West Point Market Café       

 Akron, Ohio        Date of Visit  06/01/13        
 http://www.westpointmarket.com/site/HomePage.aspx 

Whenever I need a special ingredient for something and don't have time for a Cleveland trip, I often end up at the West Point Market. It is not as big or have as many offerings at the West Side Market but you can find a lot of run-of-the-mill ingredients, plus quite a few high end options. I only remembered to take a picture of one of the cheese cases but there is a section of fresh produce, a prepared foods/deli case, a bakery with fresh breads and treats, a butcher and seafood counters.
 

One Of Several Cheese Containing Cases, The Market Defeats The Cafe
 

We are looking for some prime steak and ahi to celebrate Steph getting the green light on the written portion of her comps and the beef and tuna look excellent as usual at the market.

We decided while we were going we might as well check out the café inside for lunch where we have had a couple of lunches previously. Mostly a salad/sandwich kinda vibe the café does use a number of the quality products from the many sections of the rest of the market.

We both decided on a soup and half sandwich combo. I also ordered an iced tea which was freshly brewed and made from leaves with a strong floral note, better than you would expect. Steph ordered roast beef and brie and added a bowl of lobster bisque from the self serve station with eight soup choices. I ordered something called the pilgrim and went with the beer cheese soup…no the diet is obviously not back on until Monday.
 

At least I didn’t get the lobster bisque. Steph did. I haven’t ever seen her leave most of any bisque option on the table until today, but I understood why. It’s not that we’ve had some really excellent versions, I’m not sure how anyone would choose this plop even if it was the only bain marie on the soup table with anything left in it. Not only was it overly thick the thickening agent had separated out and was the predominant flavor of the stodgy mess. There were hints of shellfish and maybe some sherry but it was a disappointing mess overall.
 

Really Should Have Gone With The Sherried Mushroom Instead
 

The sandwiches were much better. The quality roast beef was encased between two halves of a crust roll and topped with a nice brie, red lettuce, tomato slices and horseradish. Beefy, tough but pleasant chew from the bread, unashamed pop of horseradish, fresh veggies, nothing wrong with that. The only downside to the pilgrim sandwich was I had to ask what it was. Regulars might know but for folks who are there less frequently would benefit from some sort of description. The pilgrim consists of a light rye bread filled with sliced roasted turkey, all topped with lettuce , a cranberry apple chutney and sage cream cheese.  There is an avalanche of chutney running out of the sandwich and it is wonderful with the turkey. I was most worried about the sage cream cheese but the whole thing made me forget about the soups. Well, not entirely but we left happy with the next two nights dinners and a fair lunch. You will pay a little more at West Point and as long as you are not getting the soup the odds of it being worth the extra scratch will improve. BTW the tuna and strips were beautiful.