French Laundry

Molly Abraham, Detroit News Restaurant Critic: Our homegrown French Laundry (no relation to the more famous one in the Napa Valley) is an idiosyncratic place that attracts a crowd for its big plates of American food and amazing beverage list. It had originally been a laundry, and so that part of the title came easily. And since proprietor Mark Hamel had spent a year studying in Paris during his MSU college career, he says he wanted to give his long-planned restaurant a French name - but not make it a French restaurant.
The French Laundry is a rarity in that it is open for all three meals, seven days a week. Not many full-service restaurants attempt that schedule.
Its two rooms, the first a casual market setting, with Zingerman's breads and pastries piled high atop a counter, and dessert confections behind glass, the second a high-ceilinged space ringed with uncovered windows and set with sturdy, 50's kitchen-style vinyl-topped tables, are augmented by a few tables on the patio in front.
The dining room includes a bar stocked with everything from boutique beers and wines to Pernod and Chartreuse as well as an array of single malt Scotches and Irish whiskeys. The room was added three years ago by enclosing some of the patio space.
There are three menus. Breakfast choices range from eggs Benedict, made with Canadian bacon and Vermont cheddar-sparked Hollandaise sauce, to housemade corned beef hash, Irish oatmeal and Scotch eggs.
Blueberry pancakes are so large that a single one covers an entire dinner plate. Big portions are a way of life here, whether it's pancakes or one of the lunchtime sandwiches on thickly sliced bread.
There are more than 40 different sandwiches, from deli-style corned or roast beef to grilled chicken breast, all emerging from a kitchen that is open to view in the back. No secrets here - the crew can be seen chopping, cutting and churning out the fresh fare.
Dinner time brings more sophisticated entrees, such as pan-seared scallops atop pasta, and pork tenderloin medallions with roasted red pepper and chorizo sauce, along with others, like turkey meatloaf, that seem more attuned to the small-town setting.