, my sandwich and onion rings arrived. Here was a shot of my sandwich:


And here were my onion rings on a separate plate:


I didn't do much to the eggplant Parmesan sandwich except add a bit of these to the top:


I figured the little bit of heat from the red pepper flakes would make each bite just a little bit more interesting. The eggplant was nicely fried, the coating was crispy without being greasy, and the inner flesh of the vegetable still had some flavor and texture. The marinara sauce had been ladled on top of the eggplant slices and then covered with cheese, which had obviously been run under a broiler / Salamander to get that nicely browned cheese effect. To add just a bit more texture, the bun had also been nicely toasted first. Overall, this was a very tasty sandwich, although I had to be careful with every bite since the melted cheese encapsulated the molten sauce underneath. One wrong bite and I was rewarded with a squirt of Napalm-esque marinara on my chin or onto the roof of my mouth.

Finally, let's talk about those onion rings that my server was fawning over. Nicely crispy and just a touch oily, the onion on the inside still had a bit of that sulfuric bite to it. It wasn't unpleasant, per se, but it was noticeable. As with most fried-from-frozen onion rings, the inner ring easily slipped from its breaded outer coating with just the slightest of coaxing. In general, this was a better than average ring, but nothing to write home about.

Having eaten half of my sandwich and almost all of my onion rings, I packed up the rest and paid the check, which came to a little over $10. Figuring that since I had eaten half tonight and will eat the other half tomorrow, $5 per meal isn't a bad deal at all. Given that my trip to Parasson's satisfied both the needs of my stomach and my soul, I know I'll continue to return time and time again.

Culinary Alchemy at Parasson's?

Sometimes what we crave defies all logic and dictates that we eat certain foods or at certain restaurants that we normally wouldn't otherwise entertain. As a child, my mother would occasionally make what I can only imagine came from a 1950's recipe, tuna biscuit bake casserole. Generously spray your casserole dish with a layer of Pam. Then, using a can of biscuits, a can of tuna, a can of Campbell's condensed cheddar cheese soup, a can of Campbell's cream of celery soup, and some milk, layer this unholy concoction in the pre-greased pan, place in a 350 degree oven and wait for all sorts of processed food goodness to come out. And as a child, I loved it.

Over the years, I've tried re-inventing it to be leaner, healthier, less processed, but in the end, when I crave this dish, it is with all of the same ingredients that my mother used in her version. It just doesn't taste the same otherwise (and I'm sure some would say for the better). That reluctance to let go of a wonderful childhood memory is what drives me to return to Parasson's restaurant again and again. Parasson's is a local Akron chain that serves up what I would consider to be "ok" basic Italian fare. Pizzas, pastas, and subs make up most of their menu. They have four locations and over the many decades I've been going there, the food has always tasted the same.

Every once in a while I'll get that craving. And when I do, there just isn't any way to resist it. Tonight's craving was fulfilled at the Waterloo Road location. All the locations have both sit-down and take-out service, but tonight I felt like eating in. Here is a shot of the front of the menu (addresses and phone numbers are shown for each of the four locations):


And a shot of the condiment station on each table:


Almost any meal you order (except for maybe pizza), comes with the griddled garlic bread. It's your basic mix of butter, salt, garlic powder, and dried parsley. It is neither the best nor worst example of garlic bread that I've ever had, but there is something about it that I crave. They will refill the basket as you eat it, but whenever I dine out by myself, I always feel guilty if I eat more than the two slices they bring me.


The meal that I choose for my dinner also came with a garden salad. Parasson's uses a moderate amount of shredded mozarella cheese to top their salads. In my opinion it is just the right amount. You get the cheesy richness without it predominating.


I always order the French dressing on the side, for two reasons. First, I like to dress my salad minimally with the dressing. Most restaurants overdress salads. Second, and this is where culinarily speaking I may have just lost some of my gentle readers out there, the combination of the French dressing and the garlic bread is ... how to put this? Magical.

I feel like I should be standing up in a self-help group right now. "Hi, my name is Tom and I like to dip my Parasson's garlic bread in my leftover French dressing."

I don't know when this practice started. Maybe my server had taken away my finished salad plate and accidentally left the remainder of the dressing. And maybe while I was waiting for my pasta to come out, bored and with nothing but time on my hands, I thought, "Aw, what the hell!" and dipped for the first time. I've been doing it ever since. I'm always furtively sneaking dips in the dressing because I feel like if someone working at the establishment ever caught me, they'd certainly point out my unnatural ways to the rest of the guests there and throw me out as quickly as they could.

Now, this is not unusual salad dressing. In fact, I confirmed with my server that it is Marzetti California French dressing. Curious to know what this ingredient list consisted of, I stopped at Giant Eagle afterward for a little investigative work. You can read the list of ingredients here:


Basically most of the flavor is coming from tomatoes, sugar, vinegar, and some various spices. Equally as mysterious, the garlic bread is exactly as I described it before. But when you put the two together, the sweetness from the dressing and the saltiness from the bread makes an amazing flavor combination in your mouth. And the even more amazing thing? I taste flavors that exist in neither product by themselves: I get notes of both cinnamon and nutmeg. Every time I go back and try this experiment over again, I get the same result. Without fail.

As much as I come for the garlic bread/French dressing combo, the other lifelong draw for me has been their meat sauce. Made with pork and beef, it has a nice balance of sweetness, fattiness, and seasoning. But I would in no way consider this to be remarkable. Tasty, sure, but not remarkable. I will occasionally order something else on the menu, but that is a rarity. Today I decided to go with rigatoni for my pasta:


The large, at $10.49, is a good value because you will easily get two meals out of this. The one very positive thing about this dish is that I have never come across a plate of watery pasta from Parasson's. And I've eaten at all four locations over the last three decades. It's not so much that the pasta is all that spectacular, it's just nice when I don't end up with a bowl of rigatoni meat sauce soup, like I seem to experience at other places. I always end up dosing my meat sauce with a hefty hit of red chili flakes and grated parmesan cheese (I'm using a little 'p' for parmesan because I'm fairly certain this stuff comes out of the green can).

Sadly, even though they were advertising dessert:


None of their desserts are homemade. And honestly, the tiramisu pictured on the table advert just didn't look all that enticing. I was half tempted to have a scoop of the spumoni, but realizing that I was already pretty full, I opted to skip dessert entirely.

With as much food knowledge that I've gathered over the years by reading, cooking, and most importantly, eating, it still amazes me that sometimes you just want the comfort food of your youth. And I think it is healthy to occasionally let your ever-vigilant set of culinary standards lay by the wayside so you can revel in an experience that just makes you feel good for a little while.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I think it's time for another helping of that tuna biscuit bake casserole.