City Cafe And Dreamland (2005-11-18)
City Cafe is located in Northport, just outside the city limit of Tuscaloosa. It is a well-known establishment among the locals and it serves good ol' southern food. You don't go there to get lean cuisine or French fusion dishes. You get rough and tumble comfort food which tastes great!
There are three dining rooms in the restaurant, the first one with a
counter on one side and booths on the other, the other two rooms just
have booths. There seems to be a line at all time there, when you
enter the cafe, you automatically queue in line. There are no
wait staff to ask how many people in your party, waiting customers just
go to a table themselves whenever one becomes available. Once you
are seated (sometimes with the tips and dishes from previous diners
still on the table), a waitress will materialize to ask you if you want
sweetened or unsweetened iced tea (and clear the table if
needed). Then she'll take your order.
Our thoughtful waitress brought us four glasses of unsweetened tea
because there's some problem with the tea machine and she didn't think
she could give us refill before it got fixed. But try to
understand her super heavy southern accent proved to be a challenge, we
had to half guess what she said and kept asking her to repeat her
words. She made me realize how much we were in the deep south of
the US of A.
KL ordered hamburger steak, sliced tomatoes and fried okra. I
had fried chicken and collard greens. The meal came with dinner
rolls and cornbread. Our food was yummy and reminded us of our
days in Alabama. And it was cheap eat too. We even had
refill of our tea in a big cup to take away, super value for someone
who's used to the high prices of food in Tokyo. It was a very
nice lunch for us.
Dinner at Dreamland was great too. They have a limited menu
but people who go there don't want anything else but BBQ ribs
anyway. Once you place your order, the nice and friendly staff
will bring you extra BBQ sauce and a plate of soft white bread to mop
up the sauce. We ordered a slab to share between us and it
was a huge serving. I couldn't believe we actually finished
it. We had two satisfying meals in one day in Tuscaloosa, and
probably gained two pounds each!
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