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SportsA creative flair, and some delicious results
Friday, Aug. 8, 2008
 Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photo by DARWIN WEIGEL
The C.D. Cafe in Solomons has 11 tables and serves lunch and dinner. The Next Door Lounge is open in the evenings.
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The wine list is more than ample. The bartenders are helpful and friendly. Reminiscent of a European café, the clever interior scheme involves homey walls covered with elaborate murals of café and garden scenes. At the center of it all stands a sculptural tree, a Biblical allusion decorated with ornaments and a serpent.
There is, however, one good reason to move fast, and that is for a table at C.D. Café. (The Next Door Lounge does offer light fare as well as C.D.’s appetizers and desserts.)
Thankfully, it was the bartenders who prevented my wife Emily and me from lingering for too long, and perhaps missing out on a table. There are only 11 in the C.D. Café and they fill up fast after 6 p.m.
Not only did the bartender ask us if we would be dining in C.D. Cafe, she called next door to see how many tables were open, and then sent us on our way when it came down to just two. We paid for our drinks and carried them through the hallway and into the café, where we took a seat in a dining room with a certain amount of farmhouse charm, with antique chairs and tables, a slightly open kitchen, a stained glass sign above the bar and windows facing the cornfields and the Governor Thomas Johnson Bridge.
It would seem very difficult to go wrong at C.D. Café. Clearly much thought has been invested into the menu; there do not appear to be any weak spots.
Even the more traditional dishes come accented with an original touch, and it seems that everything is artfully and carefully planned, prepared and presented.
But it is C.D. Café’s creative flair that can make a dining experience here a particularly memorable one.
Take the C.D. Reuben, a chicken breast with chorizo, sauerkraut and muenster cheese in a caraway jus over garlic mashed potatoes, or our appetizer, ‘‘Catherine’s Savory Cheesecake” ($10.95). (We almost chose white pizza, $9.95)
Out came a slice of cake made from goat and cream cheese, held together by a walnut crust. There were two spoons in the dish, allowing us to scoop up the honey sauce around the cake. The accompanying French bread — surrounded by a sprinkling of pecorino romano and chives — was warm and doughy, and the goat and cream cheese creation spread easily on the bread. It was a fantastic fusion of flavors, and while the logistics of eating this appetizer were a bit awkward, the mess was also more than worth it.
For an entrée, Emily considered the C.D. healthy salmon, which comes with a sauté of snow peas, tomatoes and garlic over sprouts and a dollop of basil aioli. She wound up choosing one of the three daily specials, a dish with both fish and lump crab meat mixed with peach salsa over wild rice. She found the dish to be nicely balanced, with a slightly bland lump crab mixing in with a spicy salsa. The portion was generous, and she took a good bit home.
I chose the tenderloin steak with pepper. For medium well, it seemed a bit undercooked, but I wound up pleased with how tender and juicy it was for such a thick cut of meat. It was placed over a mound of garlic mashed potatoes and coated as well as immersed in a peppercorn cognac sauce with mushrooms, herbs and plenty of garlic, surrounded by a mix of squash, peppers and some grilled onions. Garlic from so many angles could have been overwhelming; instead it gave the dish a delightful, savory kick. The consistency of the garlic mashed potatoes, the no-brainer partner for this style of steak, held up quite well in the sauce, and the two baked wheat rolls the server brought out helped finish it all off.
There are countless directions one could run with C.D. Café’s menu. The dinner and lunch menus frequently overlap, and you can see the full versions of everything offered by the C.D. Café and The Next Door Lounge at the restaurant’s Web site.
There are burgers: Bistro and turkey burgers are $9.95, while the Popeye beef burger on a Kaiser roll ($11.95) is served with Caesar salad and comes topped with spinach, boursin cheese and an additive called green goddess, which is usually a salad dressing with anchovies and tarragon.
Black bean soup, which is also available for lunch, is prepared with sour cream and fresh cheese for $8.95 and with chorizo for $10.95.
Seafood lovers might go with pan roasted salmon ($22.95), cornmeal crusted catfish salad ($13.95) or Bangkok scallops ($23.95) sauteed with apples, onions and garlic in a coconut curry sauce, served over wild rice. The flounder foccacia sandwich involves kalamata olive compound butter, sauteed spinach, grilled asparagus, pepper, onion and feta cheese ($15.95).
A New York strip steak ($23.95), meanwhile, comes with a griddle potato cake and vegetables and is finished with a ‘‘spicy mango-chipotle drizzle.” ‘‘Deb’s Personal Choice” is sauteed chicken breast with pecans, apples and onions; it is deglazed with apple schnapps, topped with feta cheese and served over wild rice. A tempting pasta dish appears to be a Mediterranean concoction of penne, sun-dried tomatoes, capers and artichokes topped with feta cheese in a garlic cream sauce.
Servers are extremely friendly, and more than helpful when called upon for advice. For dessert, we were torn between splitting a crème brulee and the other dessert. The server, looking at the rotating dessert list posted above the kitchen window, noted that her personal favorite was the black-bottom raspberry truffle cake but that C.D. Café was known for its crème brulee.
Places with crème brulee generally have it because they know how to do it right.
C.D. Café’s creation was no exception to the rule: More than enough for two, it had a thick crust and a creamy, smooth finish that provided further proof that this 13-year-old Solomons establishment knows how to do it right from top to bottom.
When it comes to planning a meal here, meanwhile, the bottom might be the place to start.
