03/05/08 @ 09:42:29 am by archivesadmin
By: Rosa Bianca
FOOD: 3 stars
PRICE: 2 money symbols
AMBIENCE: 2 stars
SERVICE: 3 stars
The second line on the menu at Chris’ Cosmic Kitchen (“Where the food is out of this world”) says “Serving Breakfast, Lunch and Handmade Gourmet Cheesecake”—now this is a place with a good idea of priorities.
Serving breakfast and lunch six days a week, Chris’ Cosmic Kitchen is the latest grab-a-bite hotspot in the university neighborhood, offering the usual fare: burgers, sandwiches, prime rib, the obligatory chicken wraps and bowls of chili. And for people who don’t get up until noon, three-egg omelets are made all day long. The food isn’t what one would call “fancy,” but as noted from the previous quote, it is made by people who love to cook.
More to the point, it is all made from scratch by people who love to cook. When I stepped up to the counter to order, the girl at the register rattled off a bewildering litany of items on the menu. “Our prime rib is roasted here on the premises,” she informed me, “and the soup is made fresh daily.”
When I asked what she would recommend, she went on at length about the corned beef in their Reuben sandwich. When asked about the most popular item on the menu, she scrunched her nose quixotically. “You know, it’s a funny thing, but everyone who comes in here seems to love the grilled cheese with a side of shrimp bisque.” I believed her, if only because it seemed very unlikely that any diner would boast about their grilled cheese sandwiches, of all things. The cheese might not be actually made on the premises, but I’ll bet it isn’t that plastic pre-sliced stuff either.
In truth, when Fay and I stopped into Chris’ for lunch one day, I wasn’t really planning on writing any reviews. We were just hungry and passing by, trying to avoid fast-food restaurants. So I wasn’t expecting anything except to spend half an hour eating a burger.
It’s a sad truth about eating in this country: Food has become more and more homogenized. Even eating out is an exercise in the familiar, not the adventurous. It seems folks are less inclined to dine at places who make “a mean [fill in the blank]” for lunch. Do people still go to a specific restaurant because it does fried chicken better than anyone else? Or sub sandwiches? Or homemade mac-and-cheese? As of late this trend has seemingly decreased. We tend to choose where we eat by what’s convenient, not by what tastes best. Most operate on a kind of assembly line that excels in serving the edible, but almost never provides the incredible.
Fay and I placed our order, were given the choice of fruit or fries as a side (talk about a no-brainer; like anyone would ask for fruit instead of French fries), and handed styrofoam cups for our soda and sweet tea. Fay’s cup had a giant lemon slice in it. She waved it under my nose and said, “Be sure to mention this.” We grabbed some plastic forks, found a table and sat down to wait. We were warned that our meal might take a little while because the crab crakes I ordered had to be broiled. Still, I was shocked when the waitress brought out our lunch—a burger for Fay, a crab cake sandwich for me—because despite the pep talk we’d been given by the girl at the counter, I was expecting assembly-line food. What was placed in front of us, in red plastic baskets, was anything but. Fay’s burger had a distinctive handmade shape to it. The tomato slice was thick and slightly uneven, as if it had just been cut. The roll (it wasn’t a “bun”) was stiff and warm and filled with those little seeds and things that Fay doesn’t usually like. Everything, even the fries, was piping hot.
And the crab cake sandwich, which I had ordered because the sign said it was the day’s special—and I tend to follow the instructions on signs—was a complete surprise. It had almost no filler, almost no breading. It was less a “cake” and more a pile of lump crabmeat, mixed with a little egg and broiled.
“Oh,” I said to Fay as I took a bite.
“Good?” she asked, and I nodded. The last time I had a crab cake sandwich this good, I had made it myself.
The small room started to fill up as we each munched reflectively on our unexpectedly delicious food. Being so close to the college, there were a fair number of scruffy student types, but also a few tables of elderly women and a couple of professionals who looked like they were missing their wi-fi access but couldn’t resist the food—who could blame them? The atmosphere was congenial and happy, and I spent a few moments wondering why that was, since, let’s be honest, most lunch spots are places of convenience rather than enjoyment.
The answer, I think, was in the uneven shape of Fay’s burger and the unusual nature of my own meal. Plenty of restaurants like to advertise “home-cooked” food, but Chris’ Cosmic Kitchen is the first place I’ve found in ages that actually serves it. Everything that comes out of that kitchen—from the burgers and the prime rib to the “gourmet” cheesecakes that somebody in the back must absolutely adore baking—looks and tastes like it was made by somebody who just purely loves to cook.
I took a look at what other folks were ordering and saw nothing to disabuse me of this notion. There were, I was amused to see, lots of grilled cheese sandwiches on the tables. The room was redolent with the smell of comfort food—food that was out of this world.
Categories: Reviews
