Minutiæ

The metro area has seen a hand­ful of din­ing options open their doors these past few months. Minu­ti­ae senior food crit­ic Pat­ty Dole took a look to see which ones you should be check­ing out.

De La Plate is the lat­est South­ern Ital­ian eatery from chef Jer­maine Mar­guzi in the new­ly revi­tal­ized Shore­line, so my hopes were high. So high I even sched­uled a date there with a young lawyer I met online named Tony. While I wait­ed for Tony to arrive, I got to expe­ri­ence De La Plate’s excel­lent ser­vice. My wait­er pro­vid­ed me with plen­ty of water and bread as 8pm became 9pm, 9 became 10, 10 became 11… and I began to wor­ry that Tony was not going to come. As the wait staff began to place chairs on table­tops and the restau­rant closed, I real­ized I nev­er got around to try­ing the famed brushet­ta – or any of the oth­er dish­es for that mat­ter. Next time, Chef Marguzi. 

Morn­ing Dew is a new brunch spot on the city’s recent­ly revi­tal­ized south side. It’s also near my new friend Tony’s work and we made plans to meet there after the sched­ul­ing mishap at De La Plate. Morn­ing Dew’s staff sug­gests try­ing one of their sig­na­ture scram­bles or a cup of Port­land-based Whim­ple Roast­ers cof­fee. Upon arriv­ing, how­ev­er, I was wor­ried Tony wouldn’t see me sit­ting inside so I decid­ed to wait out front. The restaurant’s valet dri­vers were very friend­ly and even offered to bring me cof­fee or juice as I wait­ed most of the morn­ing for Tony to arrive. Alas, Morn­ing Dew stopped serv­ing about 3pm and I nev­er got to sam­ple their trade­mark break­fast scones. 

Mom’s Sand­wich­es is a pop­u­lar sub and sal­ad shop in the recent­ly revi­tal­ized Down­town Mid­dle Core. While crowd­ed on the week­ends, drop by on a Wednes­day or Thurs­day around lunchtime and you’ll get a table right away. Come at the right time and you’ll even see the man who’s‑promised-to-take-you-to-dinner-twice-and-stood-you-up-both-times hav­ing ice tea with anoth­er woman. I can’t say that Mom’s food is good, but their tables are easy to knock over and their drinks are per­fect for throw­ing in people’s faces. If you’re a lying bas­tard, Mom’s seems like the ide­al place to meet your lat­est slut.

These will be Pat­ty Dole’s last reviews for Minu­ti­ae as she is now attempt­ing to Eat, Pray, Love her­self into giv­ing her life mean­ing. ✦