CHEAP EATS
Aunt Millie’s Kitchen: Mile-High Meatloaf and other tasty tall orders
On a Saturday afternoon visit to Aunt Millie’s Kitchen, John, Pat, John and I waited at the door a few minutes to be seated. That was prime viewing area for the pastry counter, where we saw mutant creampuffs the size of softballs and a staggering chocolate layer cake topped with cherries that was easily a foot tall. Then we noticed that most of the people who were leaving were toting dinner-sized foam containers of food.
These two observations were not unrelated.
When we spotted the “Mile-High Meatloaf” ($8.49) and a “Tower of Eggplant Parm” ($7.49) on the menu, we knew that this place specializes in exaggerated size. So there was value, but was the food good?
Happily, the answer was yes. We sampled a variety of food, and all of it was good. The dinners started with cold, crisp salads and warm, herb-sprinkled rolls. We learned that Aunt Millie’s started as a doughnut shop and added on rooms as demand grew, so the wonderful desserts and rolls were understandable.
The Tour of Italy ($8.99) was called Aunt Millie’s bestseller, and we understood why. A lightly breaded, fried chicken cutlet, parmed, held down one side of a platter. The opposite side contained a stuffed shell, a stuffed manicotti and several cheese ravioli, and the whole thing was ringed with penne. The sauce was medium thick, sweet rather than tart, and delicious.
A turkey dinner ($8.99) featured roast turkey sliced right off the breast in the kitchen—no processed meat here. The moist turkey was laid on a pile of stuffing, covered in a turkey gravy and served with a vegetable and a cup of cranberry sauce. All of it was good.
A Country Fried Fish dinner featured a slab of mild, white fish that seemed a bit too flat to be haddock. It was coated with a light breading and served with scoops of potato salad, cole slaw and tuna mac salad, all cold, fresh and excellent.
The mile-high meatloaf wasn’t really (we already sort of knew that), but it was an impressive stack: A slice of homemade bread topped with a slab of meatloaf, then a cake of smashed potatoes, with a couple of onion rings on top. Nobody could eat dessert, but I had to see how they sliced that foot-tall cake, so we ordered a few things to go. A cake slice was $5.99 and served two generously; a napoleon was $4.29, a pastry heart (called an elephant ear) was just $2.29. Dessert is a must here.
Aunt Millie’s Kitchen is open from 6 a. m. to 10 p. m. daily. It is handicapped-accessible.
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