Shadyside's Cafe Zinho is the funky place to relax and eat up
They don't accept reservations or credit cards. You have to lug your own wine. Tables for two are tiny and so closely arranged you feel like you could eat off your neighbor's plate.
So why is it such a pleasure to eat at Cafe Zinho?
Maybe it's the relaxed, neighborhood bistro ambiance.
Funky, off-beat, smart and trendy without being swanky or formal, this is the kind of place that you drop round for dinner when it's too hot to cook, when there's nothing in the freezer or when you're too tired to cope.
Maybe it's the reasonable cost. The priciest entree is $16.95, low enough that eating here could become a regular habit.
Maybe it's simply that the food is imaginative without being pretentious, well prepared yet uncomplicated and quite tasty.
The decor is nonchalant chic - concrete block walls and cement flooring painted a room-darkening dark moss green, Indian block printed fabric draped across windows, strings of tiny colored lights strung across the room and an accumulation of unmatched chairs and tables with not a tablecloth in sight.
All those unremittingly hard surfaces make for a noisy dining area when the restaurant is busy. In the evening, that's most of the time. Fortunately, although the room is noisy, your neighbor's conversation doesn't intrude on your own.
On warm summer days seating is also available at a knot of tables just outside the restaurant's windows. On balmy evenings, the glass doors are opened to connect indoors and out and allow the occasional gentle breeze to flow through the main dining room.
A seemingly endless stream of diners keeps the tables filled and the energy high from 6 p.m. on. Most of them appear to be repeat customers aware of the BYOB policy. At least one member of almost every party arrives toting one or more wine bottles.
Cafe Zinho is in its fourth year of operation, and owner Tony Pais says he recognizes almost everyone who comes through the door. He's somewhat surprised by Zinho's success that has turned it into more of a restaurant and less of the cafe he and wife and co-owner Becky Pais envisioned.
"What makes it work," Tony Pais says, "is we do everything to order and try to keep prices low."
The waitstaff is knowledgeable and wants to be obliging. But when the dining room is hopping, service becomes unfocused and confused.
The basket of hot, crunchy rolls and a small crock of herb butter served on one visit failed to materialize for us on a later visit while it did appear on nearby tables. Water is offered and glasses refilled. But entrees are frequently delivered to the wrong diner or even the wrong party. We had to ask for an ice bucket to keep our white wine cool while other parties had their uncorked bottle delivered in one. On two occasions we weren't given our corks back so that we could take our bottles home with us if we didn't drain them.
Unexplained waits occasionally stretch the time between courses.
That's good if you're unwinding with friends or significant others after a difficult day or week. It's not so good if you had after-dinner activities planned.
The food is, however, worth lingering over.
If you're with a group, consider the Appetizer Plates of oven-roasted tomatoes, roasted peppers, a generous offering of olives and chunks of sharp but smooth manouri cheese ($6.50). Served with some thin rounds of bread, it's the perfect Mediterranean-style appetizer for sharing. A more adventurous starter to divvy up easily is the crostini with fig, gorgonzola cheese and a dab of cherry preserves ($6).
Even on a hot night the Roasted Garlic and Tomato Bisque ($5.50) was a welcome choice. Smooth and creamy with a sweet tomatoey taste, there was little hint of the advertised garlic but a pleasantly fresh accent of fresh dill.
Salads are big enough for stand-alone entrees or for two to share with their dinner. Sharp, pungent but creamy goat cheese oozed from the Goat Cheese Purse ($9.50) in phyllo dough that sat atop a bed of tiny, mixed greens and meaty walnuts that had been tossed in a light vinaigrette dressing with a hint of mango flavor.
A favorite entree is the Elysian Fields Lamb Burger ($9.25), served on a toasted bun with a small mound of salad greens and a small pool of fruit chutney - more like a fruit sauce - with raisins, currants and cranberries. The lamb is tender, juicy, flavorful and cooked medium-rare exactly the way we like it.
We were less enthusiastic about the Smoked Salmon Mac and Cheese ($13.95). Two huge nicely al dente pasta shells were generously over-stuffed with smoky salmon and three cheeses - predominantly ricotta. But they swam in a thin, tomato-based mixture that was more like soup than the expected and thicker vodka cream sauce.
We had no complaints about the two excellent daily specials. Pan-fried Scallops ($17.95) were plump, sweet, tender rounds nicely seared on the outside and cooked just to the point of doneness. Accompaniments were a tasty mound of rice and a collection of crisp-tender cooked vegetables - slim strips of bright green zucchini and orange carrots and tiny green beans. On another occasion we chose the Chicken Breasts ($15.95) with peppers, tomatoes and onions. Turns out the peppers the waiter described are not the sweet but fiery pequin peppers we had thought we heard, but small, sweet and red piquillo peppers from the Basque region in Spain. That may explain why the dish reminded us so much of a sultry evening in the Mediterranean.
Definitely linger over dessert. Selections ($4.50 each) change with regularity, but all four we tried were excellent. Lemon Tart was delightfully tangy, sharp and lemony with only a light dusting of powdered sugar over its surface. A tiny pot of silky Creme Brulee offered a surprising hint of orange in its crackly caramelized topping. Strawberries sat atop a bed of Mille-feuille Puff Pastry cushioned by a thin layer of custard. The sweet, soft, tiny strawberries contributed a pleasant yin to the yang of the crisp crackle of the pastry shell. Flourless Chocolate Cake, a dark and rich wedge of pliant semi-sweet decadence, was almost too rich, but that didn't stop us from polishing off the last forkful.
One final note: Cafe Zinho does not accept credit cards. But it will obligingly allow diners to pay with a personal check - and they don't even ask for identification, yet another nice neighborly touch.
Additional Information:
Dining Review
Cafe Zinho
