Review: MCL Cafeteria
Author: WIBIA | Filed under: Food Reviews, Location: Carmel, IN, Location: Indianapolis, IN, Recommended: Chain Restaurant
MCL Restaurant & Bakery
1390 Keystone Way Drive East
Carmel, IN 46032
www.mclhomemade.com/
Founded right here in beautiful Indianapolis, MCL touts their homemade recipes of all your favorite comfort foods. This place is old school. Miss the food that your Midwestern grandma made? Well…they have it all right here! Cafeteria/a la carte style with great looking desserts. The menu that has a lot of daily specials and they are all online, so check it before you go. I get a chuckle that the menu is online considering the average age of their customer is 97 years old.
What I Ate:
Stuffed Chicken Breast $4.75
Mashed Potatoes & Gravy $1.55
Green Beans $1.55
With a drink, it is around $10.00 for the meal.
Chicken breast is loaded with stuffing and a little scoop of gravy over it. It was awesome. The chicken was fork tender and it was a nice sized serving for the money. It tasted like Thanksgiving in June! Mashed Potatoes & Gravy were strikingly similar to KFC, which is a good thing in my book. Green Beans didn’t provide any surprises.
My wife had an Chicken Bruschetta and Mac & Cheese as a side. The chicken was a little dry, so I would not get this again. Mac and Cheese was good for a cafeteria, but still not the yummy home made type like my grandma used to make. If you read my blog a lot, you know that Mexican is my favorite food, but Mac and Cheese is a close second. I admit, I am pretty picky about my Mac and Cheese.
Would I Buy It Again? Yes. Homemade old school favorites and you just can’t go wrong. I’ve never had a bad meal there. I just looked at the menu while doing the review and Cedar Plank Salmon, Chicken and Noodles, Beef Manhattan… yumm!
-wibia
Tags: Carmel, Chicken, Food, Indiana, Indianapolis, Indianapolis Food, mcl cafeteria
“Homemade old school favorites, you just can’t go wrong.” So true. Man…I’m jealous, we don’t really have a place like this ’round my parts. I want to go yo Paula Deen’s Lady & Sons in Savannah, GA!
I hear Savannah is nice. I am not a fan of her shows, but if I am looking at recipes on the Food Network for this type of food, I would probably filter her as the author. I am usually into more modern food, but once in a while I get a craving and then I head to MCL and I am good for a few months. You should make a Thanksgiving pizza with toppings consisting of stuffing, turkey, potatoes, and instead of sauce…gravy!! Ha.. I had to.
You know,,,,I’ve always wanted to do that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I remember MCL Cafeteria being horrible when I was a wee lad, but that was many moons ago. I take it they’ve improved over the years…or maybe I just didn’t know good from bad back then
Ahh, MCL; that takes me back…I’ve never been to the one in Carmel, but have fond childhood memories from the one in Southern Plaza. I can remember the home cooked style food like it was yesterday…
It’s been YEARS since I’ve been to an MCL. I remember their fried chicken as being especially good.
yup MCL fried chicken was the best! Try to create it myself but it just isnt the same
I think I just licked my screen. Cruel pic’ ;D
WIBIA and commentators,
First off thanks for your review of our restaurant, and yes we actually do read blogs as well as posting our daily menu online. We even have FREE WiFi available in all of our stores, so WIBIA could blog right from the restaurant.
Since like most, we’re interested in people who are interested in us, I’ve got a proposition for WIBIA and the 8 people who have previously posted comments about this entry. We’d like to mail you a $25 gift card good at any MCL Restaurant & Bakery.
Just email your name and mailing address to blogger[at]mclhomemade[dotcom], place WIBIA in the subject line and your username from your post, we’ll send it on out. And, we certainly won’t share your information with anyone.
Truly like your site, keep it up.
PS – You might get a kick out of this WIBIA (http://www.mclhomemade.com/locations_wifi.cfm).
Sweet! Thanks guys. Here is the link so it works:
http://www.mclhomemade.com/locations_wifi.cfm
I have never been to MCL but between the positive reviews on WIBIA and your willingness to give feedback to the site, I will be taking my entire family for their first trip to MCL tomorrow(Thursday) night.
Darn. Just goes to show that I should make a comment on every post.
I have been to MCL before, but it has been at least fifteen years. I do remember that I enjoyed it though.
We went tonight and the Fried Chicken was excellent along with the mash potatoes, gravy and mac n cheese. I could not pass up trying the stuffing and like the large soft chunc\ks of celery in the stuffing. My wife had the chicken and noodles that were perfect. The service was excellent and a sever helped us get or kids settled. The only improvement I would look to are the green beans. They were just too soft and fell apart on my plate. We will be going back in the near future.
I visited my mom last month- she lives in Indy- and we went to mcl for dinner. She had roast beef and I had salmon, mashed potatoes and corn. It was delicious! I had to resist the urge to get cake. I wish there was an MCL in Louisville.
Love, love, LOVE MCL. Enjoyed eating there when I worked at the Carmel location in high school, missed it when we lived in MS and KY for three years, and now that we have 3 children we enjoy taking them even more as an alternative to fast food. Certainly not cheap to feed a family of 5 there, but worth the splurge when you can.
I have always loved MCL. Something for everyone!
My wife and I ate at MCl in Lafayette tonight. I have never left a restaurant feeling so great! Im not even talking about their large portions of tasty comfort food. In our early 40′s and we were the youngest customers in the place! Stark contrast to the other trendy places with all the Purdue kids where we feel old and decrepid. I had cucumber salad, green beans,mashed potatoes & gravy, 2 pcs white fried chicken, roll,iced tea wife had mac& cheese,coleslaw,peas,roll and water $21. Not bad. The waiters seem to know everyone by their first names. Very nice