No matter where you live, everyone has one: the comfortable, laid back venue that serves as a default when you can't bear the thought of cereal for dinner (again), when you don't want a hassle, and when you don't know what you want but you know you're really hungry. My default is the Longfellow Grill on East Lake. Their diverse menu spans breakfast foods (both sweet and salty), familiar sandwich favorites (some with a twist), home-style entrees (meatloaf, anyone?), punchy salads, plus some of the best beer-battered green beans around. And a full bar.
We arrived at the Longfellow on a beautiful spring evening - bikers paraded up and down the river trails, families strolled with kids and dogs, the neighborhood along West River Road smelled of charcoal, and the Dairy Queen line snaked down East Lake. Miraculously, my guest and I scored a patio table right away.
I ordered a turkey burger and sprang an extra buck for a side of sweet fries. Whenever I have attempted to cook turkey burgers I throw the grey stuff in a Forman, slap it on a whole wheat bun, then pile it with cheese and ketchup so I forget that I'm are eating a ground up lump of over-cooked poultry. But the Longfellow Grill has this burger down to an art. The turkey was tender and juicy with a dash of tumeric for kick and finely chopped jalapeno for spice. It was topped with a thin slice of gruyere cheese, and was so hearty that I felt like Kobayashi after just half. The sweet fries, which are really just sweet potato fries, were sinfully oily and rich but provided just the right balance against a mildly spicy burger. Trust me folks - it is well worth the extra $1.
We generally try to keep to ourselves when dining out, but patio tables at the Longfellow are situated very close to each other so we couldn't help but overhear the couple next to us. Their son, a bus boy, kept dropping by to check on how well they liked their food. They knew our waitress from a local swim team. They flagged down some friends sitting across the patio and reeled them in for a rather spirited conversation about shower grout. And although the couple's probing questions about the "50 meter free" kept our waitress holding our check for a bit longer than one might have hoped, this couple exposed the Longfellow for what it truly is: a local joint, a neighborhood grill, and a place you can count on whether you're looking for a night out with friends or simply can't be bothered to cook.
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1 comment:
Wow... Your descriptions of both the food and environment make me want to drop everything and return to the Longfellow Grill, which I visited over a year ago but still recall with great salivation, the delicious lamb burger and sweet potato fries. Thank you dear blogger, for your excellent descriptions!
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