Review Wed Dec 31 2008

It's the Little Things

By Robyn Nisi

A group of friends was going for brunch and invited me along. I immediately said yes, then asked the biggest question of all: "Where are we going?" The answer would make me darken the door of a restaurant I had hoped to never visit again: the Riverside Cafe.

When I first moved to the city, I would go by the Riverside and admire its homey exterior, reminiscent of local diners in Wisconsin. The restaurant's charm is obvious, with its plants, photographs, old timey signage, and Americana-esqe clutter. As I finally settled in one Sunday for brunch, I imagined that the food at Riverside would be as enjoyable as the place's decor.

I was wrong then, and I was wrong this past weekend.

The food is a limp and cheap attempt at Latin American fare, alongside American breakfast standards and a dessert table that consists of painstakingly unwrapped Little Debbie snacks, boards of graham crackers and Salerno-brand cookies, all arranged in a dimly lit and small room. Fumbling around the randomly arranged dishes, I started off with beef empanadas that were good, but I was mentally crossing my fingers the entire time that they were still safe to eat, given that they were very cold and nowhere near a heat lamp or chafing dish (very few of the dishes seemed properly stored, and the lucky items in a chafing dish did not seem markedly warmer than its brothers suffering elsewhere on a plate).

I ate commercial foodservice-grade french toast, bacon and eggs. I ate a few decent tacos, a fried plantain and a Swiss Cake Roll. I even sampled the Little Debbie version of a twinkie, but spit it into a napkin when I realized it was stale (MON DIEU!). I passed up the "Mexican Hot Dog," which was basically a hot dog wrapped in a flour tortilla. I ate another Swiss Cake Roll. I found myself drowning in cheap carbs and was full after one plate. I went home and didn't need to eat for the rest of the day, but not in a good way.

Riverside aims to overwhelm the brunch customer by stuffing a small room with plates of food, and it seems that they're trying to make it seem as if you have many options, when in fact your choices get narrowed when you take food safety intuition and a sense of balancing the nutrition of a meal into account. Such an exercise in awareness will cost you an unwarranted, expensive $20 when adding in a cup of coffee, tax and your share of the tip. Service was extremely attentive, and the staff was perfectly nice--it's too bad they don't work somewhere else.

Riverside Cafe
1656 West Cortland
773-278-3354
Cash only