When a restaurant’s breakfast menu boasts items like pork loin, cheese grits and Angus steak, it’s a sure sign of a place for people who are serious about eating. And at Creole-inspired Mama Roux’s Kitchen, good eating is the guiding mission.

The friendly wait staff, clad in matching black t-shirts, moves about the large, dim dining room with a comfortable ease. Customers who pick the small low counter over a cozy booth get to chat with the servers who stand expectantly in front of the bustling short order kitchen.

Though Mama Roux’s also serves lunch and dinner, breakfast is undoubtedly the crowning meal of this unassuming down-home café. The bread, muffin, pies and pastries are baked fresh daily, and the sauces, both sweet and savory, make every bite a pleasure.

The only weakness is its coffee. Nonetheless be prepared to wait 10 to 20 minutes for a table on weekend mornings.

Carnivorous customers will be satisfied with signature dishes like Mama Roux’s Cajun Good Morning, a luscious blackened center cut pork loin with two eggs, cheese grits, home fires and the sweet cornbread-like Johnny cake. Mama’s Favorite is another meat-eater’s dream with fresh buttermilk biscuits drenched in spicy sausage gravy, also accompanied by two eggs and home fries.

Though meat is a Southern staple and specialty, vegetarian breakfast items are just as plentiful on Mama’s menu. The strawberry mango French toast, made with French bread saturated in a rich batter had also soaked up the sweetness of the fruit. There are also blueberry or banana flapjacks, which come in stacks of two or three.

Most of the omelet selection is also vegetarian, and Mama’s even manages to make a cheese omelet sound exciting, offering six different cheese varieties from dill havarti to goat cheese.

As long as your arteries don’t clog up, breakfast at Mama Roux’s Kitchen is good enough for every meal, but lunch and dinner also have some notable high points.

Sandwiches and burgers take up most of the lunch menu. The grilled veggie pita and the grilled cheese sandwich, the lone vegetarian sandwiches, almost get lost among a sea of bleu cheese burgers, pulled pork sandwiches and a foot-long all beef hot dog.

Southern classics like gumbo and chicken fried steak are a guaranteed success, and succulent sweet potato fries make regular fries taste a bit boring.

Mama’s just opened for dinner three nights a week at the beginning of October. Having proved its breakfast prowess, the wait staff is trying a bit too hard to make dinner match it, and some of the details on the menu still need to be worked out. The restaurant doesn’t have a liquor license yet, so customers can bring their own alcohol for a $2 pouring fee.

They’ve still got a ways to go to catch up with breakfast, but with Mama Roux’s commitment to quality, the dinner is still worth a try.

Perhaps the best part of Mama’s dinner menu is the desserts, all of which are made on the premise. The warm bread pudding, reminiscent of the breakfast menu’s French toast, is topped with a sweet brandy glaze and plump raisins. Traditional sweet potato pie is the perfect blend of sweet and savory, with the texture and spice combination of pumpkin pie, but less additional sugar.

Appetizers like Shrimp Bayou, prawns cooked in a warm and spicy garlic sauce, distinguish Mama’s from less authentic Creole interpretations. Blackened artichokes were another success, and crab cakes and oysters don’t make their way on to many other Wesleyan-area restaurant menus.

Beside the gravy-soaked Southern Fried Steak, the southern staples like the Cajun Pork Burger and the French bread Po’Boy were disappointing in their lack of spice and the excessive melted cheese that got cold too fast and overwhelmed the meat. But the distinctive seafood dishes like the Blackened Tuna Nicoise with roasted asparagus and the traditional fried catfish were excellent.

Serving soul-warming food with food lovers in mind, Mama Roux’s is an ideal way to enliven a grey Sunday morning or a cold winter night. If you come to Mama Roux’s Kitchen for breakfast, you wont have to eat again all day, and if you come for lunch or dinner, you’ll go to sleep dreaming of pulled pork and sweet potato pie.

Mama Roux’s Kitchen

Breakfast/Lunch: *** (three of four stars)

Dinner: ** (two of four stars)

317 Main Street, Cromwell; (860) 632-8484

Take Route 9 North to 99 Cromwell. Go straight off of the exit. Mama Roux’s is on the left hand side.

Hours:

Breakfast and Lunch served seven days 6 a.m.-2 p.m. Dinner is served until 9:30 p.m. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.

Atmosphere:

Cozy and comforting, a good place to go on a rainy winter morning. Live music during dinner hours.

Recommended dishes:

Mama Roux’s Cajun Good Morning, Mama’s Favorite, Mama’s French Toast, Shrimp Bayou, Blackened Tuna Nicoise, Bread Pudding.

Price range: Breakfast: $5-$9; Lunch: appetizers, $4 to $7, entrees, $5 to $8.25; Dinner: appetizers, $6.50-$9, entrees, $8-$14, desserts $4-$5