Dining out: Munchies Cafe & Bakery

PROVO — By now it should be obvious that service is a big selling point for me.

Many a restaurant has lost my regard for uninformed, indifferent or faulty servers. And many a restaurant has gained my loyalty for putting well-trained, friendly people on its front lines.

Nowhere, however, have we had quite as personal, cheerful and satisfying a service experience as we did recently at Provo's Munchies Cafe & Bakery.

Oh, and the food's pretty good, too.

Munchies is a Taiwanese restaurant. For those of you who, like me, are not familiar with that cuisine, I'd call it free-wheeling Chinese — the kind of stuff you'd expect in a U.S. Chinese restaurant, plus Japanese and Western influences, and fresh and simple preparations. The "bakery" part of the establishment turns out sweet and savory buns, plus bread, dinner rolls and cake.

It's all housed at the end of a strip mall in Provo's university area, in a cozy space just big enough for a counter, a cooking area, four tables and a few spaces on which to display reading material and the day's baked goods. There's an improvised and amateur look to the decor, giving Munchies the ambience of a home dining room — a feeling reinforced by the cheery, chatty attention of the staff, a family whose kids wander in and out, smiling shyly at the customers. I think we spoke briefly with everyone who worked there, as all seemed anxious for us to have a good dinner.

We had a couple of traditional Asian dishes, beef and broccoli and teriyaki chicken. The beef was a fresher take on the usual dark-sauced Chinese dish, with a light, gravylike sauce over bright veggies and sliced beef. The teriyaki, always a hit with the kids, was literally soaked with flavor; the chicken, cooked in the sauce, was dark, chewy and salty-sweet.

We liked the fried rice with veggies, ham and eggs, garnished with fresh broccoli, and the potstickers, fat, tender dumplings seared on one side and filled with chopped meat and veggies. Our server noticed we hadn't sauced them up at the nearby condiment bar and brought some sauce over to make sure we had them at their best.

Our favorite part of the meal was the beef noodle soup, a Taiwanese classic deliciously reproduced at Munchies. It's a huge bowl — great for sharing — of rich, meaty, slightly spicy broth covering wiggly noodles and chunks of very lean, fork-tender beef that reminded me of pot roast. Laid on top were leaves of spicy-bitter bok choi. It's a pleasure to eat. My only regret is that our 3-year-old, after one slurp, would allow the rest of us only a few tastes.