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Review: Plein Air at Judy’s on Cherry

sign advertising the opening of Plein Air dining at Judy's on Cherry

Editor’s note: Plein Air has not been offered as a unique experience at Judy’s since 2019.

Al fresco dining is a tradition as old as the restaurant business.

On a beautiful day, no one wants to be constrained to a dining room. And whether it’s a full patio or just a handful of seats, many of the area’s most popular restaurants have expanded their seating area into the open air.

But there’s one Reading restauranteur that has taken the concept and created a whole dining experience around it.

The 300 block of Cherry Street is the domain of Judy Henry. She opened her first restaurant, Judy’s on Cherry, in 2002. Next came the Speckled Hen Cottage Pub & Alehouse, located in the historic log cabin on the corner of 4th and Cherry Streets.

The third piece of the puzzle came in 2009. That’s when Plein Air was born.

Located in a narrow alley adjacent to the cottage, Plein Air is an outdoor extension of the Speckled Hen. The alley is decorated to feel like a garden terrace in Europe, with a large pergola hanging over the bistro seats.

Plein Air’s location creates unique challenges. First, it’s weather dependent (though there are a handful of seats inside). It’s also small, with only a few tables and seating for 20 outside.

The alley is also uneven so they have to get a little creative in balancing the tabletops: a handful of coasters under one leg, a piece of stone under another, just to keep your plates from sliding off.

Both Plein Air and the Speckled Hen serve out of the same kitchen. And for those dining outside, the Speckled Hen menu is also available (I would imagine that this also works in reverse, though I can’t say for sure).

The two menus are vastly different. The Pub side was big on comfort foods—pot pie, shepherd’s pie, wings and the signature Scotch egg. Plein Air’s menu  is more fully developed, with tartines (single-slice sandwiches), salads and entrees, all of which feature fresh, seasonal ingredients.

One of the specialties at Plein Air is chilled soup. Gazpacho is a permanent fixture on the menu, but the standard tomato-based version had been replaced by beet for our visit.

chilled beet soup in fluted cup

Looking more like a smoothie than a soup, it was a vibrant purple with white creamy swirls and strips of basil on top. The basil helped sweeten the slightly sour soup. It was a delicious and refreshing way to start our meal.

four quarters of a small bread loaf witha red cup of whipped butter

Along with my soup, the waitress delivered our fresh-baked bread, quartered and served with a dollop of butter.

While Plein Air’s menu is quite a bit larger than the Speckled Hen, there are only a handful of large plate dinner entrees. One of those is the flat iron steak.

steak topped with butter on a bed of potatoes with greens on the side

The seared steak is topped with garlic herb butter and served with fingerling potatoes and a side salad. The butter melted quickly, coating both the steak and potatoes in a blanket of white. With the steak, it was very good. The herbs really came through and added to the seared-in flavors of the meat. With the potatoes, it was even better, turning them into miniature baked potatoes that melted in your mouth.

The side salad was topped with a citrusy vinaigrette dressing that felt right on a warm August night.

Another large plate offering is the crab cake. The rich entree is topped with a choice of lemon pesto, avocado lime butter or tomato basil corn relish, which is what Julie decided on.

crab cakes topped with corn with a skewer of zucchini and side green

Fresh was the word we kept coming back to when describing our food to each other, and that was the case with everything on Julie’s plate. The crab cake, the relish and the skewer of zucchini that accompanied the dish.

Everything at Plein Air is well-portioned, and though we would have walked away happy after dinner, we decided to splurge for dessert.

Angel food cake is not normally my dessert of choice, but when our waitress told us that it was topped with strawberry reduction and served with whipped cream and pistachio sorbet, it immediately climbed to the top of my list.

Everything was delicious, especially the sorbet. I wish I could have eaten a whole bowl of it, but I was happy enough to enjoy the other sweet delights on the plate.

Our total food bill came to $42, but being thrifty, I had purchased $30 gift certificate for $15 on LocalFlavor.com when I saw it in June so we really only paid $27 for two entrees, an appetizer and dessert.

Enjoying a meal outside is a great way to enjoy a beautiful summer night, but it is even better with great food, like what Plein Air is serving during the spring, summer and fall.

Don’t waste these beautiful days and nights sitting inside, get out and get yourself something to eat.

BCE Rating
Food: Very Good
Service: Good
Ambiance: Excellent
Price: Very Reasonable

Plein Air
30 S. 4th St
Reading, PA 19602

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tokyo hibachi and bar exterior
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Review: Tokyo Hibachi and Bar

brown colored building with red neon lights that read "Tokyo Hibachi & Bar"

Dinner is a sensory experience.

Taste is at the top of the list, but a truly great dinner encompasses all five senses: taste, sight, smell, touch and sound.

No dining experience can touch all five quite the way a hibachi can.

Wyomissing’s Tokyo Hibachi & Bar offers diners an experience that is just not available at most restaurants. Three circular seating areas with six hibachi grills are set up in what was originally a Denny’s along Woodland Road.

Tokyo Hibachi arrived in 2008, offering not only the tableside cooking show, but a large menu featuring nearly 50 different types of sushi as well as Chinese chicken and beef dinners.

But we were only interested in the hibachi.

Things started off slow at our table as we had to wait for more groups to fill around the table. Five must have been the magic number because after three more people trickled in, the waitress took our orders.

bowl of salad topped with creamy dressing

While we waited for the chef to emerge, our server brought out house salads for everyone. The simple salad consisted of a bowl of lettuce and one cherry tomato topped in the house dressing, a creamy Thousand Island-like sauce with a strong taste of citrus and just the slightest sour note from the vinegar. It was very good, and I was more than happy to have something to hold us over until our chef emerged from the kitchen with a cart full of food and equipment.

Hibachi grilling is part dinner, part show. And the show began with quite a flash.

flame rising from a hibachi grill

Following a display of Ninja-like moves with the spatula, the chef oiled up the hibachi and set it ablaze. The eggs, which were to be chopped and toss with the fried rice, were the first to hit the grill, after a bit of juggling on the spatula. Then came a pile of rice, enough for all five of us at the table.

hibachi grill with sliced onion mounded to look like a volcano with flame coming out the top

After throwing on the vegetables, it was time to play catch. Everyone at the table took turns trying to catch a piece of broccoli that was flipped to us off the grill. I failed (twice), taking one sprout off my chest and another in the face. Julie didn’t fare any better, but two of our tablemates caught there’s in one shot. Being first and second in line, I’m going to say the chef’s accuracy got better as he went along.

Items were dished out one at a time as they were finished so our plates gradually filled, giving me a chance to taste everything hot off the grill.

plate of fried rice

First came the fried rice. It was, hands down, the best fried rice I have ever tried. From the fresh cooked egg to the nicely browned rice, everything was perfect. If I didn’t have that salad to hold me over, the rice would have been gone before anything else hit my plate.

plate of fried rice with two pieces of shrimp

With every hibachi dinner, you get a two-piece “shrimp sampler.” I’m not a big seafood fan, but I gave them a try, and I have to admit that they weren’t bad. And seeing them transformed from the raw, gray blobs into the nice pink pinwheels was pretty impressive.

plate with a stir fry of steak, rice, broccoli and onion

The final pieces to the puzzle were my NY strip steak and mixed vegetables (thankfully no game of catch was involved for these). The steak was nicely caramelized from the oil and sauces that it was cooked in. It was just a little greasy, but the strong flavors made up for it.

plate of shrimp with lo mein noodles

Julie decided to go a different route for her meal, opting for a side of noodles instead of rice for her shrimp. Everything on the plate really absorbed the soy sauce, but somehow the sauce did not overpower it.

two chambered bowl with two dipping sauces, one light brown and one dark brown

Everyone at the table also gets two dipping sauces: mustard and ginger. The mustard was a little more complex that your store-bought brand; it reminded me a little of a Carolina barbecue sauce, but not as sweet. The ginger sauce was my favorite, though. The namesake spice was very strong and I thought it went perfectly with the steak.

With the hibachi dinner, you are paying a premium for the experience, but at $44 for the two of us, it was still a good deal considering the sheer amount of food (and entertainment) we received.

We could have gone to the restaurant and sat at a booth and had the exact same food. But I know it wouldn’t have been the same.

Instead of having plates of food delivered to us, we got to watch our dinner crafted from scratch, feel the heat of the hibachi (and the broccoli hitting my face), hear the sizzle of the grill and smell the aromas of everything that was prepared.

The fact that the food was outstanding made it all the more enjoyable.

BCE Rating
Food: Very Good
Service: Very Good
Ambiance: Very Good
Price: Reasonable

Tokyo Hibachi & Bar
960 Woodland Rd
Wyomissing, PA 19610

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Review: Salute Ristorante Italiano

strip mall storefront with a sign that reads "Salute Ristorante Italiano"

There’s something about a nice Italian restaurant on Valentine’s Day. The two just seem to go together, the perfect match for a romantic night out.

Last year for our romantic splurge, we visited Mom Chaffe’s Cellarette, one of the oldest restaurants in Berks County. This year, we visited Salute Ristorante Italiano, one of the county’s newest.

Salute opened in November, taking over the former Frank’s NY Pizza in Sinking Spring, and bringing fine dining to the former take-out counter.

The aesthetic improvement is evident immediately as the entrance to the strip mall spot has been given a stonework facade. Inside, the restaurant is much-improved as well. Tables and booths line two seating areas, one raised a step above the other. When we arrived, a heart was tied to the back of each chair with lacey ribbon; the napkins beautifully folded into fans.

For Valentine’s Day, Salute offered a pared down version of its dinner menu in prix-fixe form: for $50, each person received an appetizer, entree and dessert. A small welcome cocktail was also included in every dinner.

tall glass half-filled with a cocktail

The Love Potion was comprised of chocolate vodka, crème de cacao, fresh strawberry puree, and half and half, all topped with a chocolate covered strawberry.

rectangular plate with a caprese salad

We put in our appetizer order while we pondered the entree choices. As our starters, we opted for the Carpese salad and bruschetta. The Carpese salad was good, with fresh tomatoes and mozzarella, but it paled in comparison to the bruschetta which was some of the best I have had.

rectangular plate with bruschetta topped with shaved parmesan

The perfectly toasted bread was topped with mounds of diced tomatoes and shaved Parmesan cheese. It had just a hint of balsamic mixed with a very flavorful olive oil, and mixed with the tomatoes, it made for a sweet, tasty appetizer.

We were surprised to find that in addition to the appetizers, every entree also included a cup of soup or starter salad. We both opted for soup: I went with fava bean while Julie chose Italian wedding.

small cup of bean soup with a toast point

My fava bean soup was delicious. The consistency reminded me of a split pea where there is little broth to speak of and the flavor comes almost entirely from the vegetables. But the real highlight here was the homemade crouton: two pieces of fried bread. It was dark and crispy like melba toast, but absorbed a lot of flavor from the frying, giving it a unique flavor that was perfect for dipping.

small cup of wedding soup with a toast point

Julie’s wedding soup was also interesting (and excellent) as it was more of a cream base than a broth base, which made it extra hearty.

ravioli topped with a heart-shaped slice of prosciutto

My main course arrived with a special Valentine’s Day touch. I ordered the norcina ravioli¸ a potato and ricotta ravioli with sausage and mushrooms in a cream sauce, all topped with a heart-shaped piece of dough. For added style, the plate was brushed with blue and yellow coloring. I knew what the norcina ravioli would include, but I didn’t expect it to be constructed quite as it was. There were four small ravioli buried beneath a mound of mushrooms and ground sausage that provided most of the flavor. It was a much heartier dish than I was expecting.

linguine topped with light red sauce and a lobster

Across the table, Julie decided to spoil herself with lobster. The lobster half was served atop a bed of linguine in a light sauce with tomato slices, freshly chopped basil and minced garlic. Again, the chef +went the extra mile on presentation by painting the plate red and black. The linguini had a little extra texture which allowed the sauce to better stick to the pasta, making for a delectable dish.

puff pastry drizzled with berry sauce and topped with a whole raspberry

Of course you can’t take your sweetheart out to Valentine’s Day dinner without enjoying some sweets, and Salute did not disappoint. Our waitress brought out a plate with both of the night’s featured desserts: almond parfait and a puff pastry with custard and wild berry reduction.

chocolate mousse topped with almonds and drizzled with chocolate syrup

The puff pastry was good though I would have liked just a little more custard to cut through the concentrated sweetness of the reduction. The almond parfait was on an entirely other level. Made from almond ice cream topped with chocolate and crushed almonds. The semi-bitter dark chocolate hardened atop the ice cream, creating a contrast in texture and flavor.

On a normal night, we would have never ordered so much food, and our bill would have probably been significantly less. But for our one-night-a-year splurge, it was well worth the $100 price tag.

It was a near-perfect night out: incredible food in a great atmosphere making for a memorable Valentine’s Day.

Here’s a salute to Salute, a great addition to the Berks County restaurant scene.

BCE Rating
Food: Very Good
Service: Good
Ambiance: Very Good
Price: A Little Pricey

Salute Ristorante Italiano
4718 Penn Ave
Sinking Spring, PA 19608

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Review: Tosco Pizza & Italian Restaurant

Lighted sign that reads "Tosco Pizza & Italian Restaurant"

When you see an Italian restaurant in a strip mall, it’s easy to dismiss it as just another pizza shop.

We have been conditioned to believe that sit down restaurants are found in stand-alone buildings while strip malls are nothing more than take-out counters, a place to grab dinner on the way home, not to pull up a chair and enjoy a nice meal.

But if you discount these restaurants all together, you are missing out.

When Tosco Pizza & Italian Restaurant opened up between Robesonia and Wernersville (it has a Wernersville address, but is barely outside the Robesonia borough limits), it looked to be just another pizza shop.

Prior to Tosco’s arrival in 2011, the space housed a Chinese restaurant, and before that, a sandwich shop. Both were standard, non-descript restaurants offering nothing but counter service.

mural on a wall depicting a coastal town in Italy in the 18th century

Tosco took a different approach. Renting out the adjacent space, the restaurant created a connected dining room.  Paintings of the Italian coast adorn the walls above the wooden booths. It’s a rustic feel throughout, except for out-of-place flat screen TV on the back wall.

In addition to pizza, the menu includes a wide range of pastas as well as wings, cheesesteaks, hot and cold sandwiches, burgers and an entire line-up of sandwiches served atop garlic bread.

basket of garlic knots

While garlic bread is reserved for sandwiches, each meal is served with a basket of fresh-baked garlic knots. These little beauties are exactly what they sound like: knots of dough that are slathered in butter and minced garlic. If only they were served with a side of marinara, I could make these delicious bites into a meal.

Catching my eye on the way in was the daily special, written on a chalkboard at the entrance to the dining room.

tri-color tortellini topped with a light red sauce

The tri-color cheese tortellini was tossed with chicken and rapini in a creamy tomato sauce. I tried to get a little bit of everything, but there wasn’t room on the fork for much more than the little pasta pockets. Still, the tortellini were small enough that the cheese filling did not overpower the pasta. As I dug in to the seemingly endless bowl, each bite was better than the last as the tortellini soaked up the rich flavors of the sauce.

Along with the garlic knots, each meal also comes with a starter salad. With as large as the bowl of pasta was, I almost wish they would skip the salad because the last thing I needed was something to fill up on before my tortellini arrived.

But if you are craving salad for dinner, Tosco’s specialty salads are perfectly sized for a hearty meal.

In the mood for something  “healthy,” Julie opted for a cheesesteak salad, one of nearly 20 salad options on the menu.

salad topped with steak meat and cheese

The base salad was similar to mine, a bed of lettuce topped with shredded carrots and ribbons of onions. The difference is the pile of shredded beef and melted American cheese on top, which turned this from an oversized appetizer into a legitimate main course.

With large menus comes a wide range of prices. Our meal came in around $25, but you can easily spend less if you are willing to split a large sandwich, or a little more if you are looking only at entrees.

If you were driving past Tosco, you probably wouldn’t even guess that entrees were an option. From the outside, it looks like a typical pizza and sandwich shop.

But looks can be deceiving. A strip mall is an unlikely place for a real Italian restaurant, but sometimes you find great things in unexpected places.

BCE Rating
Food: Good
Service: Good
Ambiance: Good
Price: Reasonable

Tosco Pizza & Italian Restaurant
6889 Penn Ave
Wernersville, PA 19565

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Exterior view of a restaurant at night with blue lights that read "Coastal Grille"
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Review: Coastal Grille

brick wall with a blue-lit sign that reads "Coastal Grille"

As a general rule, I will never visit a restaurant during their first month in business.

It’s not that I’m not anxious to try new places. I am.

It’s not that I don’t want to give them business. I do.

It’s that I don’t want my opinion of a restaurant to be clouded by a bad experience early in its life. I hear stories all the time from people who go to a restaurant during its first two weeks, and all they talk about is how long the wait is, and how long it took to get drinks, and how long it took to get food.

So I wait. Not in an hour-long line to get in, but until the restaurant has had some practice. No amount of mock service days can prepare you for when the open sign comes on for the first time and you have customers waiting out the door.

That’s why I waited until recently to make my first trip to Coastal Grille.

Coastal Grille opened in late September in the Broadcasting Square Shopping Center, taking over a building that has seen Uno Chicago Grill, Mason’s Chophouse and, most recently, Seafood Shanty come and go.

Like Seafood Shanty before it, the new restaurant plays heavily toward the seafood lover. The connection to the ocean is apparent from the moment you walk through the door and see the large aquarium that separates the main dining room from the bar. Silver sculptures of deep sea fish hang on the wall, shimmering brilliantly between the windows.

More than a month removed from their opening, Coastal Grille was still packed on this Saturday night. Many more people streamed in behind us during our 30-minute wait until we were escorted to our table.

loaf of ciabatta bread with a cup of butter

The menu is heavily inspired by the sea, but it does borrow a few favorites from its sister restaurant, Austin’s, including baby back ribs and shoestring fries. And like Austin’s, you have the option to begin your meal with a loaf of bread. In this case, it’s a warm, fresh-baked ciabatta that required all the willpower we had not to devour before our food arrived.

As someone who prefers animals that graze to those that swim, I passed on the surf and opted instead for turf with the Reggae Ribeye.

steak smothered in sauce on a plate with green beans and potato chips

The menu describes the Reggae Ribeye as a 12 oz. steak that was marinated and basted in a sweet and spicy sauce. I was expecting a typical steak that had maybe been brushed once or twice during cooking. What I got was a beautiful cut of meat, glistening from the reflection of the light on the sticky sauce.

A rush of flavors hit my tongue on the first bite. The sauce tasted like a mixture of teriyaki, barbecue and chili oil, a mild kick tempered by the cooling sweetness, with a hint of salt besides. Cooked medium well, with just a hint of pink in the middle,  it was one of the best restaurant steaks I have ordered.

All of their grilled specialties, and most of the entrees on the menu, are served with the vegetable of the day and a choice of side. While I love Austin’s shoestring fries, I knew I needed to change things up so I opted for house-made chips instead. The kettle-cooked chips were extra dark—not burnt—sealing in the flavors absorbed during the cooking process.

Caesar salad topped with large croutons and shredded parmesan

While none of the entrees include a starter salad, you can substitute a salad as one of your sides. That’s exactly what Julie decided to do, opting for Caesar. The leafy greens were piled high on the plate and topped with deliciously flavorful croutons that were obviously homemade.

baked haddock from Coastal Grille

Deciding that at least one of us had to order seafood, she decided on the Boston baked haddock for her entree. The fish was topped with a garlic cream sauce with lumps of shrimp and crab. The dish offered a mix of flavors and textures, with the cream sauce bringing everything together in a coherent dish.

Sadly, dinner proved too much for me and dessert was not in the cards. It was especially disappointing after seeing a Chocolate Bag walk past me. The Chocolate Bag is a dessert unique to Coastal Grille: hardened chocolate in the shape of a small bag, filled to the brim with whipped cream and topped with cherries. I may or may not have let out an audible “oooh” when it came near.

Instead we called it quits after our entrees, our total bill coming out to about $45.

After waiting a month (and an extra 30 minutes) my first visit to Coastal Grille did not disappoint.

I’m happy we waited, and will be even happier when we go back again soon.

BCE Rating
Food: Very Good
Service: Very Good
Ambiance: Excellent
Price: Reasonable

Coastal Grille
2713 N. Meridian Blvd
Wyomissing, PA 19610

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Review: Frank & Diannah’s Arbor Inn

sign that reads "Frank & Diannah's Arbor Inn Est. 1999"

When looking for a new place to try, there is no shortage of places to find information.

Sites like Urbanspoon, Yelp and Trip Advisor are invaluable when looking for a new place you may have overlooked.

On a recent Thursday night, I found myself searching Trip Advisor for ideas.

With 84 reviews and an average rating of 4.5, Frank and Diannah’s Arbor Inn is the No. 1 restaurant in Reading according to Trip Advisor. That’s against nearly 300 restaurants that have been rated.

That sounds like a place I need to try.

A full parking lot was just another hint that we were heading to a popular spot.

horseshoe-shaped bar with customers sitting all around it and a tv on the wall in the background

Through the doors, the Arbor Inn looked much smaller than it does from the outside. The entrance opened into the bar room, where about a dozen diners were lined up on stools with a handful of others shoehorned into tables along the wall.

On the wall were three framed articles – one of them was a recent review from the Berks Barrister, the official newsletter of the Berks County Bar Association. The writer raved about burger night, and it just so happened to be burger night tonight.

Frank, one of the two namesake owners, was doing the hosting duties, greeting customers at the door and stopping by their tables to chat during their meals.

A second couple entered behind us as we were waiting, and Frank came up to us and asked our permission to seat them first.

“We’re clearing a corner table for you, a little more romantic,” he said. “You’ll also have our best waitress. They’re all good, but she’s the best.”

How could we argue with that?

We couldn’t see the dining room from where we stood in the bar, so it almost felt like a big reveal when we were finally led through the small doorway and toward our seat.

red rose in a glass on a table for two in a restaurant

The room was small, and I don’t think they could have squeezed in any more seats. Each of the tabletops, including our own, was adorned with a single red rose in a simple glass vase to add just a little extra touch to the ambiance.

The Arbor Inn’s menu is also not very large (one page, front and back), but there wasn’t a single item that did not sound appealing. Everything had an international flare, from the Asian-spiced duck breast, Middle Eastern-inspired chicken and schnitzel done four ways.

As much as I wanted to try everything, I decided to take advantage of burger night and order the week’s burger special: the Italiano, a burger topped with spicy capicola, roasted red peppers and provolone cheese.

burger topped with peppers and onions and a bed of fries

At times, it was easy to forget that I was eating a hamburger as the combination of toppings were more akin to a pizza, or in the case of the red peppers, a meatball sandwich. But then I would take another big bite into the thick, meaty patty and quickly remember that this was no sandwich, but a burger. And an exceptional one at that.

Burgers are served with a side of fries, cooked to a beautiful golden hue and topped with coarse-ground salt. The Italiano was filling, but the fries were too good to stop eating, and I managed to force them all.

While I thoroughly enjoyed my burger, I couldn’t help but feel a little jealousy at the beautiful rib eye steak sitting across the table from me.

grilled steak atop a bed of green beans, peppers and carrots

Larry’s Rasta Rib Eye Steak is rubbed in Caribbean jerk seasoning with a pepper and onion sofrito. My wife allowed me a bite, and my jealousy increased. The steak absorbed a lot of flavor, both from the spice rub and from the sofrito, the onion in the latter giving it a little extra sweetness, making it one of the best steaks I have tried in a long time.

mixed green salad topped with shredded carrots

The entrees all come with a starter salad with house-made Asian vinaigrette dressing. Though the flavor was very good, a little salty with a hint of sweet, I found myself puckering up from the strong vinegar flavor. But watching Julie finish off hers in half the time, I am going to say that I was just overly sensitive to it.

Dessert sounded delicious—semifreddo is one of my favorite words in the English language—but neither of us could handle any more food (half of the steak went home with us) so we got our check and called it a night.

Our bill was about $40, though it would have been a little higher had I ordered an entree instead of the lower priced burger option.

I would never be able to rank one restaurant ahead of all the others that I have visited during my time on Berks County Eats. But if Trip Advisor is going to rank the Arbor Inn No. 1, I’m certainly not going to argue.

BCE Rating
Food: Very Good
Service: Fair
Ambiance: Good
Price: A Little Pricey

Frank & Diannah’s Arbor Inn
47 S. Bingaman St
Reading, PA 19606

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West Lawn Wednesdays

west-lawn-united-methodist-church

Church dinners are a tradition in Berks County, just as they are across the country.

On any given weekend, you will find area churches serving up freshly prepared comfort foods like chicken pot pie, ham and beans, and pot roast.

Some church dinners have a loyal following, bringing in people from far and wide to enjoy a meal. Whether it’s once a year, or every month, the dinners become a true community event.

But the West Lawn United Methodist Church takes church dinners to a whole new level with West Lawn Wednesdays.

I first found out about West Lawn Wednesdays during the Wilson Iron Chef event in April. The church was set up in the expo space, handing out samples of their shepherd’s pie, which was one of the best items I tasted throughout the day.

Shepherd's Pie - West Lawn Methodist

The ladies running the stand handed us a brochure and two free meal vouchers, and after seeing that the meals only run September through May, I knew I only had a few weeks to  experience a West Lawn Wednesday.

And so it was that we found ourselves in the Community Center on the last Wednesday before the summer break.

According to the brochure, West Lawn Wednesdays began in 2001 with a dinner for about 40 congregation members. The event has clearly grown.

Inside, rows of tables were filled with patrons, with many more having already passed through the doors on this night.

The menu changes weekly with two entree options, starter salad, two sides and dessert. After being shown to our seats, a group of regulars sitting with us were more than happy to point us in the direction of the buffet line.

salad-west-lawn-wednesday

Our first stop was the salad bar, which was better than some restaurants I have a seen, with plenty of add-ins and not a speck of brown lettuce to be seen.

meatloaf-west-lawn-wednesday

Next we took our trays and headed to the hot bar where the night’s entrees were meatloaf and hot dogs with mashed potatoes, carrots and broccoli on the side.

I politely declined the hot dog, but was happy to have them fill up my plate with the rest of the options. Like any good church dinner, the food tasted like it came right out of a grandmother’s kitchen. The meatloaf, topped in brown gravy, had a nice flavor with just enough onions and spices mixed in. The potatoes were light and fluffy and the vegetables also came out beautifully.

The only disappointment was the announcement that the Rita’s Water Ice had not arrived as planned and there would be no dessert.

We all paused mid-meal as the pastor said a short prayer and invited everyone to the group study classes that would begin after the meal was finished at 7:30.

And though we received invitations from some of our neighboring diners, we never felt pressured to stay for anything beyond the meal.

While our coupons we picked up from the Iron Chef competition provided us with two free meals, we would have gladly paid the $7.50 per person that was being charged (for families of four or more, a $25 flat rate makes it even more reasonable).

Entering last year, the West Lawn Wednesday program had earned more than $60,000, all of which went to benefit the church’s various mission trips (from as close as New Jersey to as far as Tanzania) and to provide food for other outreach programs in Reading and Berks County.

And judging from the full dining area and delicious food, I suspect that number will continue to grow as a year of meals begins.

Check the schedule for West Lawn UMC dinners on their website.

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The exterior of Emily's facing south on Route 10
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Review: Emily’s – CLOSED

The exterior of Emily's facing south on Route 10

Editor’s Note: Emily’s is now closed. The last day was New Year’s Eve 2024. The space is now Emily’s Event Venue, though they do offer public events on select Fridays.

A romantic dinner means something different to everyone.

For me, it’s pretty simple. It’s a special night out with my wife where we splurge a little for finer food, drinks (she drinks, I drive) and the ambiance of a nice restaurant.

So when it came time for our third anniversary, I was charged with finding a place for a romantic dinner for two.

Fortunately, Berks County has no shortage of restaurants that could be considered “romantic,” and on this occasion, that led us on a short drive south along Route 10 to Emily’s.

The historic building that Emily’s calls home has stood along Morgantown Road for nearly 200 years. At one time, the restaurant served as a local post office, a history that is celebrated in the uniquely appointed Post Office bar room, with PO Boxes lining the shelves and “Mail Pouch Tobacco” scrolled across the far wall.

Backyard area with bird feeders and a small creek

We were led past several intimate dining rooms, through the bar and out the back door to the creekside porch. Our table was along the rail overlooking the backyard, which doubles as event space for receptions and parties, evidenced by the worn out grass where a tent would generally be set up. A family of bright yellow finches enjoyed their own supper at the four feeders set up along the creek, which was merely a small trail of water as it trickled past the building.

flatbread cut into triangles topped with lamb sausage and cheese

We started our dinner by sharing an order of lamb sausage flatbread. The triangular flatbread pieces were topped with two kinds of cheese (Fontina and Mozzarella), caramelized onions and red currant syrup, garnished with fresh herbs.

The first thing you notice is the chunks of sausage, but the first thing you taste is the red currant. Red currant is a variety of European gooseberry, and when pureed into the syrup, it provides a very sweet flavor. Mix that with the slightly spicy lamb sausage and the mild cheese, and the ingredients combined for one of the best appetizers I have had.

white plate with red designs holding a mixed green salad

In between the flatbread and our main course we were served our house salads, which were offered with one of four homemade salad dressings, including raspberry vinaigrette. It was thicker than I had expected with a beautiful purple color and just a hint of sweetness to balance out the sour of the vinegar.

Emily’s has more than a dozen entrees and several more pasta options that include everything from chicken and ribs to duck and scallops, but it was the Two Peas in a Pasta that caught my eye.

pasta topped with cream sauce, peas and prosciutto

The namesake peas, spring peas and snow peas, were tossed with fettuccine pasta, prosciutto and leeks in a parmesan sauce. The sauce was thick and creamy like an alfredo, but with a lighter flavor. The prosciutto, which was chopped into tiny pieces, added a little bit of salt. Instead of being served al dente, the peas were cooked soft so that as I twirled my fettuccine, a pea pod would often find its way onto my fork as well. It was heavy and filling, but also very good with excellent flavor.

On the other side of the table, my wife enjoyed Emily’s pork rib cap steak, marinated pork steak topped with chorizo sausage and smoky lime aioli, served with a mixed vegetables and wild rice.

pork bites topped with aioli with dirty rice and green beans

The pork was cooked tender with just a little bit of fat remaining. The heat of the chorizo was tempered by the sweetness of the lime and the rice, which was tossed with walnuts and cranberries, the latter providing a hit of sweetness in almost every bite. With the two meats, it was like eating two entrees at once, both of which were very good.

tall glass filled with brownie covered in chocolate syrup and whipped cream

In true romantic fashion, we decided to share a dessert to end the evening. Even though neither of us were hungry anymore, we couldn’t pass on the chocolate parfait, a tall glass layered with chocolate mousse and brownie. The brownie was crumbled so that you had a little bit of the cake in every bite. It was very rich, but so delicious and satisfying.

With entrees that ranged in price from $15 to $30, our $60 check (which also included a mixed drink for my wife) was on the lower end of a meal for two at Emily’s and worth every penny.

It was a slower weeknight so we sat and enjoyed the cool evening air for a few minutes after our meal. The finches were fighting for space on the feeders as the sun was just beginning to set. As we sat, full and content from our meal, it was the perfect ending to a romantic night out.

And I was already looking forward to our next romantic dinner.

BCE Rating
Food: Very Good
Service: Very Good
Ambiance: Excellent
Price: Reasonable

Emily’s
3790 Morgantown Rd
Mohnton, PA 19540

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Review: Michael’s Restaurant

Berks County is blessed with roads.

Lost in the complaints about potholes and the seemingly endless construction projects is the fact that Berks County has one of the best networks of roads in the state.

There are no two points in the county that are separated by more than an hour’s drive.

Yet the city of Reading becomes a roadblock for cross-county travel. For those of us living on the west side of town, places like Boyertown and Douglassville can feel like an eternity away.

One look at the Berks County Eats map shows that my trips to the “other side” have been few and far between. Part of it is the incredible dining options west of the city, but there is a part of me (the Pennsylvania Dutch part) that keeps me from wandering too far from home.

One of the few eastern Berks County restaurants I have frequented is Michael’s Restaurant in Douglassville.

Just two miles from the Montgomery County line, Michael’s Restaurant is your typical diner. A pair of dining rooms flanks the long lunch counter just inside the doors. A row of booths sits against the wall opposite the counter, each one equipped with a small jukebox filled with songs from the “Now That’s What I Call Music” series. I’m not brave enough to drop a quarter in to see if they actually work.

Michael’s menu is expansive, eight full pages plus daily specials, so there are always going to be hits and misses when you’re serving that many dishes. That’s why  I always stick to the Sautéed Specials page.

The Sautéed Specials includes Asian-inspired stir-fry, Italian pasta dishes and unique creations, each one mixing meat with vegetables, sauce and either pasta or rice, all for between $10-14.

salad bar items sitting on a bed of ice

A trip to the soup and salad bar is included with all of these sautés (those without pasta also get an additional vegetable). Though not the best or biggest salad bar in Berks County, Michael’s does offer two kinds of soup and a rainbow of salad ingredients.

chicken noodle soup with noodles and shell pasta

On my most recent trip, I opted for one of the more original sautés: chicken tossed with spinach, white beans and bow-tie pasta in a light cream sauce.

chicken, beans and spinach stir-fry

My dish had a beautiful presentation, and everything in it was really good (the flavor of the spinach really came through, and there was more than enough to ensure some in every bite). The only downside to the dish is that instead of coming together as one dish, it was more like a collection of individual items than a true sauté.

pierogies, chicken, and broccoli in a stir-fry

The same held true for my wife’s sauté, which included chicken, broccoli and pierogies over angel hair pasta. Though everything in it was very good, I can’t help but think that it would have been better served as a pasta entree with broccoli and pierogies on the side.

I enjoy Michael’s for what it is – a family restaurant at a convenient location with good food for reasonable prices.

It’s also a marker on the right side of the map, the first of many trips to the “other side” of Berks County.

BCE Rating
Food: Good
Service: Good
Ambiance: Good
Price: Reasonable

Michael’s Restaurant
1211 Benjamin Franklin Hwy
Douglassville, PA 19518

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A large plate of spaghetti covered in marinara sauce
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Review: Mom Chaffe’s Cellarette

menu front that reads Mom Chaffe's with an image of a woman in glasses and the words Est. August, 1936

For such a small town, West Reading has a seemingly endless array of restaurants.

No less than 30 restaurants and cafes are packed into the town’s 1.5 square miles. From French cuisine to fried chicken and from vegetarian to Mediterranean, foodies can find a world of flavors in this tiny borough.

While most will never venture from the Penn Avenue and the vibrant downtown area, there is much more to this wonderful small town.

Tulpehocken Avenue shoots off from the 5th Avenue traffic circle. Blink and you may miss it and the hidden gem that it holds.

Mom Chaffe’s Cellarette looks like every other home on the block, except for the brightly lit sign proclaiming “Italian Food” and “Cocktails.”

A small brass plate on the front has a simple inscription: “Mom Chaffe’s Est. 1936.”

It is amazing that any restaurant could survive for nearly 80 years, especially one like Mom Chaffe’s, which still does not have a website, a Facebook page or any other online presence. What it does have are loyal customers and 78 years of history on its side.

Like West Reading, itself, Mom Chaffe’s packs a lot into a small space. At times it is too much as the wait staff is forced to navigate a maze of tables and chairs in the main dining room. Even the walls are cramped, with dozens of paintings fighting over the limited space.

What’s not cramped is the menu. It’s very limited-two pages of pasta, antipasto and entrees with a handful of specials added daily.

One of the specials on this night was the Italian fried hot peppers, which were served as an appetizer with sliced tomato and mozzarella over lettuce.

close-up photo of Italian long hot peppers

Though the dish was served cold, there was no escaping the heat. These were some very spicy peppers, loaded with heat and flavor. The creamy chunks of mozarella were a perfect compliment to the peppers, and along with the tomato and lettuce helped cool the taste buds.

While I was adventurous with the appetizer, I played it conservative with my meal and opted for fedelini with tomato sauce and meatballs.

photo of meatballs atop a plate of spaghetti

The two meatballs were massive, clearly hand-formed and full of flavor. The sauce was bright red and thick, one of the best I have found in the area. My only complaint is that there was enough of it to mix with the mound of pasta that was buried underneath.

bowl with lasagna smothered in red sauce

Across the table, my wife went with the lasagna (which is only available Thursday through Sunday). I wish I had made the same decision because the one bite of hers I tried was delicious. The lasagna featured both ground meat and thinly sliced sausage layered with pasta and cheese and topped with the same thick tomato sauce as my pasta. It was a meaty, yet balanced dish that I enjoyed as much as any lasagna I’ve tried (and was enough that she took home half for the next day’s lunch).

slice of chocolate cake on a plate with a dollop of whipped cream

The dessert tray was sitting on a table near us, and after staring at it for most of our meal, there was no way we were going to be leaving without some. It was all fairly standard cakes and cheesecakes (I would venture to guess that these were not made in house, but at another local business). I went with a chocolate cake with a filling of ricotta and dried fruit. The cake itself was very dark, but the filling was incredibly sweet, with pieces of pineapple, apricot and other fruit mixed in for added texture.

In a restaurant with such limited seating, I had expected the prices to be higher to compensate. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the prices were in line any other restaurant with entrees falling in the $15-25 range. For our appetizer, two entrees and two slices of cake, our final bill was just over $50.

Overall, Mom Chaffe’s is a great little place for fine Italian food. If you go, make sure you save room. And be sure to call ahead or there may not be room for you.

BCE Rating
Food: Excellent
Service: Very Good
Ambiance: Excellent
Price: Very Reasonable

Mom Chaffe’s Cellarette
148 Tulpehocken Ave
West Reading, PA 19611

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