Mar 25, 2005  |  By: YUSEF NAJAFI  | COMMENTS     

IF, LIKE ME, you are hypoglycemic, try nibbling a cracker or candy bar before entering Baltimore’s City Café. The service at this popular restaurant in Mt. Vernon, Charm City’s trendy gay neighborhood, wasn’t top-notch on a recent Saturday afternoon. We sat waiting to be noticed for about 20 minutes.

Ultimately, I dismissed the long wait as a one-time flaw, because once we were on our server’s radar screen our dining experience quickly improved. The best reason to visit City Café is its food, though the large gay clientele also holds appeal.

LET’S BEGIN WITH the hummus. Its unique mountaintop design, walled by triangular pieces of pita bread and tomato balls, was unlike any I’ve ever seen. And, being from the Middle East, I’ve seen a lot of hummus.

Although “with no onions” usually are three words that follow every order I place when dining out, I forgot to make this request when ordering the vegetarian nachos at City Cafe. To my surprise, the result was divine.

The sweet purple onions added a tangy taste to this Mexican treat, made with otherwise typical ingredients: refried beans, cheddar cheese, sour cream, jalapenos, chopped tomatoes, black olives, salsa and guacamole.

For lunch, try the grilled chicken filet and French fries. Fresh does not even begin to describe City Café’s chicken filet. Thin, almost greaseless French fries accompanied my sandwich.

My dining partner decided to keep things light. He ordered the chicken Caesar wrap, which includes grilled chicken, wrapped in a yellow flour tortilla, with romaine lettuce, cherry tomatoes and Caesar dressing. While his wrap was fairly ordinary, the side dish of cole slaw was anything but bland. It included finely chopped pieces of cabbage combined with a sweet, creamy mixture, but not too sweet, not too juicy and not too dry.

For dessert, we chose the Kahlúa chocolate cake and an order of tiramisu. Both sweet treats were quite rich, almost too rich, yet delicious, even if they were served on not-so-fancy dishes.

THE CITY CAFÉ, with its black-and-white checkerboard floors and expansive dining area, sits on a corner in a sturdy building that used to be a car dealership in the early ’20s. By the 1970s, however, it had been transformed into Girard’s, a nightclub, which often was compared to New York’s Studio 54.

But as disco waned, so, too, did Girard’s.

In 1994, the restaurant’s current owners, Gino Cardinale and Bruce Bodie, launched the area’s only coffeehouse there. Four years later, they transformed the coffeehouse into a full-scale restaurant and cocktail bar, with two floors.

In addition to good food, City Café’s early and late operating hours make it an ideal gathering spot for various patrons on their way somewhere fun. Its hours are: Sundays, 9 a.m. to 11 p.m., Monday-Thursday, 8 a.m. to 11 p.m., Fridays, 8 a.m. to midnight, and Saturdays, 9 a.m. to midnight.

Appetizers, lunch and dinner options range from $3.95 to $19.95.