Don’t let anything you read about the Spice House Café fool you. In searching for an out-of-the-way “cheap eat” last week, I stumbled upon a brief description of the “café” in a normally reliable publication that mentioned some excellent dishes and a forest-like view. I wondered if this was the same greenless Clairemont Mesa Boulevard that offers about as much shade as an asphalt parking lot.

Arriving with an equally intrigued dining companion, we entered what used to be a Bob’s Big Boy some 20 years ago. A few trees in the yonder hardly constituted what I’d call an arboretum setting. And on this slow evening, we were told to choose our own seating, which meant wading past numerous un-bussed tables strewn with everything from partially devoured BLTs and the shriveled stubs of enchiladas to what were perhaps remnants of the lauded Portuguese sausage with eggs I had read about.

“You can help clean it up,” our waitress chided when she overheard me whisper to my companion about the slovenly condition of the dining room. “We only have two people on tonight,” she added with a huff.

Fallacy number two appeared in writing on the menu cover: “The meal you are about to enjoy is prepared with the finest ingredients.” A plethora of tempting breakfast fare fills the first two pages, followed by a jumble of everyday American, Greek and Mexican lunch and dinner selections. The name Spice House Café, which hints of something more ethnically exotic, is a curious misnomer.

A so-so Greek salad represented the apex of our meal and revealed the restaurant’s trademark of meting out jumbo portions of nearly everything we ordered. Crumbles of creamy cow’s milk feta, fresh tomatoes and a few juicy kalamata olives were the salad’s strong points. Romaine lettuce leaves plagued by thick white veins and an anticlimactic dressing sorely lacking oregano were its downfall.

The quesadilla on the appetizer list is a mean, greasy monster filled with cheddar, tomatoes, onions, jalapenos and an overload of bacon that was, without question, way precooked. The accompanying sour cream and salsa initially got lost due to the burnt-out attitude of our waitress. They arrived without apology long after we pushed aside the plate. A side portion of spanakopita, cut into a hefty rectangle, became our next outcast. It tasted like how burnt hair smells, which one should expect when the delicate structure of filo pastry gets singed on a griddle. The spinach-feta filling was collapsed and dry, and I couldn’t detect a single herb in the mix.

The odds for improvement were stacked against us as we continued ordering from the short list of Greek specialties. Bland as cardboard were two skewers of charbroiled chicken breast (Souvlaki), supposedly marinated, and served with a cluster of broccoli florets that were somewhere between raw and blanched. My companion, however, vouched for the Gyros Plate, satisfied by the mild spiciness of the meat strips (beef and lamb), although disappointed by the fat, mushy steak fries on the plate. We suspected the fries rubbed elbows in the deep fryer with zucchini sticks, thus absorbing too much of their flavor.

“Who would ever come back here after eating this sludge?” I asked my cohort, this time covering my lips while dipping pita triangles into some rather good tzatziki sauce. Well, we did, returning a few days later for Sunday breakfast out of fairness.

The pancakes were tan and fluffy. And the Hung Over Omelet – an egg dumpster of Jack cheese and Ortega chilies bathed in rancheros sauce – tasted pleasing enough to soak up a previous night’s alcohol intake. But the Italian Sausage Frittata didn’t slide down so easily. It was riddled with buttons of fatty, grayish-brown meat and suffocated by an overly thick mantle of orange and white cheese. Crispy hash browns and griddled potatoes needed seasoning.

Service on our second visit was swifter and friendlier. Though seated this time in a booth that halfway adjoined the silverware station, the boisterous jangling of forks and spoons by the wait staff was ear piercing. And, whether or not the outdated dining room was filled with customers, the management showed little concern on both visits for keeping the rug, tables and restroom litter free.

If there exists another Spice House that serves scrumptious and truly spiced food in some enchanted setting, I remain eagerly open to being pointed in the right direction.