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Cheddars
5810 Detroit Ave.
Cleveland, Ohio 44102
216-651-1610

20 different kinds of macaroni and cheese!  Cheddars has 20 different kinds of macaroni and cheese!  I could probably finish this review right there huh.  But alas, my heart will go on.  The old lady saw an advertisement for Cheddars in one of those "Taste" magazines they distribute in the Plain Dealer, the tagline on the ad was "20 different kinds of macaroni and cheese".  That’s about all it took before she scheduled the trip.

I looked everywhere online and couldn’t find a damn thing about this place which had me a bit worried.  Cheddars is located on Detroit Ave. right next to Snickers Tavern if you are familiar with the area.  I sure as hell wasn’t, so we had to drive around the block twice.  There is parking behind Cheddars, but it was quite limited the night we visited.  Your only other option is parking on the street with the riff-raff.  And riff-raff there is in this very eclectic part of Cleveland, but everyone needs a little culture.

The inside of Cheddars is smaller than Charlie Frye’s love of Brady Quinn.  I think there were 8 tables in the whole place.  And they weren’t big tables either, these things were tiny.  It was like my fiance and I had to share a tray table, but we were too excited about the variety of macaroni and cheese to even care.

Our waitress was extremely nice and very helpful in explaining the menu to us.  She also had the uncanny talent of leaning over every time she talked to us exposing her breasts. (Somebody wants a tip)  I’m pretty sure someone slipped the other waitress a roofie though, because she was totally f’n out of it.  Maybe she just missed the freedom of the Sixties.  Good thing we had Little Miss Almost-Nipple-Boob waiting on us.  Other than a good 10 minute period where I struggled to eat steaming macaroni and cheese without anything to drink, she was a very good waitress.

There were in fact 20 different kinds of macaroni and cheese which made it a bit hard to choose.  I almost got the southwestern one because it had chorizo in it, but it also had beans. (Nastified!)  For dinner I order the "Black Forest Macaroni and Cheese" ($9) which consists of pasta, wild mushrooms and fresh herbs coated with a rich white cheese sauce.  The dish is topped with a thick layer of Gouda cheese that is toasted under the broiler.  I added grilled chicken to mine for an extra $3 or so I thought, but more on that later.  The entree was proceeded by a nice house salad and accompanied by a soft breadstick. 

Black Forest Macaroni and Cheese.  Pretty damn Gouda!

It was an excellent meal.  Even though I’m not a big fan of Gouda I really liked the dish and the portion size was quite generous, much more than I could eat in one sitting.  The creamy sauce coated every piece of pasta with the chicken and mushrooms adding to the flavor.  I don’t know where they get their mushrooms at, but of all the mushrooms in the world I wouldn’t think button mushrooms could qualify as "wild".  Who am I to judge though?  Maybe those button mushrooms get totally blasted every weekend. 

There is a Mitch Hedberg joke here somewhere.

The fiance ordered the ham and cheese macaroni which she really enjoyed, but again, it was way too much food for her.  She’s just a little guy.  Now here is where I got angry, we get our bill and guess what?  My $12 dinner was now $13.  They overcharged me for my meal.  You know what I did about it?  Not a goddamn thing because I am 300 pounds of vaginini.  That and looking down our waitress’ shirt was probably worth at least a buck.  Try this place, its a good one.

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