I wouldn’t call it fine dining because there is no soft lighting or table cloths or truly innovative dishes, but the Hartland Cafe in Holiday Inn University Plaza Hotel offers good casual dining, fast.

Unsure of what to expect – since it’s been years since we visited the restaurant – there wasn’t much change in its look. The decor could stand some fluffing, particularly the chairs whose cushions had dents pressed into them from years of servicing diners.

I’ll get my last gripe out of the way – tiny ice tea glasses – and move onto the otherwise good review of the food. The tea glasses were intended for dainty ladies to sip a beverage from, not for heavy drinkers needing to quench their thirst. To make up for the size, our waiter made sure to keep them filled.

Needing to sample a variety of items on the menu, we started with a Tower-O-Rings, mostly because of its unusual name. As fried foods go, the onion rings were good. The batter was soda or beer infused because of its airy holes and was dotted with pepper. There were three sauces – two mildly flavored and one sweet – for dipping. The onions were skewered on a metal stick protruding from a wooden plate, thus the term tower. As an appetizer it would have been more than ample for three or four people to share, instead of the two who snarfed the mostly not-greasy rings.

Our entrees each came with a crisp mixed green salad with the usual accompaniments and a little extra – black olives. I love olives so I give them kudos for that.

I had the special of the evening – grilled salmon with sun-dried tomato pesto on a bed of pasta with sautéed vegetables on the side. My partner selected baked ziti.

&#8220You really can’t go wrong with that,” he said.

I wondered when I saw the chef – they have a show kitchen – tossing the ziti in a sauté pan and pouring it into a bowl, topping it with cheese and running it under a salamander, the commercial equivalent of a broiler.

&#8220Who cares, it’s still good,” he said.

Maybe it was baked earlier and rewarmed in the sauté pan.

It doesn’t really matter; the basil-tinted tomato sauce was equally distributed on and in the penne pasta. It had small balls of sausage, pepperoni and strips of sweet red peppers.

We both agreed it was a &#8220sweet” dish.

I was living on the edge by selecting the salmon. I’m very picky about my fish, and salmon is one of those selections that can go very wrong for me.

Happily, it went right. The salmon was mild with a bit of a kick from the pesto. The portion, after an appetizer, was large enough for leftovers. The vegetables, mostly squash and zucchini, were a bit more done than I like, but passable. Still, any place that can cook salmon to my satisfaction is worth a return trip.

With no room left for desert, we were in and out in 45 minutes.

The Hartland Cafe also offers a weekday breakfast buffet for $8.50 and Sunday brunch from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. for $14.95.