Oak Street Cafe

publication date: Jul 14, 2008

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author/source: Tim Altork and John Breech / STAFF

First Impression
John: Like its name suggests, Oak Street Café is located on Oak Street in downtown Roswell. However, even armed with that information, you still might not be able to find it. I drove right by it and when I finally did locate it, I pulled in the exit side of the parking lot. Any passersby probably thought I was drunk, lost or a combination of both.

Anyway, the inside of the restaurant is where the charm is. The atmosphere is almost indescribable. I’ve always wanted to call a place quaint, so let’s say Oak Street is quaint and unassuming. To really understand my point consider this: if I had shown up in a bathing suit and t-shirt and Tim showed up in an Armani suit, neither of us would have felt out of place. Not many restaurants can pull that off.

Tim: Oak Street Café is completely unpretentious, like the friend that drives the beat-up ’94 Civic only to later let it slip out that he’s a millionaire. I would imagine that a lot of Oak’s business comes by word of mouth because as Breech said, it’s not on a main thoroughfare and it doesn’t even stand out in the small strip center that it’s in. I too drove right past it.

A place like that has to be good to stay in business, and they didn’t disappoint.

Appetizers
John: The first thing you have to understand about this place is that the menu is not exactly extensive. I think I could count on two hands the total number of items on the dinner menu, including salads and appetizers (As it turns out I can’t. I just counted and there are 14 items, while I only have 10 fingers).

We went with a cup of tomato soup and some hand-cut French fries. I think fries can be difficult for a restaurant because everyone who likes fries thinks they’re a fry expert, and sometimes they can make or break a meal. Well let’s just say that Oak Street’s fries made the meal, or more accurately, the appetizer. Oak Street serves up their fries with three dips: spicy ketchup, garlic-herb mayo and blue cheese.

Let me preface my next statement by making something clear: I HATE KETCHUP. I don’t put it on anything, the sight of it makes me want to vomit and if Heinz went out of business tomorrow, everyone would be better off. But Oak’s spicy ketchup was decent, which may not sound like a powerful compliment, but it really is because I haven’t put anything that looks, smells or tastes like ketchup in my mouth in about six years.

I also found myself to be a fan of the tomato soup (I already know that there is some twisted irony in the fact that I hate ketchup but like tomato soup, I have come to grips with it).

Tim: There’s something to be said for variety, but there was a charm in the way that Oak Street stuck to the basics. They had a small selection of salads and an even smaller selection of appetizers. But the menu fit in with the unpretentious atmosphere.

The fries were perfectly cooked (crispy and brown on the outside, soft and hot on the inside) and were easily enjoyable with or without the sauces. And the soup was on par with any other tomato basil that you’ll find out there.

Entrées
John: For dinner, we went with three items: macaroni and cheese, the Oak burger and the Polpettone. Let’s start with the macaroni because I am sure everyone is thinking, “Were the two of you buying dinner for a daycare? What’s up with ordering macaroni?” Well, here is what is up with the macaroni. It’s splendidly cheesy and it has bacon in it. Not bacon bits, but pieces of bacon. And pieces of bacon make everything better. You can also add chicken if you want to make your macaroni more of a meal.

The Oak burger was interesting. I liked the actual burger. It was juicy and cooked right. However I wasn’t a big fan of the bun. I wish it had been softer and a little bit smaller. As most men know, nice buns go a long way.

I’ll keep my love for the Polpettone to a minimum because I know Tim’s going to talk it up. The only negative thing (besides the bun) was that the macaroni is a bit pricey. It’s $14 for a full order, but if you’re not that hungry, you can knock that down to an $8 half order.

Tim: If you take that half order of the mac and cheese it works great as a side dish. As for the Polpettone, a new word for both of us, it was healthy portion of spaghetti and meatballs. The only difference was that the pasta was not spaghetti (Oak uses radiatore) and the meatballs were huge. You get two meatballs with the dish and Breech and I were able to split one, while I took the other home for leftovers. The whole thing tasted fantastic.

The only knock on the entrees was that the burger was oddly topped. It was a quality dish but the combination of honey mustard and sweet pickles is something that I would never put on my own burger.

Dessert
John: For the fun part of the meal, we ordered a blueberry crunch and a molten chocolate cake, both served with vanilla ice cream. If you’re thinking about the chocolate cake, keep in mind that it takes 18 minutes to cook. But don’t complain about it taking so long because the menu clearly states the cooking time.

Preparation time aside, this dessert is fantastic. It’s similar to one we had at Pastis. And while I loved the one at Pastis, it had one thing lacking; not enough ice cream. Maybe Oak Street read my review or maybe they know that nothing is more annoying than running out of ice cream when there is still cake to be eaten. Whatever the case, they served three scoops of ice cream with the cake, which ended up being the perfect amount. The cake itself is served warm and it has a liquid chocolate center that tastes like liquid awesomeness.

Tim: I like foods that have a built in description in the name, like pancake (a cake cooked in a pan) or hard-boiled egg. The blueberry crunch dessert at Oak Street is just such a food. It’s a small vat of hot blueberry filling with a sugary, crunchy topping and a dollop of vanilla ice cream. The combination of hot and cold, gooey and crunchy and fruity and sweet made for a delectable dessert that was difficult to stop eating.

Overall
John: Leaving the restaurant, I had about 30 thoughts running through my head (which I think is probably below average). I was thinking of how versatile of a restaurant Oak Street really is. It would be a great place to go if my parents were in town or on a first date. It’s a place I would visit for lunch, and because they have a full bar, it’s a place where my friends and I could get a light dinner to start off a fun Friday night. I’m going to stop gushing because I’m starting to sound like Dr. Seuss, “I would eat it in my bed, I would eat it while wearing red, I would eat it on a plane, I would eat it in Maine…”

I should note that I think I liked this place so much because there were no expectations coming in. I had no clue if the place was upscale, downscale, casual or what type of food they served. Oak Street doesn’t pretend to be anything it’s not, and that’s something you don’t see a lot of these days in people or restaurants.

Tim: I couldn’t agree more (except that Breech generally can’t muster 30 thoughts in a day, much less in a few moments leaving a restaurant). The only knocks that I can come up with against Oak Street Café are that they don’t have draft beer and the prices might be a little steep ($11.50 for the Oak Burger, for example). 

But this was by far the best combination of comfort, quality and class that I’ve encountered since we started doing this review. If you’re looking for your next place to go out to eat in Roswell, Oak is it.