A menu says a lot about the way a chef thinks - the way he channels his personality into the food that he cooks. A well done menu is like a program at a play. It sets the stage, helps to build anticipation, tells you a bit about the players themselves.

A poorly done menu is more like stereo instructions, or a computer users guide - all the elements are there, but so poorly presented that they might as well be in a foreign language. The menu at Tazza Bistro in Greece is not quite that bad, but it comes close. Consistent misspellings, grammatical errors, and misused or misunderstood words all suggest confusion, or at least lack of care on the part of Tazza's chef. The menu doesn't lie.

Brian Schermer is a self-trained chef who has been cooking for almost 25 years, first in his native Minnesota, and then in Rochester, where he has lived for the past seven years. Owner of a very successful catering business, Schermer partnered with Jerry LoPiano - owner of the La Famiglia Pizzeria, which adjoins Tazza - intending to open a coffee shop that also served food. Very quickly, Tazza evolved into its current "bistro" format, experimenting with Asian-influenced dishes before settling into its current Mediterranean-style offerings, some of which work quite well, while others are very disappointing.

On both visits, service was friendly, even apologetic, but horribly slow. Dinner on a night when the dining room was empty except for my party and one other table took nearly two hours for a very modest order - one sandwich, one pasta, a single salad, drinks, and dessert. My second visit, at lunchtime a few days later, was even slower. A single waitress was left to manage a lunch rush by herself. We waited 10 minutes for menus, another 10 for drinks, and another 20 for our appetizer, which was, fortunately, cold.

That appetizer - a "tapas" plate of herbed goat cheese, tapenade, and hummus served with olives and slices of crusty bread -was uniformly subpar. The olives were mushy, as if they had been sitting out for quite some time. The tapenade, while not bad, tasted more like pickle relish than the deep, salty and garlicky punch that tapenade usually delivers. The hummus was pasty and flavorless. In consistency and flavor it tasted as though a can of chickpeas had been tossed in a blender and then put on the plate with a dash of salt and a drizzle of olive oil. Goat cheese does not need help to make it spreadable (even inexpensive chevre has a consistency somewhere between cream cheese and cold butter), but in his herbed goat cheese spread the chef used what I'm guessing was sour cream to thin it down to something resembling a thick dip with a faint taste of goat cheese and chive.

In contrast to his tapas, Chef Schermer's paninis are some of the best I've had in the area. Using bread baked in the ovens of the pizzeria next door, Schermer fills his sandwiches with good ingredients (including lots of cheese) and grills them perfectly, melting the contents together in a very satisfying way. The panini, as they should be, are crispy, but not greasy on the outside, and delectably gooey within. The turkey, bacon, tomato and mozzarella with basil pesto was my favorite. The winning combination of turkey and bacon (staple of club sandwiches everywhere) played very well with the fragrant bite of the pesto. Similarly, the proscuitto, Swiss cheese, greens, and dijon mustard panini had just the right balance of salty meat, fat, and the earthy bite of mustard to make for a very good sandwich.

The single salad that I tried was a solid choice, and well executed. Pear, bleu cheese, and pine nuts were served over baby greens with a light vinaigrette. The pear was remarkably ripe for this time of the year and added a bit of sweetness to contrast with the intensity of the cheese and the peppery bite of the greens. The cilantro-lime dressing drizzled over the fruit worked quite well, giving the pear a little lift over the other flavors.

Things start to go downhillwhere Schermer's menu departs from the familiar coffee shop sandwich and salad continuum. The raviolis used in his cheese ravioli with basil pesto were generously sized and well cooked, the sturdy dough filled with a light and flavorful mixture of ricotta cheese. The pesto, though, seemed to be missing the creamy complement of parmesan cheese that typically balances the assertive garlic bite and spicy basil. The absence of the cheese was not, however, enough to deter me from asking for some bread to mop up the sauce that remained once the raviolis were gone.

The "classic" pasta carbonara was a disaster. Carbonara is among the simplest of pasta dishes: pancetta (or bacon in a pinch), eggs, and parmesan cheese combined with a bit of pasta water, tossed with fresh pasta, and served with more cheese and perhaps a bit of crushed red pepper to add some zip. Some restaurants, in an effort to make the sauce smooth and creamy rather than dealing with the temperamental interaction of beaten eggs and hot water, add cream, and still others add peas (although that has always seemed to me to verge on heresy).

Schermer's version has the cured meat component, it has the cheese, and there is egg here as well - but that's where the resemblance to carbonara ends. While he claims to use pancetta, the huge meaty hunks mingled in the pasta were either an undercooked waste of a very expensive item (pancetta is not cheap, and so it is used sparingly and rendered very carefully to get out every bit of flavor) or simply chunks of work-a-day ham steak. Either way, the meat was rubbery and disturbingly pink, tasting primarily of salt rather than the herb and garlic notes that characterize good pancetta. The sauce itself was a salty mix of cheese, white wine, thyme, and egg that tasted mostly of wine that had not been allowed to cook down enough to lose its alcoholic bite. That said, the pasta was cooked to a nice al dente.

If you stick to the panini and salads - which I strongly suggest you do - there is no better way to end your meal than with one of Tazza's banana smoothies. The secret, my companion was dismayed to learn, is that the restaurant uses half-and-half rather than milk to make this fruit shake. But oh, what a shake it is. Topped with whipped cream, it has the fragrance, texture, and flavor of a liquified banana cream pie. Delivered along with my check at the end of a lunch that took almost two hours, the smoothie was an unexpected surprise at the end of a long haul.

Tazza Bistro

3208 Latta Rd, Greece

413-4404, tazzabistro.com

Monday-Thursday 9 a.m.-10 p.m., Friday-Saturday 9 a.m.-11 p.m., Sunday 10 a.m.-10 p.m.