Datebook Diner: Gateway Market gets it right

Interior of Gateway Market. (Credit: Andrea Markowski/Special to Metromix)

Preliminary visit; not yet rated.

At last - someone got it right. The folks at Gateway Market have given us what this town has craved for years: a true gourmet market along the lines of Dean & Deluca, Trader Joe's, Balducci's and the like. Yet it's even better, because in addition to world-class products, this market also links itself to our spot on Earth. That is, visitors will spot lattice-topped pies from Perry alongside true-to-Paris croissants.

Yet interestingly for easily less than $20 a person (with wine!). Where else can people do that? The news just gets better: The place is serious about breakfast, too.

The look: After a couple of visits, my spouse mentioned that this order-at-the-counter caf felt a little like a truck stop on a French autoroute ... and he meant that as praise. Such places are often airy, modern and stylish, and despite their casual nature, often serve very good food. The connection may seem far-fetched, but it's not: Both places are committed to making the pleasures of the table an everyday thing.

Menus: At breakfast, find a menu of standard-to-creative items such as a two-egg special, eggs Benedict and omelets, most around $7.95. At lunch, find Ramen noodle dishes, full-meal salads and a good array of sandwiches. Ranging from $6.95 to $11.95, dinner entrees include plenty of pasta dishes, plus lemon-rosemary rotisserie chicken, pan-seared salmon and pad Thai.

Stand up and cheer: A very decent selection of inexpensive wines goes for $4 a glass. Diners also can buy a bottle of wine in the market to enjoy in the caf - no corkage fee.

Tastes: At dinner, both the chicken pasta with Gorgonzola and pine nuts and the rigatoni with Italian sausage brought satisfying windfalls of flavor. Breakfast needs a little tweaking. Though the french toast - made with rich challah bread - was good, the chiliquiles dish with scrambled eggs, salsa and tortilla chips was less so. It sounded good - a little like a classic Tex-Mex "migas" (scrambled eggs with delicate strips of tortilla chips). An overload of tortilla chips made this dish a little like eating nachos for breakfast.

A final word: A woman I spoke with mentioned her pasta had arrived cold, but that she still loved the place - that's the general feeling I get from most people I talk to. That is, if there are a few kinks, we're willing to overlook them for now. The market is so smart, thrilling - and necessary - that we'd be curmudgeons to nitpick at this point.

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