Carol's Restaurant

Rating:

A home-style cooking oasis in northern suburbs. Owner Carol Brown doesn't cook by defrosting, rehydrating or opening cans, relying instead upon fresh, wholesome ingredients prepared in simple, time-honored ways. Which explains why her full-bodied soup stocks, delicate pancake batters, fruity jams, delightfully vinegary bread-and-butter pickles and dozens of other goodies have a lovely grandmotherly quality, one that seems to have sadly evaporated from our mass-market dining landscape. Brown's intuitive cooking may not be fancy, but it's blessed with the kind of integrity and loving attention to detail that filters down to every satisfying bite. It's all there in a knockout of a hot turkey sandwich embodies farm-supper goodness: Slabs of juicy, this-actually-tastes-like-turkey white meat are wedged between thick slices of yeasty house-baked white bread and slathered in a smooth, savory gravy, sharing the plate with a sage-celery-raisin stuffing that's happily unfamiliar with the words "Pepperidge Farm," decadent mashed potatoes and a cranberry sauce oozing with a perfect sweet-tart snap. Brown offers a daily blue-plate special - pot roast, meatballs, pan-fried chicken and other Americana - and they're heaping examples of the joys of time-tested home cookery, seemingly straight out of some well-worn Lutheran ladies' auxiliary cookbook. Desserts share that same comforting Grandma Moses vibe, from the dense walnut-apple cake (crowned with a doozy of a caramel sauce) and the fist-size oatmeal-chocolate chip cookies to a luscious banana cream pie embellished with a fat swipe of real, artery-unfriendly whipping cream. While the shiny new setting lacks its predecessor's homespun charm (the late, lamented Carol's Calico Kitchen, lost to a 2000 fire), it's a roomier, snazzier improvement. Service is so friendly you'll wonder if there's going to be an Amway pitch attached to the check - there isn't - and orders fly out of the kitchen so fast you'll think you're dining at Perkins. But You're so not. One taste of the meat loaf is the only confirmation anyone needs.