Mac Rafati, a good-sized fellow with a full head of wavy gray hair, is the kind of guy you wish every restaurant had as its owner. Customers entering his West Toledo eatery, Mac & Tong's Place, are sure to encounter him offering a big-handed greeting at the door, trading quips at the bar, tidying up tables, or dishing out complimentary samples of braised beef or other dishes to the regulars.
Mac - short for Mahmoud - is a breed of restaurateur that diners don't run into often, what with all the glazed smiles and rote service that pass for personality elsewhere. He's a hands-on proprietor who infuses the dining experience with bonhomie.
Some people may remember him from Our Place, a Reynolds Road restaurant where he held forth for several years before he and his wife, Tong, who rules the kitchen, decided to hang up their aprons. A few months ago, they dived back into the restaurant business with their new place at the rear of the Ottawa Hills shopping center at West Central Avenue and Talmadge Road.
The curvy, 1950s-style bar and low-lighted dining room seem to fill up fast with dinerss eager to try the homemade soups, fresh fish entrees, salads with unusual dressings, and Chef Tong's special teriyaki dinners - steaks, chops, and chicken breasts swimming in saucy stir-fry.
Equipped with a small piano opposite the bar for impromptu entertainment, the cozy eatery was the longtime home of J/Rs, run by restaurateur Dick Skaff. Connie Stubleski bought the place a few years ago and renamed it Connie's J/R's, which then became simply Connie's. Upon her recent retirement, Mac and Tong stepped in.
This is the sort of place where folks at the bar argue with each other over politics and the stock market; where the server may refer to you as "Sweetheart" as she delivers your entre, and where a customer might break into song as a pop standard is pounded out on the ivories.
Food - and drink - unite these disparate elements and bring customerss back for seconds and thirds. Take the soups, thick and hearty: one day potato dumpling ($2.50/$3.50), another day the signature 15-bean ($2.50/$4.25). Proceed from there to such tasty appetizers as mushrooms ($7.95) sauted in garlic, olive oil, and white wine, and a hummus plate ($5.95) with vegetables and pita bread.
For lunch, a juicy corned beef sandwich on marble rye ($6.95) was better than average, while a char-grilled chicken breast sandwich ($7.95) was hobbled by a bun twice the size of the meat, requiring twice the effort to eat.
Dinner, on the other hand, met all our expectations. After house salads with homemade dressings of cottage cheese dill, tangy mustard, and Korean spice, a 12-ounce, center-cut pork chop ($16.95) could not have been more tender; chicken marsala ($14.95) was enlivened with garlic and mushrooms, and firm white pickerel ($18.95), dressed with capers and butter, melted in the mouth. This was true too of Tong's delightful New York strip ($18.95), made with her "secret" teriyaki sauce amid a tangle of stir fry vegetables over rice.
If the service erred, it was always on the side of an eagerness to please. For instance, when the dinners arrived but before we had a chance to dive in, our young server asked expectantly, "So, everything looks OK?" This prompted Mac, standing nearby, to tell her good-naturedly, "Give them a chance to taste it first!"
The main entrance and parking lot are behind the shopping strip, off Talmadge, but customers can also gain access from West Central through a corridor leading to the restaurant.
Contact Bill of Fare at fare@theblade.com
First Published November 30, 2006, 11:01 a.m.
