Bienvenidos

All Are Welcome at Homey City Square Cafe

By Warren Rojas / Photography by Kate Bohler

As I sat there, sipping a little sumthin’ sumthin’ and pondering the issues of the day, a young couple clearly intent on wringing every last ounce of opportunity from their kid-free pass ducked into City Square Café, planted themselves at the bar and fired off their order—scotch neat (him), slice of chocolate pie (her) and the check—with resolve.

When the barkeep returned with their drinks (she eventually warmed to the idea of a glass of wine while waiting for the dessert), the time-crunched duo attempted to qualify their brusqueness. “It’s not that we don’t enjoy your company. But we have to meet the babysitter,” they sheepishly explain.

Bartender Hugo Martinez assured them there were no hard feelings—for over an hour.

That’s how long the couple wound up staying—a visit spent laughing at Martinez’s jocular yarns, savoring each bite of chocolate-laced torte and fondly recounting how they had “discovered” the restaurant while strolling through Old Town Manassas the previous summer—once they let go of their in-and-out mindset and allowed City Square to work its magic.

“See you next Wednesday … if not sooner,” a server calls out on another evening to a pair of smiling retirees who evidently return for favorite meals like clockwork.

“We have a tremendous number of loyal customers,” co-founder and executive chef Robert Barolin says of his burgeoning corps of regulars. And their numbers have, no doubt, been steadily growing since Barolin (back of the house) and his wife, Susana (front of the house), took control of the then-Sandwich Factory Café in 1989 (ultimately rebranded as CSC in 1996).

The space feels, to borrow from the fairytale feng shui consultant Goldilocks’ rhetorical toolbox, just right. The main dining room fields about two dozen bare wooden tables, the compact bar welcomes guests with a handful of stools and two hightops while the seasonally operated patio fans out across a commercial thoroughfare hemmed in by the adjoining railroad tracks.

The restaurant’s identity, meanwhile, fluctuates according to its attendance, floating freely along the hospitality spectrum from family-friendly during its lively brunch trade to hopelessly romantic—as illustrated by the starry-eyed 40-somethings who couldn’t help but act like teenagers, nuzzling each other’s napes and sneaking tender kisses between sips of wine when they (wrongly) assumed no one was watching—on more sedate evenings. Most nights the crowd skews slightly older (early- to mid-50s seemed to be the average), appears to be predominantly local (I watched several couples/groups wander off on foot) and, much like the unsuspecting protagonists from the earlier date-night anecdote, are often prone to lingering.

In fact, one pair of old timers seemed almost more interested in the company rather than food. They wound up spending the majority of their time regaling a server with tales of their generation-spanning ties to the community—only to be one-upped in the contest of geographic fealty by the similarly connected young man (turns out his parents owned a long-standing Alexandria restaurant that actually predated the older couple).

Nostalgia seekers should be happy to know that Barolin is still there every day. But he’s ceded daily cooking duties to sous chef Scott Bilstad.

“I’m pretty much out of the kitchen now,” Barolin admits, though he still steps behind the burners to choreograph certain wine dinners/theme nights. He and Bilstad often collaborate on menu development, as was the case when the duo sat down to sketch out the flavor profiles they hoped to explore on their now two-year-old tapas carte.

Barolin insists that that menu, along with the broader dining program, remains heavily informed by a very influential neighbor: the Manassas Farmers Market. While I certainly see the connection between the seasonal spoils (the likes of mushrooms, asparagus and mixed peppers cycle in accordingly) and featured specials—which run the gamut from curried beef to teriyaki salmon to salads boasting warm penne—the menu’s true strength lies in its surprisingly diverse seafood catalog.

Barolin’s affinity for marine life runs deep and can manifest itself quite straightforwardly, as it does in the formidable crab cakes, or decidedly elegantly (the delicate salmon en papillote and perfumed seafood paella come to mind).

Not that the kitchen is confined to any particular medium.

“If we have the ingredients … it’s not a big deal,” Barolin says of their willingness to accommodate special requests/quickie substitutions.

Empanadas looked small but revealed yielded steam-spewing pastries loaded with seasoned beef and sautéed vegetables (juicy and savory, respectively). Tomato dipping sauce was extra chunky (bonus!), but proved to be distractingly sweet.

Southern grains emerge from the deep fryer as grit croquettes, a novel take on traditional bar snacks. Instead of rivers of molten mozzarella, each golden brown baton delivers a snappy crunch followed by mouthfuls of cakey grits studded with bacon bits and melted cheese. The accompanying white bean spread both cools things off and spices things up.

The surf-and-turf-y Oscar burger is plenty big but seemed terribly disjointed. The half-pound beef patty simply overwhelms the much smaller crab cake, an otherwise respectable specimen of fairly filler-less crab meat (padded with some onion, but that’s about it). The corresponding horseradish added some welcome sting, but didn’t successfully bridge the dueling proteins. I choose to believe something along the lines of an Old Bay aioli would have worked better, drawing out the crab a bit more while softening the burger’s profile with the emulsified mayo.

Grilled steak again hogs the spotlight in the chivito sandwich, though this time it’s intentionally—and rightfully—so. A fried egg (sunny side up, of course), sliced ham, melted cheese and sliced Roma tomatoes (extra juicy) joint the mouthwatering beef in the appetizing sandwich.

“Whatever that meat soup is, it’s delicious,” one companion opines after sneaking a taste of the entrancing lamb ragout while I’m not looking. The cubed lamb was remarkably tender. But the bell pepper-stuffed olives were indisputably in charge, tugging the broth in their pungent and inexorably briny direction while the supplemental onions and fingerling potatoes merely bobbed along compliantly.

Fried pork chops falter in terms of the promised mustard crusting (only nominally spicy), but they do present rosy bites of tender pig wrapped in pleasantly seasoned breading. Cider-glazed carrots are wonderfully complementary, more so because of the pucker-producing cider than the scattered tidbits of bacon. Curried cranberries, on the other hand, were overly aggressive and much too earthy.

“I don’t recommend anyone get those. They are highly addictive,” Barolin jokingly counsels a neighbor when pressed for dessert recommendations.

How right you were, chef.

His traditional zeppolli summon ricotta-filled dough balls topped with powdered sugar. If, however, you should spy the coveted chocolate version, pounce on them immediately—as you won’t soon forget the moist and doughy middle, the crunchy walnuts or the sinfully rich warm chocolate sauce.

Other crowd favorites include: chicken Bravo, ribeye with chimichurri sauce, Mediterranean shrimp and salmon with sun-dried tomato cream sauce. “Those are the dishes I can’t take off the menu,” Barolin suggests.

And while they highlight the random Uruguyan specialty here and there, Barolin says he and Susana opted against adopting a native cooking-only program at the restaurant. “If we go that route, it’s going to be a struggle,” he says of the conscious decision they made at the beginning to explore more all-inclusive options rather than limiting themselves to a potentially unsustainable Latin American niche.

Still, Barolin prides himself on building in-roads for Uruguyan wines, a still developing market that lacks the name and brand recognition enjoyed by its better established neighbors, Chile and Argentina.

To wit, around a quarter of Barolin’s compact wine carte—perhaps two dozen bottles, total—are plucked from New World producers, including Uruguay (tapped for sauvignon blanc, pinot noir and tannat), Argentina and Virginia (viognier, vidal, cabernet franc and nebbiolo all represented). More importantly, virtually every wine is available by the glass—a feature which makes it easy enough for Barolin to pour non-believers a sip of the unknown.

So far, Barolin says his efforts have been rewarded by new converts to the fold of Uruguyan pinot noir—which he claims has been shown to be every bit as good as renowned California producers—and the lesser-known tannat. The outreach efforts will no doubt intensify if Barolin is allowed to follow through on tentative plans—“It’s just a concept right now,” he suggests—to erect a dedicated wine tasting room above the existing restaurant.

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City Square Cafe
9428 Battle St., Manassas; 703-369-6022; www.citysquarecafe.com
Hours: Open for lunch Monday through Friday, dinner Monday through Saturday, brunch Saturday and Sunday
Prices: Average entree $21 to $30 ($$$).

 

(May 2011)