Biscuits and Gravy Review: City View Cafe

Because I'm only two items away from finishing the Rally's Eat-It-All challenge (and because I forgot to bring something for breakfast) I thought it would be a good day to start up my next life goal.*

This aforementioned goal is to find (drum roll please) THE BEST BISCUITS AND GRAVY IN DOWNTOWN FORT WAYNE.

It's long been my position that a simple order of biscuits and gravy is a good litmus test for any restaurant. Are the biscuits hand made or (gasp) from a tube**? Likewise is the gravy made from scratch or is it from a can? How much sausage does it contain? Is it greasy? How plentiful is the portion? I think you catch my drift.

For my first foray into gustatory delight I ventured up, up, up to the City View Cafe, which is on the 13th floor of the second tallest building in Fort Wayne. This space used to be called the Window Garden Cafe and it has great views of the city. Currently it's run by a local catering/food service company.

First off, ordering was kind of weird. There's a hot bar area and you fill out your order on a small square of paper, checking the appropriate boxes, and lay the paper on top of the counter. The only other human was the cashier and a lady who arrived mere moments before me. After a full minute or so a young man showed up who looked like his best friend had died. He took our two slips of paper and got to work. Eventually he left and came back a minute or so later with a box of food service biscuits. It wasn't looking good.

Even though you're standing mere feet away the food preparation area is hidden behind a wall of frosted glass so you don't get the diner experience of watching your food prepared. I kid you not but it took almost ten full minutes to get my food. TEN MINUTES. And there was only one other person ahead of me!

I took my carry out order to the cashier who rang it up and said "Five dollars? Sheesh! Open that up will ya? I want to make sure he gave you enough." I wasn't the only one who thought that $5.07 was steep (including Fort Wayne's generous 8% food tax). But apparently the depressed young lad was generous enough because I was allowed to leave without further delay.

But the big question is how was it?

Surprisingly the star of the show was the pre-made biscuits. The young man split them, slathered them with butter and plopped them on the grill until they had a nice crisp on them, plus the fantastic flavor of butter. The gravy was of medium viscosity and didn't have much flavor. What it did have was a slightly strange taste such that halfway through my breakfast I could have been done eating, but being a member in good standing of The Clean Plate Club I made sure that I finished. There was a small amount of sausage bits, probably fried up on the premises and added to what was very likely canned gravy, but they tasted good and were also crisp. Sadly, I ran out of gravy with two bites left, although I'm not sure how more gravy could have been stuffed into the carry out container.

Biscuits - 8
Gravy - 4
Value - 5
Service - 2
GRAND TOTAL - 4.75

UPDATE Jan 2019
Alas, City View Cafe is closed. Gone. Extinct. The business that took it's place doesn't sell biscuits and gravy and so I shall shun them.

* And yes, it's good to think small.

** I had tube biscuits served to me once. Obviously it scarred me for life.