A glorious Morning Glory Café in Old Lyme

March 25, 2010 12:00 am • Last Updated: April 10, 2015 2:24 pm

By Katie Warchut

From the quaint, trellised pale yellow building beside the Lieutenant River in Old Lyme, to its name, the Morning Glory Café offers few immediate clues into its true roots.

Even the menu carefully lays out a list of traditional breakfast and lunch fare, with only a few dishes that hint that there might be a little something more to the place than your typical American café.

And there is. Owner Sichanh Patana tells an amazing story in a brief note to his customers, about how he and seven other family members escaped from war-torn Laos in 1980. They stowed away on a convoy headed to Vientiane, the capital city, crossing the Mekong River by moonlight and drifting on inner tubes into Thailand. An Old Lyme couple, with the help of four community churches, brought the family from the crowded refugee camp to Old Lyme.

And so we, Southeastern Connecticuters, get to benefit from having a unique new ethnic influence on our food. Unfortunately, Patana decided to focus a little less on the Laotian side of things, but if you're looking for sandwiches and wraps with quiet, outdoor dining on a beautiful patio, this is hard to beat.

On a recent lunchtime trip to MGC, as they call it, the patio was full, but the small indoor dining still lets in sunlight and river views. Even though servers were busy, a hostess got us started

immediately with drinks.

More interested in any Laotian food we could try, we started out with the Luang Prebang egg rolls, named after a city in Laos and deemed "mom's famous egg rolls" ($6.50). The rolls were similar to a Chinese egg roll, but thinner, in the shape of a cigar. They were crispy and flavorful, heavier on the pork than the cabbage and carrots, with a sweet chili dipping sauce.

The Laotian chicken wings ($6.50) were delightfully crispy on the outside, with moist meat inside that took on flavor from a mild Laotian marinade. For dipping, a dollop of hoisin sauce was suspended in a sweet chili sauce.

For our meals, we sampled some of the American fare, such as the MGC panini ($8.50), which arrived looking like a grilled cheese - that is, traditional slices of grilled buttered bread instead of the trademark grill marks of a panini. But its contents were a nice mix of thin, salty proscuitto, sweet roasted red pepper, basil, creamy feta cheese and roasted garlic

mayonnaise.

The Cajun haddock sandwich ($9) presented a problem for the vegetarian in the group. Though it was a nice chunk of fried fish, topped with tomato and corn salsa, the salsa had some kind of bits of bacon or pancetta in it and had to be re-made. But even for a meat-eater, the bacon seemed an odd addition to the dish. A Creole rémoulade on top had the consistency of a seasoned mayonnaise, adding some flavor to the fish.

The Vientane chicken wrap ($8.50) was filled with chunks of grilled chicken with a sweet chili sauce, shredded cabbage, carrots, cucumbers, onions, mushrooms, a hard boiled egg, peanuts and cilantro. Despite the Asian mix of ingredients, the result was a bit too sweet, cold and disjointed. The mix is better suited for pad thai.

On the side, the sweet potato fries were hot and crispy, and the pomme frites, despite the fancy-sounding name, were just regular thinly slices fries. The Thai tea ($3.50) was iced and a little less sweet than most, using light cream rather than condensed milk.

Finally, we tried a much-anticipated dish that's hard to come by in these parts: pho ($9.50). Better known as Vietnamese, the rice noodle soup has the tendency to elicit a certain fervor in people, who, upon hearing the word, must describe the best pho they've ever had.

At MGC, they call it a Laotian soup, and it comes in a huge bowl chock full of slippery white noodles. A plate of vegetables, such as sprouts, is served with the soup to add as you eat, and lime to squeeze over it. We ordered it with shaved beef. It was a hearty soup with a flavor-packed broth, but our experts believed it lacked the complexity of others, which often contain spices like ginger and anise.

For what the Morning Glory Café has set out to do - giving

locals a reliable lunch and breakfast spot - it is certainly a success. But they also have the potential of using their rich heritage to make the café a place where people will travel to from afar to experience a new cuisine.