Category: American/New American Restaurants

Kirk eats at chains; Cathy eats at chains; today ed (from Yuma) will let you know that he sometimes eats at chains too.

After Mimi's Café opened a branch here in Yuma, I kept getting reports from friends who liked the food.  So about a year ago, Tina and I descended on the restaurant to try a dinner.

From the outside, the place looks like a rustic châteaux (containing one or two small warehouses) plucked from the banks of the Loire and dropped into the middle of a large asphalt parking lot:

Inside, this same cultural/architectural mishmash rules.  You have the parque ceiling (I believe this is the correct term) like a 19th-century French bistro in the main room: you have open beamed ceilings and a fake balcony (not shown) in the New Orleans room (a New Orleans room?): and then you have a Romanesque barrel vaulted area that would bring to mind a medieval monastery with electric lighting, if of course the bricks were real:
 Nonetheless, some things about our first meal were very good.  Along with rather ordinary French bread, we received two slices of savory whole-wheat nut bread: Tina's Mediterranean Chicken Fettuccine, though containing numerous ingredients, was focused and tasty:
 The creamy asiago sauce, though a bit greasy, was not as heavy and rich as an Alfredo and didn't overwhelm the other flavors.  There were just enough chunks of chicken, and the pasta, while not aldente, was not overcooked.  Spinach, sun-dried tomatoes, and marinated artichoke hearts added complexity to the flavor and color to the presentation.  A few chopped fresh tomatoes cubes and shreds of domestic Parmesan lay across the top of the noodles.

My chicken piccata was an attractive plate: As you can see, the two slices of chicken breast, showing grill marks, and four well prepared grilled and moist asparagus spears were the culinary stars of this dish.  What this picture barely shows, however, is that the poultry and the veggies lay atop a large mound of mashed potatoes.  Now I love mashed potatoes as much as the next person, but I really couldn't understand combining spuds with an Italian style main course.  In addition, while the flavors of everything worked fine, this entrée seemed to me to be as much a product of an accountant as a chef.  The mushroom was very thinly sliced,  only three capers dotted the meat, and the amount of lemony piccata sauce was slightly less than would be needed to flavor the two chicken slices.  No sauce for the potatoes — though to be honest, they had a nice buttery flavor.

The side salad with ranch dressing was also decent.  The nice lettuce mix had shredded carrot, a couple of cucumber slices, a few bits of diced fresh tomato, and three large mass-produced croutons.  The amount of dressing seemed calculated to moisten the greens and veggies with nothing left over: I selected a glass of Sauvignon Blanc from the minimalist wine list and was pleased to see that the restaurant had figured out the glass-of-wine conundrum: What I mean is that serving a single glass of wine presents a restaurant with a problem.  If it uses small glasses, the wine must be filled up to the brim, which all of us winos know robs the wine of fragrance.  On the other hand, large stemware is much more expensive, and some customers feel cheated if the wine doesn't fill the glass.  Here the wine was served in a small carafe so that no one would feel cheated, the restaurant could use inexpensive stemware, and a customer could swirl the wine around in the glass.

The service on this (and every subsequent visit) was competent, professional, and friendly–clearly the staff is well trained.

As you can probably tell by the tone of this report so far, I was both amused and impressed by the ambiance, the businesslike way that Mimi's was managed, and by the generally competent cuisine.

On subsequent occasions, we have visited the restaurant for breakfast, mostly because my favorite local breakfast place has gone out of business (RIP Arnie's).  In general, our breakfast experiences at Mimi's have been hit and miss.  A good illustration of this was my recent order of waffles with sausage and egg: The two sausages were large and good, with standard breakfast sausage spicing and a firm meaty texture — no greasy mouth feel at all.  The waffles, while nice looking, lacked any crispness and were dense and heavy. The over-easy eggs were well past easy: However, their fried eggs here usually have a nice crispy edge to them: On the other hand, some of the items on the breakfast menu are truly mediocre.  The orange juice is generic at best, the latte substandard, and while the blueberry muffin looks good: It is a reminder that at Mimi's sometimes looks are deceiving: The bran muffin, on the other hand, was outstanding (bran must be cheaper than blueberries): When Tina ordered the Cajun sausage with scrambled eggs and potato, the whole dish didn't quite reach okay.  The sausage had a peculiar taste (to my mind at least) and the home fries were flavorless and crunchless: My Monterey Omelette (with which I had "fresh fruit" instead of the potatoes) looked very pretty, but was pretty disappointing: Instead of being light and fluffy, the eggs were two dense slabs separated by a slice of flavorless jack cheese dotted with bits of real bacon. The visible part of the omelette was covered with more of the mediocre cheese, the only slice of avocado on the plate, and an additional strip of bacon (which looked better than it tasted).  The best part about this breakfast was the outstanding roasted tomato salsa.

Even the attractive fruit left something to be desired: The pineapple was still in its rind, and a couple of the almost hidden grapes were rotten instead of fresh.

On the other hand, some of our breakfast experiences have been more positive.  The eggs ranchero bowl, though containing some of the mediocre potatoes, has been a really a nice take on Huevos Rancheros: The beans are black beans, the tortilla is crunchy, and the two salsas (one chipotle and one tomatillo) add two good flavors.

My favorite breakfast item has been the cinnamon raisin French toast: While the toast is not especially eggy, its whole-wheat raisin bread with cinnamon is very good.  Unfortunately, on my last visit, this great item was missing from the menu. Who knows why.

Obviously, if this restaurant were truly bad, I wouldn't continue to try it again. I find the ambience and the decorations to be amusing and am impressed by the consistently good service.  Occasionally the ambience, which seems like what you would find in an independent eatery, is almost enough to make me forget I'm eating in a chain: And then I remember that the wine advertised on the poster is not available at the restaurant and the homey photos on the wall are just stock pictures. All is as real as the bronze fiddler. At Mimi's, there often is less than meets the eye. More surface than depth. This is a restaurant run by illusionists and bean counters — but it must be said, very competent ones.

Mimi's Cafe Yuma, 1690 South Pacific Drive, 928-783-2680