We discovered The Cottage Cafe on Scoutmob. Now, let it be known that you can not trust every recommendation on the deal site. You have to do the research or just take a gamble. We realized it was only a five-minute drive from our home, the cafe is nestled in a shopping strip off Old Hickory in Bellevue.
It is a quaint little hole in the wall connected to an antique shop that your grandma would die for. But anyways, it is also home to Crumb de la Crumb Bakery. You might have seen them on The Food Network Challenge. They’ve created cakes for some of your favorite Nashville natives like Taylor Swift, Josh Farro of Paramore and Lady Antebellum. The wife and I usually jump right into trying a little bit of everything in order to give you the scoop.
We heard the She Crab soup and crab cakes were killer but I’m allergic to shellfish so that wasn’t happening. First, they bring every table cheddar jam. A blend of cheddar, seasoning & pecans topped with a fruit jam and accompanied with Ritz Crackers. We both ordered the half and half combos. I got the Carolina Classic, shredded iceberg, eggs, almonds, and hot bacon & honey mustard dressing. Please believe when I say this sounds a lot better than it looked. My sandwich, the Roasted Chicken Pesto Panini consisted of roasted chicken, provolone cheese, vine-ripened tomatoes, pesto aioli on flax-seed wheat. The sandwich was good, all the flavors were there but there couldn’t have been more than two ounces total of all those ingredients on my sandwich. Which left me rather dissatisfied. I won’t go into detail but my wife’s meal was the same caliber of disappointment. She ordered the Spinach and Cranberry Salad with the Berried Bird Sandwich. Once again, both relatively good but lacking in presentation and quantity for the price. The experience might have been better had the service not been so slow. You would think for such a small operation. It would be a great in and out lunch spot, but to our dismay it was not. Our server while very nice was taking orders on her iPhone which actually seemed to be slowing her down. I was beginning to pick up on the sense that the restaurant was an afterthought and the desserts were the cash cow.
After our meal we skipped out to the foyer to get some dessert. It was the week before Thanksgiving so there was no Red Velvet cake by the slice to be purchased. Bummer! So we nabbed a Red Velvet and a Vanilla Cupcake. I always get a vanilla cupcake when I first try dessert shops because I figure if you can’t do vanilla anything justice. That’s a problem. Both cupcakes were good but not a match for The Cupcake Collection or that of The Painted Cupcake. All in all , I believe The Cottage Cafe has found their demographic and it’s not a youthful crowd. It’s our parents. Lastly, if you find yourself in the Bellevue area definitely swing by The Cottage Cafe for a gallon of Vanilla Bean Lemonade. It’s that good.
Looks tasty. I will definitely have to give it a try.