If you thought Crestwood Coffee as just a place to stop for some Zambesi roast (just like you thought Bottletree was just a place to hear The Great Book of John), then you may want to think again next time you are styling down Crestwood Boulevard with hunger pangs, heading east with nothing but fast food and an abandoned Hooters ahead.
There is a regular food menu already in addition to the new comfort food dishes Danny Winter is cooking up. I tried the trio of dips, served on a bed of greens with sliced tomatoes, cucumbers, and a balsamic vinaigrette. Except I overloaded with all four: chicken salad, tuna salad, egg salad, and pimiento cheese.
The greens consisted of baby spinach cucumbers and tomatoes— nothing fancy—but the salads on the salad were full of accents and condiments like green onions and spicy Dijon mustard.
Here is the order I placed them in:
Chicken salad with pesto mayo, pecan bits, red onions, celery.
Pimiento cheese with green onions, chunky and creamy at the start with a spicy finish of cayenne pepper. If you like a spicy delight, you will love it. I like mine more in the comfort zone. Tone it down with greens. Really cool it down with cucumber.
Egg salad with mayo, poppy seeds, and hot Dijon was flavorful but quite runny. My personal preference is an egg salad that is not as wet, that stands its ground with the egg flavor and texture coming through.
Tuna salad with boiled egg and green onion, pickle relish. A lot was done to it but it still tasted canned.
All but the cheese were on the wet side, and the chicken wins for flavor though I prefer mine drier— because pesto and pecans make a good combo. Of course I listened while I ate to a discourse on Goddard’s Breathless, as well as the first principles of socialism.
But enough with the film critics and ladies’ lunches. I also had a man-sized meat loaf on blue cheese mashed potatoes with blanched vegetables. The thick potato purée could have withstood a stronger cut of beef with its caramelized onion strings and bits of melted blue cheese.
The meat loaf was actually light and airy—not one of those dense country paté
textures- -with the meat both moist and crumbly. It is accented to the
eyes and the taste with bright bits of red and yellow pepper cooked
inside. On top there is only the thinnest glaze of tomato sauce but it
gives the dish a definite tang.
The experimenting with the food menu will continue, perhaps with some anonymous advice, to bring a new full-blown food venue to the neighborhood.
Crestwood Coffee / Cafe
5512 Crestwood Boulevard (205) 595-0300
