Several months ago my wife, a friend and I planned on spending the day geocaching in and around Myerstown, PA. Due to the fact that it was brutally cold and windy we knocked off early and vowed to return. Shortly after that the wife got a Groupon offer for a meal at the Porch in Myerstown and thought we could finish up there after our geocaching return trip. We never made it back to geocache but since the Groupon was about to expire we went to the Porch for dinner last night.
From the outside the Porch resembles many long standing historic inns that are found in towns throughout Pennsylvania. Downstairs is a bar featuring light fare with fine dining served upstairs, which is handicapped accessible.
I always feel good when I enter a restaurant for the first time that is fairly crowded on a weeknight. When we arrived for our 7 PM reservation there were only two empty tables. I took that as a good sign.
The Porch has over 50 craft beers available which appealed to the beer snob nature in both of us. The list is reasonably priced but leans heavily towards IPA’s, porters and stouts. Despite having one of my favorite IPA’s, Racer 5 on tap, I opted for a Manhattan, which was properly made and the wife went the wine route, which is available by the glass.
The menu is somewhat limited but I tend to like a smaller menu as I feel that many restaurants try to tackle too much and fall short in many instances. The menu is broken into 1st and 2nd course followed by entrees. Due to food allergies and a lack of anything that really jumped out to either of us we just moved on to the entrée section.
The wife is a big crab cake fan and Chef Joe Edwards claims that his were awarded a Top Five Best Award from “Baltimore Magazine”. The crab is paired with pasta, which she thought a bit odd but she didn’t have too difficult of a time making her decision on the $28 entree.
Several years ago I was at a brewpub in Boston that had Kobe beef meatloaf on the menu, which I ordered. The idea of Kobe beef and meatloaf at first seems almost criminal but after that meal, if I see Kobe beef meatloaf, I’m in. The menu at the Porch described their meatloaf as Wago beef, red wine and wild mushroom sauce with mascarpone mashed potatoes for $18.00. I think they meant Waygu beef, which is a generic term in the states for beef similar to Kobe beef, which isn’t imported into the US. Waygu actually means cow in Japanese so last night I ordered the cow beef meatloaf.
When our food arrived we both had the same reaction. We looked at each other and both mouthed the word peas. Both of our plates were served with peas as a green. One of the things you learn when you grow up in a farming area is what foods are fresh when. Peas are one of the earliest things planted in PA and are usually harvested in June or July. If they are planted in early summer they are harvested by early October at the latest and I’m writing this in November. Even if I didn’t know that by looking at them my brain would have screamed frozen peas.
Regardless of the peas we were there and had plates of food in front of us, so we dug in. The crab cakes (2) were everything you would expect of an award winning crab cake. They had big lumps of crab, were creamy, yet firm and best of all absolutely delicious. The pasta was nicely done but nothing out of the ordinary. Then there were the peas. For what they were they were good. Unfortunately, to our way of thinking they shouldn’t have been on plates that totaled $46.00 especially when the menu proclaims using only the finest ingredients.
Chef Edwards says his meatloaf is a “local favorite with flair”. I think he forgot to put the flair in mine. Don’t get me wrong it was good meatloaf. It was moist but for me not much better than good diner fare that could be had for half the price. The other thing I found surprising about the meatloaf was the size of the portion. When I think meatloaf I think about food I want to eat when I’m hungry and for a 145 pound guy who was moderately hungry when I got there I had plenty of room left over after dinner for more. As far as the mashed potatoes were concerned, they were every bit as good as my partner’s crab cakes.
About two thirds of the way through our meal the people at an adjoining table finished their meal and left. That was when the waitress began clearing the table. I was always under the impression that you never left a table uncovered in a fine dining establishment but that’s what she did. Shortly after that she presented the table next to us their check and proceeded to announce to all in earshot how she was ready to go home.
As our waitress approached to see if we wanted dessert my wife excused herself and headed to the restroom. I have never done this in a restaurant before but I just told the waitress that I had asked my wife if she wanted dessert and she didn’t and we were ready for our check. It just felt as though it was time to leave, not a welcoming atmosphere in which you would want to spend relaxing with coffee and dessert.
When she came back with the tab we presented our Groupon coupon. She then asked if we were there for the first time due to the Groupon offer and invited us back. I was tempted to reply that we were there for the frozen peas and extraordinary hospitality but just left instead.
