Offerdahl's Café Grill

Jeff Kleinman9/9/2010

Offerdahl's goes beyond bagels.

Think of Offerdahl's, and you'll likely think of bagels with a side of football, but former Dolphins linebacker John Offerdahl has moved a bit beyond both. At his namesake cafe and grill in Hollywood, bagels share the spotlight with spicy shrimp with toasted almonds, steak chunks over greens, sprawling salads with feta and dried cranberries, Pacific Rim salmon over rice, chicken with ginger and cucumber, meaty chili and hearty burgers.

The ambitious entrees work for the harried family looking for quick takeout that isn't stuffed into a greasy paper bag. The counter guy had us in and out in less than 15 minutes while offering us samples of chili, preparing our salads and making sure the grill chef didn't put cheese on our bean burger. The meat-loving middle schoolers lapped up bowls of the thick, mildly spiced chili and plucked steak chunks (a bit mushy and bland) off the salad. Offerdahl's didn't quite know what to do with the tofu (substituted for the chicken) on the Ginger Thai platter. It took the small cup of Thai-style sauce and a hijacked cup of  dressing from the salad to give the plain rectangles minimal flavor.

No such problem with the spicy black bean burger; tangy salsa and guacamole made it jump right out of its bun. The grilled salmon, spiked with teriyaki sauce and perched atop a mix of rice, ginger slaw, broccoli and tomatoes, had plenty of flavor, too. Offerdahl's is several notches above fast food but not quite bistro fare. There are plenty of deli sandwiches, too, and with baskets of bagels, trays of muffins and tanks of flavored coffee, breakfast beckons all the time.