NOTE: Alex McCoy is now executive chef at Kitchen.

Tom Sietsema wrote about Kitchen for an April 2009 First Bite column.

To the casual passerby, the youthful Kitchen in Glover Park appears to be a terrific tonic for tough times.

The sight of John Deere tractor seats instead of stools at the bar coaxes smiles all around. In the dining room, the American restaurant's relaxed vibe is reinforced with wooden rafters, mismatched white chairs and a chalkboard wall that extends to the second floor.

A regular restaurant-goer can almost predict what's coming. Sure enough, the kitchen at Kitchen dishes out pork chops with stuffing, chicken and waffles, and what sounds like a little indulgence, lobster macaroni and cheese. What a customer can't forecast is how often he'll ask to have his water glass refilled or how eager he will be to go out for another meal after eating in this unfortunate January replacement for the Latin American-flavored Ceviche.

To be fair, Kitchen is on its second chef in less than three months. But having dined there under both cooks, I don't see any progress on the food front.

Trying to find a bite of seafood in that mac and cheese sets a customer off on a largely fruitless treasure hunt (and when the lobster is identified, it's spongy and stringy). One night, I watch a companion cut so much fat from a steak that all he's left with is a thin piece of meat the size of a deck of cards. Kitchen's pork chop is so dry, I wouldn't be surprised to see it endorsed by NASA as a candidate for astronaut food; still, the centerpiece is easier to tackle than its stuffing, which could pass for Stouffer's by way of the Dead Sea.

The service does little to compensate for what comes out of the kitchen. After we left a heap of uneaten food at our table, and our waiter noticed it (how could he not?), one of the members in my party came clean and shared his concerns. The server's response: "Oh, okay." Another evening, with fewer than a dozen diners in the place, I got the wrong bill. Twice.

Get to know the bartender. He makes a mean Manhattan. And if you need something solid to accompany the cocktail, ask for the skinny but zippy chicken wings or a basket of onion rings. The latter have always been big, sweet and crisp and served with what tastes like ketchup set on fire.

When he switched concepts earlier this year, co-owner Mauricio Fraga-Rosenfeld said of Ceviche, "Great concept, wrong location." Kitchen, alas, is mostly just wrong.

Entrees, $14-$19.

(April 8, 2009)