By Craig LaBan, Restaurant Critic for The Philadelphia Inquirer:
Breakfast is king by the ocean, and Dixie Picnic pays the meal proper respect from its perky orange creamsicle of a gingerbread cottage, just a half-block up Eighth Street off Ocean City’s boardwalk. Morning diners channel free WiFi on their laptops and dig into honest sticky buns draped in real caramel and pecans, and nibble fluffy biscuits filled with salty Smithfield ham.
Dixie’s true ace, though, are the frosted “upcakes” that owner Tracey Deschaine has created in homage to the eccentric Southern aunts she visited in Virginia as a child. Upcakes are the frosting-lover’s reply to the muffin-top crowd, indulgently glazed cupcake bottoms that give a taste of icing in every bite. Deschaine, a Malvern-based nurse before embarking on her cafe dreams, takes no shortcuts with her old-fashioned baking, and the same is true for everything else on this from-scratch menu.
Dixie’s box lunches – a sandwich, picnic salad, deviled egg and upcake for just $8.25 – are a super bargain that we ordered en masse for a picnic on the beach. We loved the Thanksgiving sandwich of turkey, stuffing and cranberries on the soft, house-baked Sally Lunn roll. The plump shrimp salad and fresh chicken salad with pecans and grapes also tasted as if they were fixed by someone’s mama – which, in fact, they were.