Located on the campus of the Henry Ford Community College, Fifty-one O One is a hidden gem of a…read morerestaurant, entirely run by the local culinary school students. Everything is cooked and baked by the chefs-in-training so you can expect little blemishes here and there, but where else can you get Duck Confit for $14 or Surf and Turf for $17 nowadays? I was always interested in going ever since I learned about the restaurant, but their very limited hours (they are only open during the school year for lunch on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and for dinner on Wednesday) prevented me from giving them a try. That changed last Wednesday.
We had a reservation for the special Shrimp and Soul Seafood Buffet ($21.95 per person). Parking was a bit of a pain - I guess this place is mostly attended by faculty and other students because we had to call and wait for security to raise the gate to the parking lot. As we walked into the building, we noticed that the restaurant is basically situated to the side of the student commons/cafeteria area. We walked up and found a giant line of people waiting to check in; this was right when they opened at 6PM. This took a while, but after we managed to make it inside, we were directed to the overflow seating outside of the restaurant - it wasn't exactly the classiest of seats; basically just temporary circular fold tables and plastic chairs, with a cheap plastic cover on top of the table. The interior furniture was much better but I guess for these more popular events they have too many people come in. We waited a while for the waitress to get to us as there seemed to be only one or two for the entire restaurant and then finally could go inside to grab food.
There were two main lines for food, one to the right with salad and appetizers, and one to the left with the mains. Starting with the right side, which was mostly self service, we had:
Spring Mix Salad - Pretty standard green mix with a wide variety of toppings to choose from, including shredded cheese, olives, broccoli, onions, chickpeas, carrots, cherry tomatoes, and a couple of different dressings.
Cocktail Shrimp - These were boiled and piled into an attractive ice sculpture, with the shrimp spilling out from the bottom. They were cooked perfectly with the shrimp being served unshelled. They were a bit tricky to peel, but they were deveined well. This came with cocktail sauce and lemon on the side.
Macaroni Salad, Cole Slaw, and Potato Salad - All mixed and seasoned well.
Soup - The menu listed shellfish clam chowder but instead they had a nice corn chowder with imitation crab.
On the left side, where there were students standing behind every dish to serve the food:
Cornbread Muffins and Dinner Rolls - The cornbread were very sweet with good cornmeal taste. The rolls were pretty normal in taste and texture, but they looked nicely baked with cornmeal sprinkled on top.
Braised Collard Greens - The greens were chopped and stewed until tender with no stringy bits. There was a bit of smokiness and pieces of pork mixed in.
Sweet Potato Casserole - This had a nice cinnamony taste with a browned crust on top.
Pork Tenderloin - This was thinly sliced and dressed with a peach bbq sauce. It was good to try but kind of dry and tough.
Fried Cod - This was beer battered cod with a bit of bitterness. The fish inside was tender and moist.
Chicken Breast - Very dry, my least favorite food of the night by far.
The last two items were rice pilaf and green beans.
In addition, there was a mac & cheese station with mix-ins, including diced tomato, caramelized onion, homemade bacon, broccoli, and imitation crab. The student scoops some precooked, oiled elbow macaroni into a pan, adds the toppings, ladles a cheese roux on top and heats everything up in a skillet. We were told that the bacon is made on site. It's thick cut into cubes so you have sizable chunks of delicious smoky bacon.
We found the best part of the meal to be the dessert, served on a table right outside the restaurant (and conveniently located across the entrance from our table). These consisted of a decadent heart shaped white chocolate mousse with raspberry filling, a chocolate mousse with caramel filling, small pecan pie slices, Mississippi mud pie bars, cups of banana pudding, red velvet cupcakes, peach cobbler (served hot), and cheesecake. Everything on this table was delicious and we definitely overindulged.
Overall, the food was a bit hit and miss, with the meats being the worst and the desserts being the best. Since this was a buffet rather than their normal service, there were probably some additional consistency issues. Still I think this was a good experience and it made me want to visit again for their standard menu but perhaps not for another buffet.
