Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner at the Black River Cafe

In addition to its white squirrels, Oberlin, Ohio is also blessed with the perfect restaurant. The Black River Cafe has unpretentious, local, organic, good, cheap food.

In town for twenty four hours, I ate three out of four meals here, and wish that I ate all four. For breakfast I had poached eggs, a corn cake, home fries, and Curly Tail Farm sausage with local maple syrup on the side. Everything was how you would want it to be.



I tried the marinated tofu sandwich for lunch.



Tofu sandwiches have many pitfalls, the worst and most common of which are dryness and lack of flavor. The BRC's take on this usually inedible dish was both moist and flavorful, thanks to the freshness of the tofu, a healthy strata of sauteed mushrooms, and vegenaise. As a non-vegan, I can say with pure objectivity that vegenaise is confusingly tasty. Also as a non-vegan, I ordered the local, organic Ohio beef burger for dinner.



Because of my scruples, I almost never get to eat real burgers. Thank god for the Black River.

Farmers Diner

After an eerily filling calzone from a college cafeteria the night before, I was overjoyed to realize that the Farmers Diner was on my route today. For those who don’t know, the Farmers Diner features regular diner fare made almost exclusively from local ingredients. Eating there, you realize how good normal food can be if it’s simply made by people who aren’t trying to f*ck you.

I had the corn fritters, a pot of mint tea, and the maple barbecue sandwich. I don’t normally trust barbecue this far North, but the sauce had the right vinegar and spice so often retarded by sweetness in non-traditional barbecue regions. It was very, very good. You should go there.

Interestingly, my vegetarian companions were somewhat disappointed by the food and by the fact that not every single item (orange juice, black tea, potatoes) was local. If you're vegetarian and already a local eater, you might not like it too much. But if you're the kind of American family for whom "neighborhood restaurant" means ingredients from China served in a casual atmosphere, and you stop at the FDr while on vacation, it might just change your world.