Molly Brown's Cafe
 Akron, Ohio     Date of Visit  04/03/13    http://www.mollybrownscountrycafe.com/

Had to run into work on a Sunday morning and found ourselves a bit peckish on the way out the door. We tried two places, both closed on Sundays. Yelp made some suggestions, one of which popped up a few times…Molly Brown’s Country Café…and off we went. Located in a strip mall in Akron the place is hoppin’ with people devouring breakfast. Inside it’s homey for a strip mall, if a bit dingy, plus there is a little train hanging from the ceiling that motors around the place every once and a while.
 

The Little Choo-Choo, Chugging Along
 

The service was friendly and quick. The menu was a little peculiar, I didn’t discover til later that there are four locations, two locally and two on the west coast…that explained some of the desert names for some dishes. We ordered a breakfast skillet and a diner dinner.

The breakfast skillet was the Louisiana option consisting of fried potatoes, bell peppers, onions, melted cheese and hot links topped with three eggs, which I ordered over easy. The eggs were well done but the whole mess was actually boring, the opposite of what you would expect from something wearing the Louisiana moniker. The hot links would have to struggle to be less hot and everything else melded into a bland lump. Fortunately, there were a pile of hot sauces on the table, many of which were shaken vigorously in an effort to make the skillet into something of note. Hot sauce, however, couldn’t redeem Steph’s chicken fried chicken.
 

Pounded, breaded and fried the chicken was served with mash, green beans, corn bread and country gravy. Every component in this dish exhibited significant flaws. The chicken was dry and chewy overall, with edges that were simply unchewable. The mash had lumps, a sign of real potatoes, but had the taste and texture of boxed flakes once you got past the lumps. The gravy had a nice consistency but didn’t taste like much of anything, failing to aid the chicken or mash. The cornbread wasn’t quite done through and doughy in the middle, which wasn’t too bad since it didn’t really taste that good from the start. End it with vegetables that had all nine lives cooked out of them and you’re going to leave unsatisfied.

If you are at Molly Brown’s, think breakfast, if you’re thinking breakfast, you could do better somewhere else.