Back Porch Cafe
Given its history, tradition, and culture, Rehoboth Beach restaurants have long introduced performance features into menus and evenings, ranging from actual theater, singing, dancing, and various routines, before, during, and after dining. One of the best performances in local dining, however, may be Back Porch Café’s ‘coffee flamed,’ prepared tableside where your server, using flammable alcohol mixed with coffee, engulfs two goblins, swishing the concoction back-and-forth through the audience-wowing flames until the mixture settles into a cinnamon and nutmeg-rimmed cup, ready for your encore first taste. The three-minute show is first rate when it comes to coffee preparation, but unfortunately, is the only star of BPC’s overall dinner presentation. The restaurant has been serving patrons for more than 50 years, and any kitchen with that longevity deserves applause, as well as acclaim because it must be doing something right. But, in the restaurant business, you only are reviewed based upon your performance in last visits, and shelf-life does not always connote star quality. And, while BPC offers among the most eclectic menus at the beach, creativity sometimes is the enemy of excellence. Veal sweetbread, tuna loin, foie gras, rabbit bolognese, and other game dishes make for an interesting variety, but, for the prices, may give you pause because even though the preparation may be unique, the food in too many entrée cases, is meh. Same with the only-at-Back Porch Café chicken wings stuffed with escargot and cheese, surely a one-of-a-kind menu item, but only blah after the uniqueness of the first tastes wears off. Roasted beets are drowned in shaved olives and coated with a bland sauce, and at least two fish dishes were only warming light under-cooked. BPC has an exciting wine list, great custom cocktails, and very professional and friendly service, perhaps owing to its long stake in downtown Rehoboth Beach, and the pressure to deliver for more decades. What once was one of Rehoboth Beach’s most important and watched restaurants now faces considerable competition at its price range, and other chefs have proven nimbler and, in some cases, equally adventurous. Perhaps from a critical point of view, BPC is a victim of its longevity and past reputation; it is probably not fair to judge a restaurant on its past, but instead to review the kitchen on its stand-alone merits relative to other restaurants in the area, taking into account ambiance, service, and overall value today, not compared to yesterday. In that case, BPC still scores the same when compared to its history and its present. A special dinner at special prices requires special delivery, and while BPC is among the higher-end dining experiences in Rehoboth Beach, the only local restaurant where diners might consider dressing-up, the kitchen needs to be reminded that unique dishes are a risk when the quality is not equally as distinctive. BPC is worth your attention, if not for coffee theater, then at least as the only place at the beach where a leg of rabbit rises above a plate of spinach fettucine and confit, proudly proclaiming that at no other Delmarva restaurant is such a dish even attempted. That may be true of the rabbit and other game dishes, but after a few bites, umm, could you pass the coffee . . .
