East End Eats: The Grand Cafe

The Grand Cafe

66 Newtown Lane

East Hampton

324-9207

Open every day for breakfast and lunch. Open for dinner in the summer.

Pass by the sidewalk tables outside the Grand Cafe on Newtown Lane on any Sunday morning in July and you'll get a perfect summer-in-the-Hamptons vignette.

As you zoom past, racing to the dump with a load of overripe garbage or vying with the mob for the Last Parking Space in East Hampton Until Labor Day perhaps, you catch a glimpse of sidewalk tables packed with suntanned summer people. Bronzed arms flex newspapers, stir coffee, pet fashionable pooches. Every table is packed.

But winter is different: Not only will you be able to amble in at lunchtime and get a table, but you'll probably be able to park right outside as well.

Any Which Way

One of the commonest complaints you hear about East Hampton these days is that there aren't any "real" stores left, that the place has been taken over by boutiques. But we should count our blessings that we do still have a few cafes - places where you can get eggs and bacon, a tuna melt, or coffee and a slice of apple pie.

Of all of them, the Grand Cafe has the most comforting menu - one of those almost impenetrable spread sheets laden with specials, combos, sandwiches ad infinitum, eggs and omelets any which way, and pie whatever.

The food, however, is definitely an improvement on standard diner fare.

Staples, Yes

Most of the staples are dead sure bets - the black bean soup is always great and the Belgian waffle with fresh fruit and cream is a great summer breakfast - but a recent lunchtime survey came up with a mixed report card.

The winning dish was crab cakes, served with a mesclun, diced tomato, and goat cheese salad. The combination of the spicy, crunchy, hot crab cakes and the fresh, sharp salad worked very well and at $10.95 it was a real bargain.

Another unusual combination, cheese blintzes with fresh fruit, didn't work so well. The blintzes were extremely greasy and the cheese filling was not very nice, although their recipient was compensated by the massive helping of melon, strawberries, oranges, and bananas that came along.

Tant Mieux

Whoever was on duty in the kitchen seemed a little temperature-challenged on this occasion. The pastrami sandwich, which looked wonderful, was stone cold in the middle. The rare hamburger came completely raw and had to be sent back.

To the chef's credit it returned with a new bun, and the accompanying french fries, crisp pickles, and homemade coleslaw were excellent.

A soup and sandwich special is always a safe bet. The soup was a pleasant beef barley with plenty of heft, and the roast beef sandwich came on a good, crisp peasant bread and was tender and moist.

It was promoted as "rare," which it wasn't, but as it was just to the taste of the guy who ordered it, tant mieux, as they might say down the road at some fancier place.

They'll Be Back

The spinach and feta omelet was baked in the oven, thus bidding farewell forever to that high point of an omelet's existence - a firm golden outside and a moist, barely cooked inside - while achieving instead a uniform dryness.

We do seem to have struck out with a few dishes on this occasion, but those present that day were all regular visitors to the Grand Cafe.

They know it for reasonable prices, fresh, unpretentious food, and friendly, if sometimes harried, service. The occasional greasy blini won't keep us away.