It’s a beautiful day for a bike ride and breakfast seems like a good
destination. Steph found a place in the valley which also afforded
us a ride through Sand Run Metro Park to splash some sharp smelling
water beneath our two tires. Happy Wife; Happy Life. The Valley Café
looks like it’s in an old bank building and the website tells us
it’s run by a couple of Southerner’s who turned in professional
9-5er’s for the hospitality grind. They’re also Florida State fans.
I suppose we all have our demons. There are a few seats outside and
there aren’t many more inside. The place is yellow and quaint inside
and seats don’t stay empty for more than seconds. The staff, from
the woman who sat us, to our server, to the servers at other tables
all seem sweet as pie and nice as a relaxing day at the lake. |
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They are also one of the most disorganized and inefficient teams I think I’ve ever witnessed. The flurry of activity was amazing both in intensity and futility, as they whirled and swirled, full of sound and fury, accomplishing nothing. That makes it a tough one to call.
Like the Honeymoon Café, The
Valley is strictly a breakfast/lunch joint and we split our order
between the two. I was excited to see they feature a cabbage soup
everyday. I had hopes of it being similar to the odd concoction I
love from Kravitz’s Deli in Youngstown. It
wasn’t the same but its still a pretty tasty cup. In what’s gotta be
a great profit margin for both places (you have to make it tasty to
sell a lot of cabbage soup) some beef broth and diced cabbage, some
seasoning, that’s about it. Kravitz’s has
a nice balance of heat and sweet, the sweet I think comes from
raisins. The Valley’s is loaded with much more heat. I got a smack
of sweet initially but it was quickly overtaken by a bright and
warming spice. I enjoyed it but still longed for
Kravitz’s. Probably because its been
sooooo long. |
I ordered the same thing I did at the
Honeymoon Grille, the country fried steak, hey they’re
Southerners. Served with eggs, home fries and toast, it was a
Southern classic. Rye, over-easy (done well) and fluffy seasoned
taters were set alongside a pounded chunk of beef, breaded,
deep-fried and sauced. What set the Valley’s apart were the breading
and gravy. The sausage gravy wasn’t the white sawmill version you
see most often but a brown sludge made from drippings. It had a dark
and husky meatiness that worked well with the rest of the plate. The
breading had a uniqueness I have seen on fried chicken before. It is
über-crisp but almost disintegrates into a powder after the first
chew. It’s a little odd but it does hold the crisp under the weight
of the heavy gravy. |
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Southern Breakfast |
Eggs Were On The Money |
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Taters Were Crispy & Fluffy |
And Brown Gravy Atop Crispy Steak |
Steph’s Reuben arrived in a basket with thick cut fries which had been tossed in a salt/pepper/and some spice/herb combination I couldn’t quite peg. Nice fries, interesting seasoning. The Reuben had little in the way of sauerkraut and the corned beef had been very lightly corned but it was lean, thin and tasty. A nice smear of dressing and toasted rye put the final touches on a pretty good sandwich.
If you have some time…a good bit of time (the kitchen was actually
fast which may be a byproduct of the speed in which orders flow from
the floor) you can find some homey and tasty dishes at the Valley
Café and then go splash around through Sand Run.
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Good But Not Great Reuben, Still Good |
And Interestingly Seasoned Fries |
Ratings | |||||||
Food |
Service |
Ambiance |
What's Best |
What's Worst |
Overall |
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B | C? | B- | B+ | N/A | B- | ||
Breakfast |