Poca HDJ Review: Valley Cakes and Cafe

Sitting on the main route through Poca (home of "The Poca Dots") is this nice little place that is a bit of everything. It's a bakery, coffee shop, tea room, party space and gift shop. Decorated in country style with more stuff per square foot than a Christmas sale at Michaels, its interior belies its basic square and gray exterior.

Once you get past the gift shop area, you walk into the main seating area of the restaurant, but not before passing the entry to the large party room that looks like it could hold a small church congregation. Next you'll see a baked goods case offering some delectable and decadent cakes, pops and cookies, and another cooler nearby has a supply of cheesecakes and other cold treats. At the rear is a counter with a coffee menu and just to the right is the ornate entrance to a very large tea room. 

Oh, and they also cater. 

Everyone we encountered during our visit was a nice as could be, and soon a waitress said we could sit wherever we liked. On the tables were centerpieces of artificial flowers in bold fall colors, as well as an appetizer menu. Once we were given regular menus we noticed that it was mostly limited to panini sandwiches, wraps, burgers and salads, but of course there were hot dogs or why else would we be there?

Now we've written for years that hot dogs are almost an obligatory item on any small town West Virginia restaurant, and usually that is a good thing. Often time restaurants will only have hot dogs on the kids menu, but many have found that their adult customers ask for them and jump on the bus. But obligatory things often become second-class, quality-wise, as eateries don't take them as seriously as other, more profitable items. And that is what has seemingly happened here.

First, the hot dog toppings offered on the menu are all over the place, which is usually a sign that a restaurant isn't serious about hot dogs. It included "your choice of chill [sic], coleslaw, onions,
mustard, ketchup and cheddar cheese." Ketchup is bad enough, but cheddar cheese? Come on.

When the super-friendly and efficient waitress arrived, we ordered our hot dog with chili (not "chill"), slaw, mustard and onions and after a fairly long wait a plate was sat in front of us that contained maybe the smallest hot dog we've ever been served, with a weenie that was so overcooked that it resembled a Slim Jim, and not much thicker than those prepackaged sausage sticks found at the checkout counter of convenience stores. And speaking of convenience stores, this weenie looked like it had spent months sitting on one of those 7-11 roller warmers. The menu said "All Beef" but only a DNA test could possibly confirm this claim, since all other characteristics had been cooked away.

The hot dog was served on a taco holder, which was novel, but the fact that it FIT into a taco holder was the first indication of its small size. The miniature New England Style bun held a decent serving of chili and slaw for its size, and an artfully applied flourish of too much mustard adorned the top. Red onions, which unfortunately were the only things about this hot dog that were too large, completed the curious construction. 

Taste-wise, the chili was pretty good if not very spicy. The slaw was super-finely chopped and quite tasty. But that chewy little weenie ruined the show. As we've said for decades, the weenie isn't the most important part of a West Virginia Hot Dog, but a bad one can wreck an otherwise decent hot dog. This proves the point. Although this one had several things going against it. 

But the people were nice.

Now like most West Virginians, we value friendliness and we hate to say something bad about a place run by such nice people, but journalistic integrity forces our hand here. 1.5 Weenies is as good a rating as we can justify for Valley Cakes.

Our dessert, however, was excellent. And served with a smile, just as you'd expect from such nice people.