REVIEW

Mel-O-Dee is a locally popular family style restaurant that’s been serving Broasted chicken to the Dayton area since 1965. In addition to the chicken, they offer a daily specials roster of old-fashioned home-cooking favorites like chicken and dumplings and Swiss steak, along with a homemade soup of the day. We passed on the chicken, not being big fans of the pressure-frying technique, but just about every table in the restaurant on one busy Saturday evening was laden with plates and platters of chicken, and it sure did look good. If we’re in the area again, we may have to give it a try.

This homely pile of food tastes like Mom’s home cooking.

They bake loaves of white and rye bread, and when you enter you can see bags of the bread lined up near the cash register. These loaves are a popular take-home item. A basket of slices is brought to the table when you sit down. It’s good, old-fashioned American bread, sliced thick, soft and fresh. We ordered a beef hot shot, which held a special boxed place of honor on the menu, but were disappointed with the lukewarm cube steak and bogus-seeming potatoes, blanketed with a good dark gravy. It could have come straight from Sysco.

A hot shot is Ohio-ese for beef and potatoes blanketed with dark gravy. This one uses cube steak in place of the usual beef slices and shreds.

On the other hand, from the daily specials menu, the stuffed cabbage is a real winner. The juicy combination of tomato, cabbage, and meat tastes soulful. And a dessert special, orange cake, was terrific, the dense and sandy-textured pound cake layers separated by orange icing.

Many customers grab a loaf or two of the good white or rye to go.

We’re not yet sure how to approach Mel-O-Dee but we suspect that the specials menu may offer the best food in the house, along with the bakery items. And perhaps that Broasted chicken is worth a try.

LAF TRAK: 

FOOD: 

BEST THING TO EAT: Orange cake