Caffe Galleria

Weary shoppers seeking a pick-me-up or a menu that has something for everyone will enjoy the Italian-style offerings here.

By: Tom and Kate O’Neill

Caffe Galleria

Penn’s Plaza Outlet Center

5861 York Road (Route 202)

Lahaska

www.caffegalleria.com

(215) 794-8111



Food: Fair, with some shining moments

Service: Informal, friendly

Prices: Moderate

Cuisine: Pizza/Italian/Mediterranean

Ambience: Coffee bar/neighborhood café

Hours: Sun.-Thurs. 8:30 a.m.-9 p.m., Fri.-Sat. 8:30 a.m.-10 p.m.; breakfast until noon, lunch 8:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m., dinner 5 p.m. to closing (menus and meal times are flexible, however).

Essentials: Accepts all major credit cards, wheelchair accessible (though the tables are tightly spaced), BYO.

Directions

   Caffe Galleria, a New Hope destination until its recent move to Lahaska, has become an Italian-style neighborhood café. Of course, its neighborhood is the bustling outlets of Peddler’s Village and Penn’s Plaza. Diners — or sippers — enjoy lots of choices here: they can grab an Italian soda or latte at the coffee bar, take home a wood-fired pizza or sit down and be served from an eclectic menu that ranges from simple pastas to rack of lamb. With increasingly ambitious cuisine in the offing, further evolution is expected.
   Meanwhile, Caffe Galleria has not abandoned its New Hope roots: works by local artists cover the walls, and Poetry Slam Night still occurs the second Tuesday of every month.
   The guest’s eyes first light on the finale: Set in the long coffee bar on the left, a large glass-fronted cooler displays tempting desserts. On the right, in the dining area, star lanterns provide soft overhead light, while sunny yellow walls and hand-sponged golden orange woodwork give the room a warm Mediterranean ambience. The 20 or so snugly arranged tables are surrounded with comfortable chairs. The current artists’ show features photographs of notable European landmarks, from the Eiffel Tower to the Trevi Fountain.
   As in any neighborhood restaurant, camaraderie develops between the diner and the staff. Conversations include staff and guests in a way that blurs traditional distinctions, and to uncork the wine we’d brought, we were provided a corkscrew. We enjoyed the restaurant’s laid-back atmosphere, and that was fortunate, because disarray in the kitchen gave us plenty of time to sit back and take it in.
   Though only one or two other tables were occupied that evening, and the coffee bar had only occasional drop-by visitors, the wait for our meal was long. Some 10 minutes after we’d put in our order, two simple Galleria salads (included in the price of any entrée) found their way to our table. In another 10 minutes, our first appetizer arrived. Our second appetizer arrived after the entrée that should have followed it.
   This lapse was accompanied by an apology from the chef and an explanation from Federico, our helpful and pleasant server: the kitchen had confused our order with that of a previous table, then checked ours off as complete. The chef sent us an extra-generous portion, and we were not charged.
   The Caffe Galleria menu reaches in unusual directions, and despite several disappointments, we found some of the food to be very good. The dense, moist salmon cake appetizer ($8.95) was drizzled with honey mustard and served over a bed of fresh spring greens that balanced the intense natural flavor of the fish. The late-arriving eggplant rollatini ($8.95) would make a fine main course: creamy with mounds of ricotta and a distinct touch of cumin.
   The café offers a Middle Eastern sampler of vegetarian favorites such as hummus, falafel and baba ganoush; in addition, an asterisk specially marks all vegan items on the menu. Our son Tim claims to be on a worldwide calzone-sampling quest, but as a non-meat-eater, he had to skip Caffe Galleria’s version, because it contains ham.
   Instead, he ordered the menu’s closest approximation: stuffed pizza with sun-dried tomatoes, roasted peppers, portabella mushrooms and garlic ($8.95). He enjoyed the toasty brick oven flavor of the dough, the traditional trio of pizza cheeses in the filling and the summery Mediterranean flavors of vegetables. Without the usual topping of marinara or pizza sauce, however, the dish turned out slightly dry.
   From the pasta, seafood and meat choices, we chose two of the more recently added selections. Roasted chicken ($14.95) is a flattened chicken breast topped with a smooth but zesty lemon sauce. The chicken was a bit dry from overcooking, but the main disappointment with this dish was that the black olives were not the briny, wrinkled variety that should accompany this Moroccan-inspired dish, but the tasteless, sliced black olives often found on pizza. The chicken came with a light, well-prepared couscous. Galleria Tuna ($19.95) also was slightly overcooked and the room temperature tomato parsley sauce seemed out of synch with the January calendar. It might work very well, however, on a warm summer evening. The broccoli that accompanied both dishes was al dente and benefited from a hint of the chicken’s lemon sauce.
   We were glad we still had room to explore the desserts in the coffee bar display. On entering, Tim had seen and smelled the cooling tray of rich and chocolatey peanut butter brownies, and was delighted to find he could order one with a scoop of "Moose Tracks" (fudge and peanut-butter-cup) ice cream ($2.95) and a peppermint sweet mint chocolate chip steamer ($3.50). Kate opted for a more continental combination: mocha cake ($3.95) and a decaf espresso ($2.50). Iced with a dark chocolate glaze, the cake holds hints of nutmeg and cinnamon, making it a fine accompaniment to the deep, rich espresso.
   Caffé Galleria has admirable ambitions well beyond what we expected from a restaurant with a captive audience of outlet shoppers. On the night of our visit, the performance was not equal to those ambitions, but the meal was enjoyable thanks to friendly service and the unusual possibilities offered by the menu. Weary shoppers seeking a pick-me-up or a menu that has something for everyone will enjoy the selection, the atmosphere and the camaraderie at the café.