Original Pancake House's Big German; Park Grill "Reborn"

Grosse Pointe's Park Grill has just been revamped and renovated and Molly Abraham loves it. She says the great food has remained, but the interior is on a whole new level: "the meat and spinach pies, the red and white cabbage salad, the addictive garlic sauce, and hummus with roasted lamb are being served with the amenities of linen napkins, white china and graceful glassware in a room painted a soft gray and decorated with classical artworks based on the history of Albania, the Kokoshis' homeland." Overall, she says that the decor is now on the same level as the food, and gives it three out of four stars.

Topsoil, the MOCAD's new vegetarian/vegan cafe, recently received a review from Jane Slaughter at The Metro Times. She waxes poetic about how strange it is to eat in book stores and museums, but notes that it will hopefully be an attraction for the institution overall. As for the food, she found the vegan coney and the curry bland, but loved the soba noodles: "Tofu, scallions, lots of parsley in a shiitake broth and some still crisp greens — it was enough to satisfy any threesome of foot-weary art-gazers." She feels similarly about the rest of the food, some of it great (salads) and some of it horrible (sesame noodles), though she notes that the unsettling exposition made her critique feel irrelevant in the end.

Original Pancake House (Grosse Pointe, Birmingham, and Southfield) is home to Sylvia Rector's Great Plate this week, as she featured the Big German. The strange-looking pancake relative is a puffy pancake baked in an oven, which inflates, and then deflates before serving. It's sprinkled with sugar and lemon juice, with extras of the same on the side. These extras are crucial, as Rector notes: "the more of them you use, the better it becomes". It's light and fluffy, not heavy like a traditional pancake, and she especially loves to carefully orchestrate each bite: "I like getting some of the moist, lemony bottom and crisp sides in the same bite". As for what she likes with it? Bacon of course.
· Reborn Park Grill becomes a Detroit dining destination [Detroit News]
· Restaurant Review: Topsoil Café at MOCAD [Metro Times]
· Sylvia Rector's Great Plates: The Big German at the Original Pancake House [Freep]
· All Week in Reviews Posts [-ED-]