RESTAURANT REVIEW: Focus shifts at The Main Cheese in Little Rock; cheese still rules

Six cheeses ooze out from between two slices of wheatberry bread in the eponymous Main Cheese sandwich, with a fruit cup on the side.
Six cheeses ooze out from between two slices of wheatberry bread in the eponymous Main Cheese sandwich, with a fruit cup on the side.

We somewhat shamefacedly admit that we never made it to the original incarnation of The Main Cheese on Cantrell Road.

A colleague took on that March 2014 review -- almost exactly three years ago, in fact -- and we just never got around to eating there. So we cannot directly compare the old, which closed in January, and the new, which opened in February, under the aegis of new owner Ryan Merritt-McGehee, also the owner of The Clean Eatery, a west Little Rock-based, meal-prep home delivery program that focuses on healthful food.

The Main Cheese

Address: Pinnacle Station Shopping Center, 14524 Cantrell Road, Little Rock

Hours: 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Monday-Saturday

Cuisine: Soups, sandwiches, salads with a “cheese” accent

Alcoholic beverages: License pending

Reservations: Really large parties

Wheelchair accessible: Yes

Carryout: Yes

(501) 673-4480

themaincheese.com

A scan of the menus then and now shows that the emphasis has shifted somewhat. There is no longer a specific focus on "gourmet grilled cheese and more." Merritt-McGehee has reduced the number of sandwiches and increased the number and variety of burgers. He has added a few Clean Eatery and/or Clean Eatery-style entrees -- for example, fish tacos with pineapple salsa, a house-made chicken salad and a quinoa-and-salmon salad.

Another goal of the original owners was, wherever possible, to use local sources. They bragged about them on the website (themaincheese.com), which has not yet been updated. It's no longer clear if that's going on. For example, the kitchen is no longer using products from local fromagery Kent Walker Artisan Cheese, though, we're told, there's still a connection for possible future specials. And the restaurant still supplies, on request, gluten-free bread from Dempsey's Gluten-Free Bakery.

Table service is available for the roughly doubled seating capacity in what is now two dining rooms (we are told that one that was once dark, grim and cave-like has been brightened by large windows). Seating is in window booths and at white-plastic tables with current-cool aluminum chairs. A screened-off private party room could also be used for overflow seating. On-consignment works by local artists help decorate the walls.

A wine-and-beer license is pending; a cooler visible to incoming customers is stocked with bottled beers, but the restaurant cannot currently vend them. The big dining-room blackboard with the header "Beer & Wine" is at the moment useful only to highlight food specials.

Though we mentioned that there's been a slight menu shift away from cheese, for some reason most of our menu choices were nonetheless dairy-centered.

For example, we opened with the White Cheese Dip ($8, not bad if you're sharing but pretty hefty if it's just you). The menu description sounded pretty dramatic: "a blend of yellow onions, red bell peppers and cilantro with hints of garlic and cumin." Very modest hints, we'd say, and the onions, peppers and cilantro were represented mostly as a somewhat paltry garnish. In short, what hit our table was extraordinarily ordinary. But we liked the thin tortilla chips, which were crisp and quite warm, almost hot (suggesting that they may, in fact, have been made to order), and the supply was more than ample.

The eponymous Main Cheese sandwich ($9) has six cheeses -- Cheddar, Swiss, Muenster, provolone, pepper jack and Havarti. Dark-grilled in what appears to be butter, and with the butter fat from the cheese, which oozes gorgeously out from between two fairly thick pieces of wheatberry bread, you can just imagine the number of fat calories per bite.

It was delicious, but the sandwich had a very oily finger-feel. Between that and the cheese dip we had to wipe from our dipping fingers, our black-cloth napkin quickly gave up the ghost and we had to ask for a new one.

The kale fruit salad the menu lists as an accompaniment made us shudder, but luckily there's an alternate side choice, a fruit cup of chunked strawberries, kiwi and what we initially thought were grapes, but turned out to be some of the biggest blueberries we've encountered. (That's a welcome change from that somewhat sad, mushy melon medley so many places provide as "fruit.")

There was cheese on our awe-inspiring Mushroom Swiss Burger ($9.50), but it wasn't Swiss. The monster third-of-a-pound patty on a brioche bun came topped with a mix of sauteed onions and mushrooms, a layer of red-pepper aioli, buttered lettuce plus a thin layer of Gouda and Havarti.

We can also recommend The Main Cheese's cheesiest side item, house-made Mac and Cheese (listed at $5.75 on the menu, we paid $5), firm penne pasta coated in a thick, rich, creamy, full-flavored cheese sauce and garnished with additional grated cheese. It's big enough for a small entree.

The smallest quantity of cheese was on the enjoyable Fish Tacos ($9), three huge, firm flour tortillas well stuffed with a bottom layer of baked white fish (the menu doesn't specify further, so it could have been tilapia or catfish or ...) tossed with corn and basmati rice, topped with spring mix, a little shredded cheese, a thick balsamic glaze and house-made pineapple salsa with big, thick chunks of fruit that dominated the flavor spectrum.

Service was good on all our visits, although having only one server-seating host on the floor during even an off-peak lunch hour meant that, though friendly and competent, he was unable to provide truly adequate service to any one of his tables. We had significant delays in ordering, getting drinks refilled, getting our check and paying it.

Outside The Main Cheese, the same big drawback that plagued (and may have helped to fell) Sai Gon Cuisine and Gina's Sushi, which formerly occupied this strip-center space, is still the parking lot.

There are more spaces available now , since the former 10 Fitness gym next door has closed, but the restaurant shares the lot with a Senor Tequila, whose customers tend to devour the parking, especially at dinner.

And the lot only has one entrance/exit, which a) makes getting in difficult if you're coming from the west and trying to make a left turn into it, and b) means you may have considerable difficulty bucking traffic when you try to leave. And you'll absolutely take your life in your hands if you're trying to make a left (eastbound) turn onto uber-busy Cantrell Road at practically any hour of the day or night.

Weekend on 03/23/2017

Upcoming Events