Taste the New 'Flavor'

Cafe Soriano introduces special Thursday menu

Alicia Grega-Pikul

An admitted sauce snob, Susan Soriano has seen many fellow cynics walk through the door of her Peckville restaurant on Pasta Night.

"I won't eat sauce out, so I understand," she said. "I'm not offended when they say they're a sauce snob. I know exactly where they're coming from, but we use my great-grandmother's recipe and all our sauces are homemade and so are some of our pastas. It was almost like once you got a couple groups of people in, like hardcore Italians from the Jessup area, and they tried it and they said it was good and were willing to eat the sauce out, that's when we started to get nailed on Pasta Night."

Cafe Soriano has recently introduced another spin on the region's abundance of wing nights and weekly steamed clam specials with a special menu served only on Thursday nights called "Flavor." More than just a marketing gimmick, the concept presents a zesty assortment of a la carte items that, like tapas, can be enjoyed in combination by the individual or shared around the table.

On a recent trip to the restaurant, we dined on generous plates of Filipino-style eggrolls called Lumpia ($5), polenta French fries ($6), fried avocado ($6), Diablo chicken ($7), cheeseburger minis ($6), and Negimaki ($8), a sake-marinated beef stuffed with scallions. While some of the recipes, like the popular eggplant risotto are experiments gone right, others are dishes in demand at the Japanese restaurant in Washington D.C. where Soriano used to work.

"The Negimaki is one of those things people either like or they don't," she said. "We wanted a medley of different foods, not the same old bar food or dinners."

While we later lamented ordering so many fried foods, we found the portions impressive and were especially rapt by the variety of tasty sauces specialized to accompany most every dish. A basket of complimentary tortilla chips was served with a uniquely tangy, fresh salsa; the Lumpia with a spicy chili citrus sauce, the avocado with a zippy mustard, and the fries with a very cheesy marinara. Even the mini cheeseburgers proved impressive as blue cheese mixed with a barbecue ranch sauce was unlike anything we could remember tasting.

"Flavor is actually the way I like to eat," Soriano said. "I don't like to sit down and have big dinners. I like to be able to pick and choose little things and have a variety, like my own little buffet at the table.

"Honestly, I didn't feel comfortable doing tapas because to serve things that small, I thought people might be afraid of it. So we decided to go a little bit bigger. So it's something a little bit different but not too crazy to scare anybody away. ... I hated when we served entrees. We would give a potato and a salad or a veggie and we were throwing it away because it came with the dinner. That killed me, just the waste of food. (With Flavor), if you want a veggie, you order one."

So far, Flavor seems to be particularly popular among groups of women, Soriano has noticed. While most customers return to try the restaurant's other menus, they tend to pick a favorite. Sunday morning offers a stuffed French toast special in which customers can select the spreads and fruits of their choice. Among the options for pancakes are Nutella hazelnut chocolate spread, homemade sweet cheese, coconut and crunchy peanut butter in addition to fruits like peaches and pineapples in addition blueberries, strawberries and bananas.

"We like to be accommodating because I know how I am. I get bored easily," she said with a laugh.

Open since 2003 in a Main Street storefront, Cafe Soriano boasts a whimsically DIY decor that is colorfully festive and creative with a decidedly unpretentious feel.

"It's not like we went out and spent $2 million and have marble and that, which would be fantastic, but we wanted to funk it up."