Cafe Deluxe

Of all the restaurants that the culinary hub Bethesda has to offer, why would you go to Cafe Deluxe? In my opinion it is the "classic American cuisine" option lost in a sea of more tantalizing options. Within a three block radius of an Indian restaurant, Lebanese tavern, Irish pub, French bistro and Spanish tapas bar, Cafe Deluxe seems lackluster at best. It has an unimaginative menu to match its charming yet nondescript interior, with your run-of-the-mill dishes: soups, salads, sandwiches and pizza; the expected entree selection of steak, salmon, lamb and pasta. By now I've been trained to never even dream of getting pizza or pasta at an American restaurant. Blasphemy, to the Italian Boy.

So not surprisingly, I chose the salad with roasted beets, goat cheese, walnut and a blood orange vinaigrette - a nice flavor combination (though with me a dish really can't go wrong when there's beets involved.) My major complaint was that the beets were diced too small for my taste, losing the effect of the roasted veggie's fantastic texture. And I have to say that the vinaigrette, though tasty, could hardly be classified as "blood orange" - again, my inner elitist warns when not in Italy ...

The appetizers, including spring rolls and spinach and artichoke dip, were tasty but forgettable, but the pepper crusted rare Ahi tuna with frisee was excellent - good quality fish with excellent preparation somewhat unexpectedly at a place you wouldn't think of doing sashimi. This was the best dish of the night by far, followed by the distant second choice of the lump crab cake with corn and asparagus saute and sweet mustard cream; in the "when in Rome" mentality of course we had to order the crab cakes in Maryland, and enjoyed the refreshing take on this Chesapeake area staple. A true testament, though, to the uninspiring food at Cafe Deluxe was that no one was interested in seeing what desserts they had to offer, figuring nothing could wow us there. Nothing was outright bad, but nothing was truly exceptional, and though I don't expect an epic romance, I at least want an experience with my meal. So if you're going out to dine in Bethesda, I say go elsewhere.

3/5 stars.