Surrounded by boutiques and mini-marts, you might not notice Brickstone Eatery. Having just opened less than a month ago, the new cafe doesn’t even have its own sign yet. But for those looking for a place to grab a salad or sandwich, sip on some coffee and hang around, Brickstone is a great place to check out.

Located in the space vacated by Bleu Monkey Cafe, after the sushi restaurant moved down the street, Brickstone serves paninis, salads, soup and desserts, available to eat in or to go. The food on the menu isn’t necessarily creative or groundbreaking, but the establishment fills a need on Marshall Street by supplying a place to get a substantial meal, sit, drink coffee, do work or chat.

The cafe was nearly empty when we got inside, with a few people coming and going with takeout orders, but that didn’t make me feel uncertain about taking out my laptop and staying a while.

The café’s organization and flow were confusing — I wasn’t sure where I should order my food and if I had to order my drink separately — which appears to be the result of the establishment being newly opened. Most of the furniture inside was held over from Bleu Monkey, but some tables had been removed to allow for a comfortable booth to be put in against the wall.

I went with a turkey and artichoke panini, made to order and served with chips. I lucked out with the price — the sandwich is typically $7.50, but Brickstone runs a $5 panini special on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Regardless, the panini was worth it. The bread was fresh and grilled to perfection, served hot off the panini press with perfect lines burnt into it. Though nothing set this panini apart from every other turkey and artichoke panini I’ve eaten, I certainly didn’t complain when the cashier rang up the price.

My dining partner went with a soup and side salad combination. Out of four diverse soup choices — including vegetarian options — she chose the minestrone. The soup was served in a Styrofoam cup, which obviously lends itself to takeout, but doesn’t really add to the dining-in atmosphere. The soup was warm, not hot, and she likened it to any canned variety of minestrone she’d had before — nothing special.

For the other part of the meal, she chose the Brickstone Salad. Brickstone offers your typical salads — Caesar, spinach, Greek — but going with the Brickstone Salad allowed her to choose her own greens and toppings. The variety of salad toppings and dressings was impressive, with every type of vegetable, fruit, nut and cheese imaginable. She topped her spinach salad with feta, cubed turkey and dried cranberries, and she ordered raspberry vinaigrette on the side. She found the turkey a bit odd-tasting, and it certainly didn’t look appealing, but the vegetables were fresh and the dressing was ‘delicious.’ She picked around the turkey and still had some leftovers to bring home.

As a caffeine addict, I had to try the cafe’s latte selection. I went with a nonfat caramel macchiato ($4.15 for a medium) and thought it was a great effort. The drizzle of caramel sauce on the top added sweetness, and the espresso seemed well brewed. I could tell that coffee wasn’t necessarily the emphasis of the cafe, but it had a good variety of specialty drinks. Brickstone brews Finger Lakes Coffee Roasters coffee, a Central New York roaster located about an hour away in Victor, N.Y. I was particularly happy about that welcome change and can see myself stopping there in the future to grab coffee to support a local coffee roaster instead of always frequenting the chains.

We ended our meal with a piece of tiramisu, a portion big enough for two to share. The tiramisu didn’t taste homemade and lacked any distinct espresso taste. After trying it, I wished we ordered one of the other desserts — the cafe offered a delicious-looking chocolate peanut butter pie and numerous types of cheesecake. But we ate it anyway. Dessert is dessert.

The nondistinct cafe seems like the perfect place to escape campus, grab lunch and relax or work in solitude. Although at first confused about where to order and put off by the plastic dishes and lunch trays, we were happy with our meal and found it a welcome alternative to ordering Jimmy John’s time after time.

Instead of settling for the louder atmospheres of the more popular restaurants, or the miniscule portions of pastries in Starbucks, head to Brickstone Eatery and enjoy a cup of coffee and a real sandwich in peace.

knmciner@syr.edu

Published on April 5, 2011 at 12:00 pm