RESTAURANT REVIEW : A Boisterous Good Time at Central City

Most days, the Central City Cafe is crowded at lunch, quiet and peaceful at dinner time. But the first time I visited the restaurant for dinner, the parking lot was clogged with cars and inside, it was not quiet at all: A full-scale office party was in progress.

A very pleasant young waiter, filling salt and pepper shakers at the front counter, told us we were welcome to have dinner and then, because we were new to the cafe, informed us of the procedure for eating here: Order at the counter from the menus hanging on boards above our heads, chose a table or booth, and wait for the food to be brought to us.

“What’s good?” we asked.

“The salads are enormous,” he said. “And the pastas are very good.”

“How about the fried chicken?”

In a very tactful, discreet way, he simply did not respond.

We took a booth at the fringes of the crowd. The party, we soon discovered, was a Drug Enforcement Agency gathering and it seemed like a regular good-natured office bash. Indeed, the Central City Cafe does seem like a good, friendly place for such an affair: The walls are old brick, there are high ceilings with the ducts and vents showing, there’s a full bar. On one wall is a large mural, a cityscape, curiously dreamlike and deserted, a mood precisely the opposite of all the camaraderie and boisterousness that was going on in the restaurant.

The most significant thing about our meals that night was the vast difference between the entrees. A well-cooked fettuccine--with tons of tasty baby shrimp and artichoke hearts in a light, buttery cream sauce--was as good as many plates of pasta I’ve had for two and three times the price in fancier restaurants. But the stir-fry--a heap of broccoli, carrots, bean sprouts and chicken on rice--was not good. The vegetables were both undercooked and overcooked as if we’d gotten the dregs of the stream table mixed with a few freshly cooked items, the rice was undercooked and the chicken, as my friend said, “tasted as if it had already been used to make chicken soup.”

I returned for lunch a few days later a little before noon and the parking lot was, if possible, even more jammed than it had been the night of the party.

Once inside the cafe, the first person I saw was our former dinner waiter. “I thought I’d try this place for lunch,” I said.

“You’re going to see it get really crazy,” he said.

The friend I was meeting for lunch had not yet arrived, so I went through the line, which was very short and ordered some appetizers. By the time my friend arrived at the stroke of noon, the line had grown formidable. We dallied over the appetizers, waiting for the line to subside, but it didn’t. Luckily, we had seven fresh, cold, delicious Washington oysters served with fresh lime wedges. We also demolished most of a cold plate filled with three big slabs of delicious smoked albacore; a nice selection of fresh pineapple, orange wedges and sweet strawberries; and some sizable slices of bland, boring cheese.

Meanwhile, the place filled up, then grew seriously packed. And why not? The food is ample, fresh and diverse. There’s everything from pot roast to calzone, and the quality is that of a good cafeteria. Once ordered, the food shows up with impressive alacrity. The prices are reasonable. The atmosphere is lively. Most of the customers come from downtown offices: They’ve spent all morning concentrating at their desks, and here, in this relaxing place, they talk to each other, laugh, eat, sit back. The restaurant seemed filled with a sense of release, a happy, friendly energy.

Eventually, we ordered more food. A dinner salad was a surprisingly good mixture of fresh iceberg lettuce, grated cheese, fresh raw mushroom and ranch dressing. Linguine with a red clam sauce, though a little salty, was better than might be expected. I tried the fish and chips because of all the plates of it sailing past. I could discern no apparent reason for this popularity, however. The big chunks of fish were greasy, the fries were soggy, and there was no vinegar in sight--the chance of flagging down our waitress to ask for some in the middle of the lunch rush was nil.

Lunch at the Central City Cafe was crazy--for the staff, at least. But I was having a pretty good time.

Central City Cafe, 601 S. Central Ave., (213) 627-4482. Open Monday through Friday 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. Full bar. MasterCard, Visa accepted. Lunch for two, food only, $10 to $30.