Restaurant Review: Tracks - Going to the Other Side

The other side of the tracks was usually a term that described the poor neighborhoods that were situated near railroads. It always carried a negative connotation - poor, dangerous, and not us. Even today, you see some remnants of truth in this term. Here in good ol' Champaign-Urbana, there's a train track that runs parallel to and just north of University Ave. To the south, the beautiful brick buildings of the U.'s world renowned engineering campus. To the north? Largely African-American residential neighborhoods. Some of them are government subsidized. Others are just normal middle class housing. But it's definitely the other side of the tracks for most of the students here at the U.

So why is this little nugget here at Foodgeek?

Well, there's a new bar/restaurant in town, called Tracks that is situated, appropriately enough, right by those railroad tracks, in the heart of downtown Champaign. Tracks has gotten the Foodgeek seal of approval, which was sort of surprising, given the biases that I had going in. The major thing was the location. While the old train station is a cool place to have a bar, it had been empty for the last couple years. Also, this is on a corner without a lot of parking, and multiple bars between the majority of parking spots and Tracks. I'd figure that a lot of peple would just park, and as they started to walk to Tracks, just stop off somewhere along the way and sort of forget about getting to their original destination.

But, I figured that I had to visit the place so I could get a decent review in here, and I've been pleasantly surprised at the quality of the food. So much so, that I've actually gone back a couple times to sample a little more. They actually have a pretty large menu - a handful of entrees, probably 15 or so sandwiches, a few different salads, a handful of appetizers, and a few surprisingly good desserts. You don't go to sports bars for dining experiences, but you do go for good portions, reasonable prices, and solid food. Tracks does this well.

I haven't gone after the entrees, yet, but have sampled a good number of the appetizers and sandwiches. The one conclusion that I've come to is that frying isn't as easy as you may figure. You see so many places get it wrong. Limp french fries. Heavy onion rings. Burnt food in general. Happily, I am very impressed at how Tracks gets this very simple act down well. The calamari was crispy and fun to eat. (who doesn't like eating the tenticles? Communists, I bet). The frog legs, while being a little fishy, were fried just right in a nice batter. I think that the one surprising fried treat was the potato cheese puffs. While not really a puff, but rather little fried pucks of hash brown and cheese casserole, it was so darned addicting.

Of course, for those who are somewhat health conscious, they have plenty of non-fried options. For those of you into the soup and salad sort of thing, Tracks delivers surprisingly well for a bar/grill. The onion soup isn't earth shattering, but it's solid - how can you go wrong with onion soup, a crouton and a layer of melted cheese? The chili is also good - not the absolute best in town, which would probably have to go to Crane Alley, but this is a solid effort. The salads are generally well executed, though not revolutionary. The oyster and spinach salad is very good. Slices of egg and red onion accompany cornmeal breaded oysters atop a surprisingly tender spinach salad that's dressed with a very tasty bacon vinagrette (think German potato salad dressing). The balsamic steak Caesar salad is also done well. Thin slices of grilled steak, go on top of romaine tossed in a balsamic Caesar dressing. Rich and tangy, and a little changeup from the usual effort.

The sandwiches are generally ample in size and are solid fare. The southern-style catfish was excellent. A nice cornmeal breading that was crunchy and seasoned just right covered an incredibly tender catfish fillet. With all due respect to my old friends at the Seaboat, this is probably the best southern style fish sandwich in town. The burger was a solid effort, though not transcendent. They also serve a muffuletta that is probably the best fascimilie of the New Orleans classic within 100 miles.

The desserts at Tracks draw an incomplete, for now. The banana bread pudding is excellent - caramel and pecans top a creamy bread pudding made from banana bread, all served warm. Very rich and decadent. The chocolate cobbler has been spotty. I describe is as being a medium rare brownie, topped with a chocolate crumb topping, a la mode. I'm still not sure if I like it. It's rich, warm, and chocolatey. It's also messy, and perhaps a little too sweet, and not enough of the chocolate's depth is brought out. The first time, it came looking like a mound of chopped up flourless chocolate cake, topped with a scoop of vanilla. You couldn't really tell what it was. For not, we'll just leave it as an incomplete.

Of course, that is not to say that there weren't any misses. As mentioned before, the frog legs were a little bit on the fishy side and the meat was somewhat bland (though it was fried well). The other obvious miss was the chicken wings, oddly enough. They were seasoned pretty well, but they were tiny. And that made them a little bit tough. Considering that they cost more than my catfish sandwich, it was disappointing when the server brought them out.

The other miss is in the service. The servers were all friendly, and seemed competent enough at first. But then you look around. The first thing that you'll notice is that Tracks is a pretty big place, with a good sized patio. And on the nights that I've been there, the crowds have been somewhat sparse. While I'm not all that concerned about seeing and being seen, I am concerned about this for a different reason. You end up with spotty service. Servers get bored when they don't have enough customers, so they hang out at the bar and chat with each other. So, oddly enough, if a server had 4 tables, I'd get a visit every 10 minutes or so, if I'm the only table, there's a good chance that I'll see my server only about 15 or 20 minutes. Which is fine when I'm not needing anything. But when I need another drink or a condiment that was forgotten, then it becomes annoying. I think that we may have caught our server on a bad night, but she dropped glasses on two separate occasions, which sort of jarred our attention. But she was pleasant enough to joke about it with us later when she came back to the table. One thing to note about the patio - trains actually run by every so often, so you'll be distracted then. Also, sometimes they're passenger trains, that will actually stop and let the passengers out to stretch and get some fresh air (and the engineers to use the bathroom and to get a scotch and soda). One time on the patio, some of the passengers came out, and started chatting with us while we were out on the patio. Now, I sort of dig that randomness, but that may note be the most appealing thing for everyone, so this is fair warning.

So, no stars offered to Tracks, yet. It's only been open a month, and it's still working out the kinks. We'll see what happens with the entrees. I think that if they're solid, a little tweak of the menu and a little emphasis on service, you could have a quality 1 or 1.5 star grill on our hands. Which is more than what you'd expect to find on the other side of the tracks.

-foodgeek