There is an important niche for a small café and dessert bakery in Middletown’s culinary landscape, but the dining experience at the outwardly-promising ‘Sweet Harmony Café and Bakery’ was more than a little out of tune.
Poor quality of food, bland flavorings, and disappointing desserts were among the sour notes issuing from this little flowered tea-cozy café. And the live music I heard when I visited on the monthly “Dessert Night” only helped to make literal the restaurant’s figuratively “off-key” aspects.
Although it functions as a tea and coffeehouse, serving soups, salads and sandwiches, Sweet Harmony places most of its emphasis on the homemade cakes, bars, pies and puddings for which its bakery is known. On “Dessert Night,” which occurs on the first Friday of every month, there is a long list of cakes available in one-person portions for $2.50, as opposed to the normal $4 or $5 fee.
The promise of some great desserts kept me going through what was a fairly disappointing meal. The spinach quiche I ordered off of the dinner special menu was flavorful enough, but instead of the firm buttery crust I expected, it had a chewy breaded bottom, almost indistinguishable from the filling.
The sandwiches were less appealing than their description on the menu. Rosemary focaccia bread was the high point of the tuna melt with sweet red onion and Swiss cheese. The filling, however, was flavorless and lumpy.
Both of these lighter entrees were accompanied by skimpy salads made up of large and unwieldy pieces of lettuce scattered with a few tomatoes and sliced onions.
Despite their drawbacks, these dishes had some redeeming qualities. The same cannot be said for the chicken alfredo dinner special that my other guest ordered. The bland whiteness of the tuna melt was mimicked in this dish, in which pasta, gooey, cheesy sauce and pale chicken breast pieces melded in a sad, colorless pile.
A sprinkling of some fresh herbs would have made a substantial difference in the appearance and flavor of this dish, but even salt and pepper would have been a good start. The chicken should have been cooked with its own spices in order to highlight that it was not, in fact, the same ingredient as its pasta surroundings.
In all fairness, other items that I was not able to sample may rescue this menu. The salads topped with Black Forest ham and melted brie or baked honey apricot chicken sound promising, as does the pork tenderloin sandwich with gorgonzola cheese on a croissant with a side of tropical chutney.
Of course, these may also follow the trend of sounding better on paper than they look on the plate.
After enduring this dinner—accompanied by the laughable live music duo singing gospel and R&B renditions on top of pre-recorded voices into a reverberating microphone—I was expecting even bigger returns from dessert.
Unfortunately, these were not to be had. The warm chocolate cake was light and airy and had none of the rich intensity that its name suggested.
Although it had an unsatisfying lack of denseness that reminded me of a cake mix, the distinct rummy flavor of the mocha butter rum cake helped it pack a little more punch. But the chocolate hazelnut cake was almost the same as the other chocolate cake, only with the addition of hazelnut flavoring.
While I expected to walk away from Sweet Harmony Café happily stuffed with a simple, but satisfying meal, followed by standout desserts, I left wondering why I had even bothered to save room for the not-so-grand finale. It looks like the search isn’t over for a bakery and café to satisfy Middletown’s sweet tooth in a way that can truly be called harmonious.
Sweet Harmony Café and Bakery (zero of four stars)
158 Broad Street, Middletown; 860-344-9646
Hours: Monday: 11 a.m.-3 p.m.; Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday: 11 a.m.-5:30 p.m.; Thursday and Friday: 11 a.m.-8 p.m. with dinner specials; closed Sunday.
Atmosphere: A flowery, lace-laden country teahouse
Recommended dishes: Desserts are the specialty.
Price range: Salads and sandwiches $7-$10, Dinner specials $12.50, Desserts $4-$5 (except on dessert night)
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