Traverse City Record-Eagle,  Sept. 12, 2003
Coho Café: Revival of the Fittest
We've spent quite a bit of time in Benzie the last year or so, browsing the galleries, hiking the southern reaches of the national lakeshore, or cycling the new Betsie Valley trail. We always manage to linger afterwards for dinner somewhere, and we've been delighted by the area's restaurant renaissance of recent years.

Old standbys remain, such as the Brookside and Villa Marine. But some relative newcomers are really putting Benzie on the food-lovers' map. We're thinking of the tony Timmerin in Beulah, the earthy Tex-Mex Roadhouse in Benzonia, and the Wharfside and the Coho Café in Frankfort.

The Coho is always a special treat for us after a day's outing, both for its coolly relaxed and unpretentious atmosphere and its wonderfully interesting menu. We love menus that make ordering difficult, and Coho's is one of them. Its dinner entrees range from classic pastas to Asian dishes, with an occasional Up North touch of seared whitefish or maple-glazed pork chops. Kim, clearly at home with a variety of styles, acknowledges, "I like to do it all." Even at lunch, the menu sparkles with interesting salads, pastas, wraps, and sandwiches. Like the Coho's funky, faux-industrial décor, the food, is imaginative, simple, and lighthearted.

The café is a homecoming for Kim. A Frankfort native, she was a cook there during high school in the '90s, when the Coho was just a lunch spot. After graduation she went off to the Western Culinary Institute in Oregon, then earned her stripes in the cutting-edge kitchen of a trendy wine-bar-bistro in Laguna Beach, south of L.A. It was there one day that her former employer called her to say the Coho was for sale. Next thing she knew, Kim was back in Frankfort, gutting and remodeling the place, getting a liquor license, building a deck for outside dining, and planning menus.

Our most recent visit there was late in August after some cycling, and we'd scarcely been handed menus before we found ourselves agonizing over the choices. One evening earlier in the year we'd grazed on appetizers, making a meal of black-bean chicken quesadillas, grilled scallops and shrimp spring rolls. This time we wanted to order from the main-dish section. But would it be wok-seared sesame shrimp or Thai chicken curry? Herb-cheese raviolis with wild mushrooms in thyme cream, or smoked-salmon linguine?  Decisions, decisions! We'd finished our bread and peppered dipping oil and poured a second glass of wine before one of us finally decided on chicken curry and the other on vodka penne, a classic dish with mushrooms, tomato sauce, and wilted spinach.

The chicken curry alone rewarded us well for the time we spent on the menu. An outstanding dish, it was laced with intense flavors not common in these parts, from the curry itself to the bed of jasmine rice laced with finely chopped apricot and crunchy roasted peanuts, and some slightly sweet and very hot dipping sauce. The penne, no less well and rightly executed, was a bit bland by comparison (the next night at home, some fresh basil did wonders for the leftovers).

Coho is seasonal and takes no reservations, so call ahead to make sure they're open and go early or expect to wait a bit. It has always been busy when we've been there, so apparently a lot of folks agree with us that the food is worth the wait. On our recent midweek trip we arrived quite early, but the Coho was soon full of animated people and alive with happy conversation. Crowd or not, the energetic young staff was friendly and efficiently quick, and seemed to be having as much fun as the customers. The server checked back on our satisfaction frequently and followed up on every request. Like so many seasonally assembled teams, however, the staff totally spaced some of the details: Empty plates went uncleared to the end, and the entrees arrived smack in the middle of the salad course.

The lapses hardly spoiled the meal, however, especially on a gorgeous summer day when there was a sunset to watch later at Point Betsie. We'll certainly be back for more, especially since our two dinners cost well under $30. Aside from a $19 strip sirloin, nothing on the menu runs over $16, salad, veg and starch included. That chicken curry was only $14, and the penne a buck less. Why, even with a bottle of Oregon pinot noir and a cup of coffee, our check barely exceeded $50.

DATA: Coho Café, 320 Main St., Frankfort; 231-352-6053. Open through October, Wednesday through Saturday, for lunch 11-2 and dinner 5 to 9. (Open daily in summer.)