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An Out of This World
Dining Experience
 If
you’ve wandered up wonderful Wilmington Avenue in downtown Rehoboth
Beach, you’ve probably seen Planet X Café. It’s the purple and green
Victorian with the large porch, steep stairs, and trees out front wrapped
in rope lights. If there were mythical creatures in Rehoboth, this is one
of the places where they would hang out.
Planet X (some people pronounce it as Planet Ten, but I have
always said “X” as in the name of the letter) is decorated with
Victorian silk fabric tablecloths with long fringe, pillows in animal
prints and gold satin. Red and purple paper lanterns hang along with
strings of beads and tiny mirrors. Wispy curtains divide some of the
tables inside. The décor provides an air of fused cultures: everything
American, European, Asian and African.
The manager, Jeff, showed us to a lovely corner table on the
patio last Sunday where my honey, Sharon, and I enjoyed a fabulous meal.
We were joined at our table by a tree trunk. There is this large tree
growing right through the porch and our table snuggled up to it. We
couldn’t see the base, nor the top of the tree, but we just had the
trunk there, sitting with us at the table. After that meal, I decided that
I like dining with foliage.
Chef/Owner Justine Fletcher originally opened the café as a
dessert and coffee house in College Park, Maryland, but moved it to
Rehoboth in 1995 where she began to explore a wider variety of organic
vegetarian creations. The current menu offers a balance of vegetarian,
seafood and meat creations.
Sharon and I started our meal with the famous stacked
eggplant appetizer. It has been on the Planet X menu for a long time, and
it’s well-loved…for a good reason. It is a tower of melt-in-your-mouth
slices of fried eggplant with a delicious layer of herd goat cheese in
between each delectable slice of eggplant. It all sits on a dab of fresh
tomato sauce and is topped with a slice of fresh parmesan for just the
right complement.
We also shared another appetizer which was out of this world.
The duck confit made me groan with pleasure, and I noticed later that
everyone within earshot ordered that dish after they saw us eating ours.
The shredded duck is very tender and perfectly seasoned served sitting on
top of one of the best risottos I have ever had. This risotto is flavored
with white truffle oil and manages to be tender without being mushy.
Cooking risotto correctly is difficult, but they’ve got it figured out
at Planet X. Yum, this rice dish was cheesy and rich and provided a
wonderful companion to the duck.
But wait, there’s more. The duck and risotto were served on
top of braised cabbage. You might not think of cabbage as something you
typically get in a fine dining establishment, but this braised cabbage was
divine. It was crunchy and it seemed like the edges were a little broiled
to get that nice smoky flavor. Can you tell that I really enjoyed this
dish? Enough said.
Next, we sampled two entrees: the salmon and the filet of
beef. The salmon was a colorful and summery dish, served with
orange-glazed sweet potatoes and a little swirl of yellow that the menu
calls “Meyer Lemon Confit,” which is a sweet sauce made with baked
lemons. It was a beautiful orange and yellow dish served with perfectly
cooked green beans to create a colorful dish that made you happy just to
look at it.
The filet of beef was heavenly. It was a large filet,
perfectly cooked and so tender that I barely needed to press my knife into
it to slice it. The beef was well-seasoned with shallot butter, served
with scalloped potatoes and drizzled in a delicious glaze that had me
licking the plate.
After all this food, we relaxed on the breezy porch and
watched the greyhounds trotting by with their owners during their annual
pilgrimage to the beach.
It was an almost perfect evening. All we needed was
chocolate. We ordered the molten chocolate cake and some cappuccinos as
the perfect ending to our meal. The cake was a small round with a
delicious creamy rich chocolate center. It was served with their amazing
whipped cream made in house. But I hate to call it whipped cream because
it’s more like a sweet, dense creamy bonus that comes as a surprise with
your dessert. If it were colder, you might think it was ice cream.
Next time you are trotting around Rehoboth Beach, make your
pilgrimage (hopefully more than annual) to Planet X. It is a wonderful out
of this world treat, full of surprises and happy endings.
Planet X, located at 35 Wilmington Avenue in downtown
Rehoboth Beach, is currently open Thursday through Sunday from 5:30-9:30
p.m. Reservations can be made by calling 302-226-1928. You can see lots of
pictures and the menu at www.planetXcafe.com.
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