White Dog Cafe in Wayne, PA

What has become a yearly pilgrimage to the Devon Horse Show in Devon, PA has also turned into an exciting few days of dining each year. Devon is nestled among a few little communities: Berwyn, Wayne, Paoli, Malvern, among others, and in this affluent area, small eateries with high quality menus are bountiful. This trip I visited Alba, in Malvern, and White Dog Cafe's Wayne location. When a friend 'yelped' the restaurants in the area, these two were on the top our 'must dine at list'. When my foodie and wine expert uncle, Dennis, suggested he and his family meet us at White Dog Cafe, Alba became the stop with friends the night before.

You are either going to love or hate the decor inside White Dog. The walls are covered, and I mean COVERED, with portraits of canines, the chandeliers are made from empty wine bottles and the menus are wooden slabs with a paper boasting their offerings strapped on top. The rolls came out freshly baked, with a hard crust and pot of soft butter. Those of you who know me best, know that I judge the prospect of return to many restaurants based on their bread, and after the first dinner roll, this place was showing promise.

I ordered a spinach salad which came with house made croutons, hard boiled egg, smoked bacon and some vegetables. The croutons were slightly to salty for my liking and the consistency was oddly airy but interesting nonetheless. I would have liked for the bacon to either be crispier or for it to be cut into smaller pieces, but the size of the chunk in the salad and the chewy texture made it hard to negotiate.

For dinner I had the Barramundi. I have seen this Australian fish on menus before but never ventured into its waters. I remember when fisherman were first trying to break into the USA market with this one. There was a big article in the Boston Globe about 'The Next Big Fish'. They were actually considering calling it 'Next Big Fish' because they didn't think people would buy something called Barramundi - it sounded to mean/harsh, like the fish might have huge teeth and be really scaly. (Got to love how the marketing teams perceive the American intellect)

Anyway, I digress. At White Dog the Barramundi came with sides that I really wanted: truffle chive gnocchi, trumpet mushrooms and asparagus all over a porchini emulsion, so I thought 'what the heck!' Barramundi is more or less an Australian Bass. It is a white fish, slightly oily, sans strong flavor or smell, and with texture much like a perfectly cooked wild Norwegian salmon or Arctic char or Chilean Sea bass. The skin on it was crispy and of course I gobbed that up too. There is nothing better then a crispy, salty piece of skin to offset a piece of buttery, soft textured fish.

We also ordered a side of Parmesan truffle fries (yes we like truffle anything), which were fabulously fried, salty from the cheese and truffly at the same time!

I definitely give Marty (owner) and his crew two thumbs up for the quality at this place and it was a pretty fabulous suggestion by good ole Uncle D!