Of all the things that can make or break the success of a restaurant the biggest, and most apparent to potential diners, are photos of the food served within said restaurant’s walls. Think back to the last time you were walking past a sketchy Chinese restaurant that had faded pictures of menu items pasted to their street facing windows. The flaking, sun-baked images of beef, chicken and vegetables, turned slightly moldy from the effects of condensation forming between glass and paper. None of this screams, “Delicious cuisine inside”. More times than not I turn away from those places. So it was with Cocorico Patisserie in Kirkland. Before my first visit, a couple of weeks ago, I always shied away because the pictures that hung in the window of the sandwiches they served were poorly lit, off-colored and old looking. Again, not something one equates with quality eats. Of course what’s the saying, “Don’t judge a book by its cover”?

It took a co-worker’s weeklong Cocorico binge to wise me up to the potential in this strip mall lunch spot. Every day he would come down and ask if anyone wanted to join him. A few people agreed but my bias, based upon the photos in the window, kept me from agreeing. “Not today”, I’d say; while deep inside I was saying, “Or ever, yuck”. But one day I found myself, crippled by hunger pains, standing outside their doors. Once inside I was confronted with a blend of deli/pastry counter sandwich shop and French tea room: with claret colored curtains, wrought iron patio furniture, upholstered seating and plastic statuary. Behind the counter, pasted to the wall, are more of the same poorly photographed sandwich imagery; this time serving as the menu. One thing is for sure, Cocorico serves a wide variety of International sandwiches. If you are looking for something sandwich-like from a particular country, it is likely that you’ll find it in picture form on the menu of this restaurant’s back wall.

My choice for lunch I decided would be something less than exotic, something that would be hard to get wrong - Southern Pot Roast Sandwich ($4.99). While I’m not exactly sure what makes a pot roast from the south different from say, its Northern cousin. I can say that my sandwich contained the definitive essence of what a pot roast should be - tender, moist pieces of beef that have been cooked to the point where it literally falls apart in strands. Loaded with great beefy flavor it was also rich, tasting as if it had been bathing in gravy for an hour. Each pot roast sandwich comes with one’s choice of sauce: barbeque, teriyaki or horseradish. I’m of the belief that no beef dish is complete without the addition of horseradish, so that was my choice. The sandwich came dressed with lettuce, tomato and pickle. This last little bit, the pickle, is something which I wouldn’t normally request on a sandwich of this sort. But somehow it works, the brininess mixes with the richness of the meat and the spark of horseradish. I’d like to say it makes something of a tartar sauce but that’s not quite right. All of this was stuffed inside a freshly made demi-French roll of decent size. Unfortunately all you get with your sandwich order is a sandwich only; no chips or drink or dessert. There is dessert available in their large pastry case but the availability and variety can be spotty at times.

All-in-all Cocorico makes a good lunch and I look forward to trying many of the other sandwiches offered via faded photos. Of course lunch is the only time you can stop in as they are only open from 10:30 to 3:00, Monday through Friday. While this makes for significantly reduced opportunities for most people’s repast, if you work in the Totem Lake area, it adds one more selection to my list of nearby “out of the office” lunch spots. I may even offer some of my own sandwich shots to be used in the place of their current imagery.