Monday, April 26. Coffee Rani. MA and I took a rare lunch at Coffee Rani. That's a two-unit casual eatery owned by Gary Darling's wife Angelle and a partner whose name I can't remember. I think it opened after Gary and the other Taste Buds opened Semolina, but not by much. It's named for the Darlings' daughter (now grown up, a nurse), and was the second restaurant to bear that name. Gary opened the original Café Rani as a gourmet bistro in Covington back in the 1980s, before he became the corporate chef of Copeland's. I remember that it was pretty good.
Coffee Rani, as the name suggests, was originally a java joint. It opened when the new generation of coffeeshops like PJ's were popping up all over the place. It had more food than most such places--salads and sandwiches at first, but much more later. Now they have a tremendous menu, without really leaving the salad-sandwich matrix. A few pastas, a couple of soups, burgers and a few other grilled-dishes completes the selection. And added to the coffees (one of which is a credible chicory blend, a rarity in the latter-day coffeeshop) are some good flavored iced teas.
The salads are what I imagine most people come here for. A case could be made that Coffee Rani is the best salad specialist in town. The one I had certainly advanced that notion. The Soprano salad is a well-balanced collection of green, artichokes, tomatoes, mushrooms, and muffuletta-style olive salad, with a dressing described as creamy parmesan. If I had a complaint about it, it would be the quantity of shredded cheese over the top, which was. . . . over the top. Still this was a better salad than the simpler spinach-and-blue cheese salad of which Mary Ann partook, and that was a good one, too. (Below.)
The only reason I don't go to Coffee Rani more often, despite its convenience to the Cool Water Ranch, is that I don't like ordering at a counter. In fact, standing in line to eat is almost enough to make me want to skip that meal. (I should, in fact, skip quite a few.) The prices make up for this, though. Very few dishes here push past ten dollars. And the premises are pleasant. Even a few tables out on a patio.
Between the salad and a largish cup of pretty-good chicken-andouille gumbo, I was done eating for the day, leaving me free to talk and writing incessantly about eating without its making me hungry.
Coffee Rani. Covington: 226 Lee Lane. 985-893-6158. Coffeeshop. Salads. Sandwiches.
