As I strolled downtown Tuesday night, the brick-lined window of Caffe Malvina caught my eye. It looked like one of those hole-in-the-wall treasures that are homely on the outside, but serve spectacular food on the inside.
I glanced at the menu taped to the outside window and patted myself on the back for finding a restaurant that would provide charming service, delectable food and do it all at a price that a poor, starving student could afford.
Caffe Malvina originally opened in 1977 on Broadway where Sam’s House of Hof Brau and The Dungeon are now.
“We were the first Espresso bar in Chico,” said Sal Corona, the owner of Caffe Malvina.
At its Broadway location Caffe Malvina had been ahead of its time, Corona said. He started the business four years after graduating from Chico State. At that time Caffe Malvina sold sandwiches, coffee, pizza by the slice and played live music on weekends.
Caffe Malvina was very popular with the students, but in 1981 Corona lost his lease, and moved the restaurant to its present location on Third Street between Salem and Broadway.
Corona still tries to cater to students by serving food that is nourishing and tastes home-made but that “it’s hard,” he said.
“People in our day, they don’t know how to eat,” Corona said.
Corona likes to call the generation of people now going to Chico State “microwave kids” because with both parents working, and no one at home to cook, young people never learn what good food is.
When parents eat out for dinner four or five nights a week, the children never learn how much more expensive it is than to make food at home, Corona said, adding that he would love to teach a class at Chico State where he could show students how to cook basic meals for themselves.
As a student, who was eating out for the first time that week, I settled myself in and looked at the menu, delighting in the lush green plants that decorated the window.
The prices of the entrees seemed to be more expensive than I remembered from the menu outside.
I ordered deep fried mushrooms ($6.95) as an appetizer and, as my entree, the “Cannelloni al Modo Mio” ($13.95), a pasta filled with spinach, cheese and veal topped with a cream sauce. Jeff Tracy, my waiter, informed me that all of the dinners came with complimentary soup, salad and bread.
The salad was sitting before me almost as soon as I ordered it. It arrived on a small white plate with several slices of raw mushrooms and a sprinkling of shredded carrots for color. The house vinaigrette had a heavy vinegar and pepper flavor, but other than that it wasn’t any better or worse than the bottled kind found at Safeway.
I pushed the leaves around on my plate and eavesdropped on the cook and waiters who where chatting in the open kitchen. Their casual conversation about “The Lord of the Rings” all but covered Dave Brubeck’s “Take Five” as it came over the stereo system.
When my deep fried mushrooms arrived, Jeff warned me they were hot. They came in a silver serving dish nestled atop some green leaves—the same green leaves as my salad—with parsley flakes sprinkled on top. The parsley flakes seemed to be an afterthought to make it look as if the mushrooms had been prepared with care.
Inside the deep-fried crust, the mushrooms were watery and not “bursting with flavor” so much as bursting with grease. There wasn’t much flavor and the mushrooms lost their appeal once cold. The ranch dip that accompanied the mushrooms might as well have come in a plastic tube with “Kraft” labeled on the front.
As I nibbled at the mushrooms I gazed around. I saw that most of the “lush” plants decorating the inside were in fact plastic and that Caffe Malvina’s one window provided a gorgeous view of Chico’s three-story parking garage. You could set your watch by the patrol cars that rolled through the parking structure every 15 minutes.
When the minestrone soup arrived it was also hot. The broth was bland and tasted like tomato-water with carrots, zucchini and onion chunks that looked as if the had been thrown in out of charity. The soup was utterly flavorless.
In the corner I noticed a standup piano, and when Jeff came around with my cannelloni, I asked him if people come in and play it.
“Sal comes in once in a while,” Jeff said. “He used to come in Tuesdays.”
The piano also gets used by a couple of people who occasionally come in and play the piano, but they aren’t really scheduled.
“They basically come whenever they want,” Corona said, but that they usually came in Thursday or Friday evenings.
I looked down at my cannelloni, which had been served in the same white casserole dish in which it was cooked in. The sauce was crusty on the sides of the dish where it had been burned. Tentatively, I explored the entrée with my fork.
The veal filling was a green brick, sandwiched between two lasagna noodles and slathered heavily with a cheesy tomato sauce. It was as if the cook was trying to cover the Cannelloni’s lack of flavor with an excess of cheese—and more parsley flakes. The cook’s effort was unsuccessful, and I felt I could do better at home.
From the kitchen I heard the busboy offer Jeff a beer and I watched the cook stroll outside for a smoke, glass of wine in hand. I was shocked by their lack of professionalism. A casual dining atmosphere can be charming at times, but I felt the waiters and cook were carrying it a little too far. Couldn’t they wait until the restaurant was closed before they got loaded?
When I was full, Jeff packed up my unfinished deep fried mushrooms and cannelloni, and handed me my check ($24.56). I scratched my head at how a meal for one person could possibly be that much. Corona must not be marketing to the poor students after all.
After dinner, I double checked the prices and found that the Cannelloni al Modo Mio was listed as being $8.95 on the menu outside—a whopping $5 less than the menu inside. As I walked away I thought I could do a better meal for much cheaper if I’d cooked it myself.
Caffe MalvinaAddress: 234 W. Third St.
Telephone: 895-1614
Wheelchair Access: No
Hours: Closed Sunday and Monday; Lunch Tuesday-Friday: 11:30-2 p.m.; Dinner Tuesday-Thursday: 7-9 p.m.; Dinner Friday and Saturday: 5-9 p.m.
Highpoint: Excellent parking
Lowpoint: Food