Lorenzo's Italian Kitchen

106 S. Main
Desoto, Mo.
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Finally, finally, I was free of my work-leash for a proper outing. I'd worked some earlier in the day, but finished up sometime after noon.
This was a last minute decision. Seriously last minute. The best we could get Angel to do was to spit out three or four places, I picked this one from that list.
The Place:
Main Street in Desoto is old school, mid twentieth century style. The street itself runs alongside and parallel to the many railroad sidings that make up the busy maintenance facility. There are only businesses on one side of most of Main Street. It's a  charming small town and it has been getting a period-reflective update. Old style street lamps, etc. Angel occasionally takes dogs she's training along the sidewalk. Traffic, foot traffic, it's good for a dog to learn how to act around unexpected and unfamiliar, for a dog, common people places.
Lorenzo's is one of the many small shops tucked away in an narrow older building. When we walked in, there were only a couple of tables occupied. I knew this would soon change though. They'd announced live music on the patio starting at six. We were an hour ahead of them.
A beautiful day, not too warm, but not chilly, sunny with occasional fluffy clouds overhead.
The place is cozy. I can think of no other word for it.
The walls are wainscoted in dark wood, the upper walls painted the color of ripe tomatoes. Furniture is black, booths, tables and chairs. The shirts and half-aprons worn by the staff were also black.
We were shown a booth near the back and fell into our seats. "Katie will be with you shortly." the hostess said.
And she was, a happy looking young lady stepped up and asked about drinks. Tea, sweet tea, Root Beer.
She skipped off and we started going over the menus.
I'd had the pizza before, it was very good. I think I had pasta there, though I couldn't recall wish dish. Pasta sounded good though.
Katie brought our drinks and we ordered an appetizer that we'd just been discussing.
The Food:
Of course they serve toasted ravioli, everyone for dozens of miles around serves that. Lorenzo's has that along with their own 'in-your-face' alternative, toasted cannelloni.
It's prepared the same way, but instead of ravioli they stuff a tube-pasta and cut it into bite-size bits. We recalled having them on a prior visit and all agreed.
When the time to order the entrees came, we were ready.
I wasn't real hungry, I'd made a big breakfast for myself that morning after everyone else had left. Adam had to work, Angel was out pimping mutts at an adoption event at Buchheit's in Herculaneum. She's done these things a lot over the last ten years or so. They take a lot of time, a lot of her energy, but occasionally they place a dog. This was a good day, they found homes for two
We ordered.
Me: Baked Cannelloni.
Angel: Mare Monti (a seafood and pasta dish)
Adam: Calzone with bacon, pepperoni and sausage.
A calzone is a fancy name for a folded over pizza. (see picture) You could also say that pizza is an open faced calzone.
We all declined a salad, then out came the electronic devices.
The tea wasn't especially good, but the toasted cannelloni  was exceptional. Some places barely even try on these appetizers, Lorenzo's cares.The house-made sauce is much better than the generic stuff offered at most restaurants. The stuffed pasta bits were gone in no time at all.
After a short while, just as the tables started filling up, the food was served. Simple, uncluttered plates, the food needed little extra flare or fanfare.

Cannelloni

Adam's calzone looked a bit like an upscale Hot Pocket. Angel's Mare was almost soup-like, my cannelloni was hard to see buried under thick, oozy sauce and melted white cheese.
I'd originally thought spaghetti, but the pasta to sauce/cheese ratio was a bit high. Cannelloni has only a little actual pasta, only enough to wrap the seasoned beef, chicken and veal insides. It's still a rich dish, but not as filling.
Angel's dish, Mare Monti has no actual horse in it.(much to my disappointment) The menu described it as Chopped clams, shrimp, real crab meat, fresh mushrooms and

Mare Monti

diced tomato, tossed in a light seafood broth and topped with fresh parsley. Meaning of course, I would never order it for myself, it's the clams.
She sucked it down though, first picking at the individual seafood bits, and slurping the pasta, then dipping her bread into the remaining sauce. "I'd like to just pick the plate up and slurp it all down." She said, she really, really liked the fish sauce.
I chopped up my pasta tubes once I found them. The stringy melted cheese made it a bit awkward to eat, but Lorenzo's is a casual place, things like slurping and dangling cheese bridges from mouth to plate is
perfectly acceptable. The sauce was awesome, sweet but not too sweet, it certainly hit several notes that sounded like 'fresh'. The meat was not too spicy, the texture of the blend of three meats was flawless, almost buttery.

Calzone

While I was eating I noticed the music I'd been rather enjoying. Big bands and crooners from a time before my own. When I do listen to or download music, this is among my favorite types. I really like the old guys from the 40's and 50's, Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Tony Bennett. I like the contemporary crooners as well, Harry Connick Jr, Michael Buble and Tony Bennett. The music was orchestrated and peppy. It fit in this old place.
Of course, Adam liked his calzone, which looked thick and rich as well.


Summary:
The place was starting to fill up as we finished. A large family with a couple of adorable children scooted a

couple of tables together. I say the tots were adorable, which means they stayed at the other end of the dining area. Distance definitely makes small kids more appealing.
Katie took very good care of us. Everything arrived in a timely manner, exactly as ordered. She checked on us frequently and didn't dawdle when it came time for the check.
The entire staff was friendly and attentive. They all seemed to be enjoying themselves and the many customers.
The food was simply outstanding and not overpriced. Our tab came in at only $41, less than we'd spend at one of the franchised casual dining places. From the quaint and cozy location, to the excellent staff, to the exceptional food, there's absolutely nothing I can't happily recommend about Lorenzo's.
Okay the tea wasn't great, but that may be deliberate. They offer lots of wines and beers there, a lot of choices. Maybe next time I'll have a more mature drink.

Huddle House

13002 Hwy 21
Desoto Mo.

The Place:
 On highway 21, just south of Rock Road. You can't miss it, the building is bright and crowded, and  open 24 hours. It's been open for about five months according to Emily, our server, who has been working there since it opened. If every new restaurant drew as many people as were there when we arrived, five months in, there would be a lot of very happy restauranteurs.  I'd heard of Huddle House, never actually been to one. We found it last week heading toward 'Off The Hook'. There was a sign that we hadn't noticed before.
Advance research indicated a Denny's like menu. Primary focus on breakfast anytime, but also offering sandwiches and dinner platters as well.
All week I salivated at the prospect, hoping that it was not a lame wannabe. The first thing we noticed was that it looked kind of small. Inside though it seemed to be much larger. Though it was very busy, we still had our choice among several booths and tables.
It was cozy, the aroma was that of breakfast, the walls were muted colors, burgundy and brown. The tiles sort of adobe color. The ceilings were high and the kitchen area was framed by stamped chrome, diner-style. Hanging from the ceiling was a large flat-screen tuned to a muted, but closed captioned, Fox News. the music was country and there were framed jerseys and photos representing local high school sports teams.
I was not surprised by the country music and Fox News, it simply meant that HH knew its locals.
Desoto is almost too far south for a daily commute into St. Louis, most people in and around  the railroad town are locals, many rural. It is a conservative, God-fearing town for the most part. Nothing wrong with appealing to the locals.
We were greeted by Emily and started drooling on the menus. We started with drinks, coffee for me, sweet tea and Pepsi for Angel and Adam.
The Food:

Stuffed Hash Browns

The problem with a place like this is that everything looks good. It's all comfort food.Nothing fancy, nothing pushing the envelope. I'd scanned the online menu ahead of time and had prepared myself for the meal I wanted.
After much deliberation and after Emily delivered our drinks, we ordered.
Stuffed hash browns for me. Yeah, you read that right. A layer of crispy hash browns, topped with scrambled eggs, sausage patties and crumbled bacon, then another layer of hash browns topped with some cheese sauce and sausage gravy, with a side of toast. Wow.
Angel and Adam finally decided on the country fried steak platter. Slight variations though. Adam wanted to replace the toast with a waffle, and Angel wanted extra gravy since Angel always wants extra gravy.
The CF steak platters came with toast, scrambled eggs and hash browns.
Around us, people were casually dining on similar fare. We sipped our drinks and occasionally looked up at the TV. Adam played a game on his mother's smart-ass phone, I people-watched. Salt of the earth locals, families, and a young couple that looked like they had recently been strung out on meth. That's an opinion only, I have no actual knowledge that the non-blinking wan and pale couple had ever used illicit home-made drugs.
I sipped my steaming Joe out of the fire-engine red mug. It was fresh, earthy and hot. Angel said the sweet tea was pretty good as well.
The wait for the food was a little longer than I expected, but not really too long. Then the plates arrived.

Country fried steak, with sides

"That looks like a heart attack on a plate." Adam said about my piled-high platter. Lots of gravy, enough to completely conceal everything else. Their CF steaks were also thickly coated.The scrambled eggs were bright yellow, the hash browns looked very crunchy, the way we like them.
We dug in.
My platter was everything I wanted and optimistically expected. Adam's comment bothered me a little. I am a man of a certain age with certain typical medical conditions, treated, common for the type. I try to watch my fats and cholesterol, yet here I was throwing caution to the wind. I thought deep thoughts as I shoveled the wonderful flavors and textures into my face.Yeah, this could kill me eventually. I thought, so could about a million other things though. I travel two and a half hours per day to get to and from work, I have a history of smoking and generally not watching my diet. I have an often-stressful job, frequently work long hours, don't get a lot of exercise, and have a family history of certain scary things involving advanced age. Lots of things could be pointed to as what eventually kills me, but frankly, if it is the occasional intake of food like this that eventually does me in, well, there are certainly much worse things.

Waffle

Honestly though, we pretty much only eat like this when we eat out. At home there are lots of salads  and light meals, fruit, veggies and ground turkey instead of beef whenever possible. You guys only hear about these heavy, rich meals because my regular meals are usually quite light, tame and boring. I don't usually eat breakfast, my lunches at work consists of a few snack crackers, a small box of raisins and a banana. Snacks are more likely nuts than anything else, so get off my case.
I tried one of the pointy, spill-over-bits of Adam's waffle, it was a sweet recipe, I'm okay with that, but it's not my favorite form.
I asked Angel about her steak. She wrinkled up her face and said that part of it was overcooked, so it was a little dry, but crispy. Adam agreed. Both finished their meals though without further comment. I couldn't finish mine, there was simply too much. "It beat you!" Angel cried when I pushed the plate away. "Yes, yes it did." I was however completely satisfied.
Summary:
The secret to places like this is to keep it simple. The spice racks are not overloaded with exotic herbs, recipes contain only a line or two. Think about it. You choose a good quality sausage and fry it in a pan. You scramble an egg, shred and grill potatoes. Then you mix flour, sausage drippings until smooth for the gravy. A little salt a little pepper and you're done. There are no complicated or complex recipes at all. Keep your grill clean and at the right temperature and keep an eye on the done-ness and you've got it nailed.Waffle House, IHOP, Denny's, they are all similar and all very good for this one exact reason.
The staff, Emily in particular was dutiful and always available refilling our drinks. She smiled a lot and seemed warm and friendly, as did the other servers. All in all a very nice, inviting, comfortable experience.
 The price was right as well, all that luscious food for only twenty eight bucks, less than ten dollars per person. A guy could really get used to this sort of thing, if only it wasn't trying to kill him.


 

Off The Hook

12636 Rt. 21
DeSoto, Mo.

 On our way to Off the Hook, we saw a sign for a new restaurant in DeSoto. We blew past our first choice to check it out, decided we'd try it, but not this week. Angel had her mind set on OTH's corn poppers, once Angel has her mind set on something, that's pretty much it.

The Place:
On the highway between Hillsboro and DeSoto, north of Walmart. The parking lot slants downhill toward the restaurant, a significant slant. One should keep this in mind while ordering a meal, as the climb back up to the car can be quite the struggle if you overeat. Trust me on this.
The lot wasn't too crowded and it didn't take very long to be seated. We were taken to a table along the west wall, near the middle. The din was roaring with the screams and laughter of the many children. A couple of large groups with more kids than anyone really needs surrounded us. I sucked it in and tried to be patient. I may have mentioned this before, I don't like eating around kids. then again, it's not just eating.
We sat at the wood table, laminated with ads for local businesses and a lame, never-changing, same-on-every-table trivia question list.

Corn Poppers

Name the states with four letter names, how many sides does a pentagon have, who was the first female supreme court justice, etc. It occurred to me that the game would be more interesting if it was different questions at every table and the answers were spread out among the other tables. More of a challenge that way and it would force people to interact more.
Kaylee, our waitress for the evening, smiled and asked about drinks. Un-sweet tea for me, with lemon, sweet tea, no ice for Angel and Adam asked for a Pepsi.
When asked by the boy about the no-ice thing, she said she was tired of being cold. I looked out the window and recalled that the weather experts/alarmists were calling for a major snowstorm starting that night. I'd spent a half hour in the warm afternoon sun, sweating as I pre-salted our four hundred foot driveway.
We flipped open the tri-fold menus. Kaylee brought our drinks and asked about an appetizer, Angel rang out about the corn poppers, whole kernel corn battered and deep fried.
The Food:

Catfish Plate

 Although the menu had many, many tempting offerings, for me, OTH is about the catfish. Not the best I've ever had, that honor is reserved for this all-you-can-eat catfish buffet place in Eureka Springs Arkansas, I forget the name, Don's, Ron's, something like that. It could be gone now, or renamed/re-owned. Last time I was there was about fifteen years ago. I still think it was the best catfish anywhere. However OTH's catfish has never disappointed. There is a problem with the meal as offered, but I'll get into that later.
Angel tried something new, baked chicken, Parmesan style, with mashed potatoes, a roll, and green beans. Adam ordered a sure-thing, Chicken fried steak, also with a roll and mashed potatoes, and a side of corn.
My meal came with fries and hush puppies and two sides. I picked slaw and baked beans.
The corn poppers arrived and we divvied them up into our saucers. I agree with Angel, these things are sinfully good. I tried to only have a couple since my meal was going to be large and filling, but I failed. I had five or six.
As we popped the poppers I looked out the window again, a bank of heavy gray clouds was moving in. I could feel the atmospheric changes in my sinuses, which are as accurate about front movements as any multimillion dollar, sophisticated weather equipment.

Baked Chicken Parmesan

The big family group in front of us was starting to grind on my nerves. Two of the little boys, about eight or nine, were on autopilot and sugared up. They ran toward the restroom a dozen times, rudely oblivious to the fact that other people even existed. I said nothing though, I'm polite that way. I was thinking things though.
Their food arrived, family style, chicken, fish, hush puppies, green beans, mashed potatoes. They'd apparently ordered everything OTH offered. The rude boys and the quieter ones as well loaded up their plates with fries. It occurred to me what a plague French fries are to children. Kids and many adults seem to be addicted to the nutritionally useless, but yummy sticks. Child obesity in the U.S. can probably trace straight back to those things, and all washed down with sugary pop. I love fries too, but kids don't do moderation well. However I did get an idea why parents don't keep them away from their kids. As soon as the kids' plates were loaded up with fries, the table got quiet. Deep fried silence inducers. I get it, kicking the obesity can down the road for the sake of temporary peace and quiet.
The plates arrived and I stopped scowling at the kids. My plate was stacked high with four filets of catfish, two hush puppies and a fist full of fries. I splatted a little ketchup on the plate, for the hush puppies.

Country Fried Steak

I broke open one of the filets to let it cool, they were sizzling hot. I tested the beans and slaw, served in separate ramekins. The beans were smokey and not too sweet. The slaw was vinegar based and sweet. I like this okay, but not as much as creamy slaw.
In comparison, Angel and Adam's plates were not near as crowded or piled as high. I knew I wouldn't be finishing my plate, I never do, it's simply too much heavy food. Adam sampled his mother's chicken and didn't care much for the Parmesan treatment of it. His country fried steak though, disappeared quickly. They finished before me, by a long shot. I managed to finish off the beans, a third of the slaw, two filets and both hush puppies, but that was it. I was full. Angel and Adam ordered dessert, I passed.
Angel asked for the dish that I would have chosen has I not been too full to enjoy it, blackberry cobbler. Cobbler is like a lazy man's pie. Fruit filling and some loose bits of crust. Adam went overboard and took the mud cake, a cake/brownie topped with whipped cream and chocolate syrup.
I asked for a box, I had not touched my fries. So I loaded them and the two remaining filets into the white Styrofoam as Angel and Adam finished off their small desserts. For three and a half bucks each the desserts seemed overpriced for the modest serving size.

Summary:
Everyone was pretty pleased with their meals, no significant complaints. My only gripe was the amount of food I was given, which is hardly a thing one should complain about. I don't understand why they don't offer the fries as one of the side options rather than as a part of the plate. This plate had a LOT of deep fried food on it. I didn't eat my fries even though I like fries, I just knew, once again, that I wasn't going to be able to finish so I picked what I like the most, the fish, and still couldn't even finish that.
The bill came to forty seven dollars and change, not really bad at all, especially considering the amount of food served.
Kaylee was efficient, polite and dutiful, the entire floor staff seemed hard working and professional. OTH is a great place to go for big plates of food, they certainly know how to cook catfish, country fried steak and corn poppers. It's an excellent place to take a big group of people, the staff didn't seem to mind at all scooting four or five tables together. The family style offerings are perfect for such groups, and they pile on enough fries on a plate to keep a whole herd of children pacified.

Lorenzo’s Italian Kitchen

106 Main Street
DeSoto, Mo

http://www.lorenzoskitchen.com
On Facebook

It was hot, very hot. We were in day twenty or ninety of a triple-digit heat wave. Weekend meant summer hibernation. The dogs could only be out for a few minutes at a time, allowing for napping in between. Normally this type of weather is not conducive to craving a heavy Italian meal, but there was this relatively new place in DeSoto that we’d been promising to try.
The Place.
Main street. DeSoto has a very nice Main street, it fronts the railroad tracks. DeSoto is historically and still today, a railroad town. The buildings along main are the old, quaint, small-town America style, two story brick. There’s still a movie theater there and a couple of nice places to eat. There’s also several flea markets. I’ve spent a few Saturday mornings checking them out.
Lorenzo’s is the place behind the Red, White and Green banners and signs. If you miss it, you’re an idiot.
It’s not big, but it does have a sizable outdoor patio where they occasionally have live music. When we got there the temperature  was still over a hundred degrees and the concrete patio didn’t look very inviting. It wasn’t just us, a whole lot of people weren’t sitting out there. In fact, no one was.
Inside there were eight or so booths and maybe that many tables. The small place was already busy. We were seated at a booth. Across from us was a table full of amply-sized locals sipping wine. Lorenzo’s has a pretty adequate wine list, nothing egregiously priced. They also offered a good selection of beer, none of which I was in the mood for. The heat makes me grouchy, makes me want to punch someone out. Not a good idea to fuel that simmering viciousness with booze, things could easily get out of hand.
The booths, tables and chairs were new, vinyl, black. The walls were wainscaoted with darkly painted paneling and topped to the ceiling in dark terra-cotta orange in the dining area and mustard-yellow on the back wall above the kitchen and counter. The carpet was dark and industrial. The darkness made it feel cooler than it probably was, the air conditioner was apparently struggling to cool the place down. The ceiling fans helped a little too.
Overhead the cheap speakers were pushing out vintage Italian-ish music, only one song I recognized “Mambo Italiano”. I believe it was the original Rosemary Clooney version, even though she was not the least bit Italian, (English/Irish/German). The music was a bit loud for my tastes, but maybe that’s just me. 

The Food:
We’d asked for drinks, tea, sweet tea and Coke, and handed our menus. They were simple and straight-forward, appetizers, salads, pastas, sandwiches and pizzas. Not too many of any of them. The prices were all very reasonable. We immediately noticed that nine-inch pizzas were only $6.25 which included a choice of sauce, cheese and up to six toppings! A nine inch pizza meant that we could each have our very own.
I looked over the pasta choices and was tempted by the cannelloni, not so much by the lasagna, but in the end decided that pizza would weigh me down less than pasta. The family shared the sentiment. We each had our own preferences though.
Me: From  the gourmet section, the Sicilian. “Traditional pizza sauce topped with Mozzarella cheese, housemade Italian sausage, pepperoni, Capicolla ham, fresh basil.”
Angel and Adam picked their own toppings.
Angel: Garlic butter sauce, St. Louis style cheese (provel), spinach, artichoke, green olives, chicken, bacon and mushrooms.
Adam: Traditional sauce, mozzarella cheese, black olives, bacon, sausage, pepperoni and Canadian bacon.
We also opted for an appetizer, the St. Louis area’s ubiquitous toasted ravioli.
As we waited my attention turned to the table next to ours, the wine-lovers. The two corpulent couples were now popping the corks on their third and fourth bottles. Their conversation tended to be about wine and wine places, occasionally drifting to odd vodka-mixes and the embarrassing things that occur when too many of them are consumed.  There were other customers at other tables, mostly more reserved than this group. As time passed, and since the meals are all made to order, time did pass, the wine-rs got a bit louder and their laughter more frequent. Not that they were any funnier than earlier. When they finally did order food it was as if they’d been asked to decipher an enemy code, their menus must have been more complicated than ours. And order food they did. Salads, garlic bread and pasta dishes. And of course, more wine.
I’m not judging, they seemed to be nice people, no foul language or threats of violence, just robust laughter and spirited jolliness.
We introverts just see this sort of overt, rambunctious behavior as strange and at the same time fascinating.
The ravioli arrived with a thick, almost chunky dipping sauce. There were nine raviolis, Adam did the complex math, and we each ate three. The first one was hot, tongue-singing hot. Angel double-dipped hers, I scolded her and showed her how to avoid needing to do that. I took mine and dipped straight down then turned it ninety degrees and dipped it again. This evenly coated three quarters of it and left a dry area to hold it. I know, genius.
The ravioli was better than some places. The meat was house-made sausage, spicy but in a good way. The sauce was rich, seasoned, not just canned tomato sauce and basil. They house-make their own sauces as well. There is a difference.

Angel's

Once the appetizer was gone it was still about fifteen more minutes before the pizzas arrived. Which was about fifteen more minutes than we needed to talk to each other about our weeks, our lives, or anything else. Maybe if we’d had wine we would have thought more mundane stuff was interesting enough to talk about. It seemed to work at the other table.

Mine

The pizzas finally came and were well worth the wait. Nine inches seemed to be a perfect size.

Once it cooled a bit I took it on. The house-made sauce and sausage on that fresh crust was good, very good. Though it looked rustic, like a home-made pizza, the tastes were much richer and deeper. The care taken to use fresh ingredients rather than canned or even bulk made all the difference in the world.
Angel's looked and tasted completely different. The butter sauce was completely unlike mine. Once again rich and deep in flavor, the sauce made it something else altogether, and that something else was quite good indeed.

Adam's

Of course the pizza, being rich and thick, was itself pretty heavy. This is the nice thing about pizza though, you don’t have to eat it all at one sitting. Sunday brunch was taken care of. I ate half of mine and called it quits. Angel and Adam each had a quarter-pie left. We asked for boxes. I asked around for opinions. “It looked home made, but didn’t taste like it, it was much better.” Angel answered. As for the crust, she added “you barely know it’s there.” This was a ringing endorsement since Angel usually likes thin, crispy crust. I queried Adam, he nodded. Another rave review.
Summary:
We were smitten. The pizzas were good in every way. Better than just about any we’ve had recently. Even the St. Louis cheese was held back, not overpowering like it is on so many. The sauces were genuine and deep in flavor. The amazing thing, the really amazing thing, is that this meal, three pizzas plus an appetizer came in at thirty two dollars and change. Later that evening we saw a Domino’s commercial boasting ten dollar pizzas. Domino’s is about as generic a pizza as one can find without being a store-bought frozen pie. We had custom-made, fresh, house-made pies for much less than that. We could have each had Lorenzo’s twelve incher’s for under ten dollars apiece. The staff were spot-on professional and efficient, the place was clean and neat. Lorenzo’s is not only very good, first class I’d say, it’s a bargain. It’s not fast like Domino’s boasts, so if you go there you need to bring some conversation with you, but the wait is very well worth it.

Granny Franny’s

3191 Flucom Rd
De Soto, MO

Adam’s choice.  We had initially discovered the place while doing an active search for eateries on the Wide World of Web, drove by it once while we were in the general vicinity. I asked our silver haired waitress about the name, expecting a quaint and interesting story about 'Granny Franny'. As it turns out, the joint was opened by a lady named Franny who just happend to be a grandmother.
I said I expected it to be interesting, not that it actually was.

The Place:

It’s a bit out of our normal search range, though it has a Desoto address, it’s actually seven or eight miles east of Desoto, at the intersection of Flucom Road and Highway 67. We rarely have a need to go that far in that particular direction, the population and number of businesses out that way are pretty thin, and it’s not even on the way to anywhere we usually go.

The building is shared with a convenience store, so this is like a traditional cross-road rest stop. Outside the noise was of high-speed highway traffic, there were only a few cars in the lot. The door opened up to a typical, diner looking place. The chairs were black, the tables were all covered with yellow-ish vinyl tablecloths. The walls were bare, brown brick up to halfway up, the rest was painted a reddish rust color. All the empty tables had wrapped place settings and paper placemats, and every setting sported an inverted, heavy white coffee mug.

Seating was segregated on two sides of the entry, though there was no visible apparatus to keep the smoke from the left side from wafting into the non-smoking right side. The aroma was there, but not overpowering.

We were escorted to a table by a silver-haired lady of obvious and significant experience wearing a red St Louis Cardinals jersey emblazoned with the number ‘7’ and the word ‘Holliday’ across the back. I’m not sure what it meant, probably has something to do with baseball. She was the only member of the staff we ever saw, the front was her domain. There were a few patrons on the left side, we were the only folks on the right. We picked up our menus which boasted ‘Hand-dipped Milk Shakes’ on the cover. (Adam and I naturally pondered the purported added-value of someone dipping their hands into milkshakes.) The menu listed the standard fare, chicken-fried steak, burgers, a few sandwiches, and lots of breakfast choices.

The Food:

I decided to go a little light since I’d had a solid breakfast at Kim’s Café earlier. (I was in DeSoto to title my unimpressive car and the place to do that, a furniture store, was just a few blocks down main street from Kim’s)

The BLT jumped out at me. I consider BLT’s ‘light’ since they don’t usually weigh too much. That was good enough for me, I’d let Angel and Adam do the heavy lifting.

We took delivery of our drinks, Tea, tea and as Adam ordered it; ‘Pepsi-Coke’. As I had mentally predicted, Angel ordered the Chicken Fried Steak (CFS). When asked for her choice of sides, she naturally demanded mashed potatoes with gravy, lots of gravy and was then told she still needed to pick a couple of veggies. The waitress rattled off a list of the usual ones, but one threw me.

“Did you say ‘beets’?” I asked.

“Yes I did.”

This confused me. Had we taken a bad turn and ended up in in the outskirts of Kiev?   Стара, принеси мені відро борщу!   (Old woman, Bring me a bucket of Borscht!)

“How is that prepared?” I asked, trying to cover up the reflexive gagging sounds.

She curled up her face like I was an idiot and simply replied “Pickled” as if that were the only possible method of serving them. There are in fact many ways of serving beets, all of them disgusting. They are very popular in many eastern European countries, along with potatoes because both are roots, and no decent vegetable would want to show its face above-ground in those dismal, bleak places. The national motto in Ukraine translates to something like “We’ve proudly become quite adept at being cold, hungry and politically oppressed!”

Smartly, Angel did not order the beets, and instead asked for green beans and fried okra. Yeah, Okra. Yuck. Sure some American cultures eat okra all the time, but I’m pretty sure those people are too ignorant or poor to know any better. I mean why resort to eating that bitter, slimy stuff when there’s so many perfectly healthy cats running around?

Adam ordered the CFS sandwich and fries. The lady asked him if he’d like anything on his sandwich so he asked her what was available. “Tomatoes, onions. . .”  He stopped her there. “Never mind, just the sandwich please.” Adam doesn’t like regular, wholesome sandwich toppings.

While we waited for our starter, fried ravioli, we watched as people came and went with take-out pizza. It’s another service provided by this crossroad business. The ravioli was good, served with a bowl of marinara sauce for dipping. You have to watch out for this St. Louis treat though, when fried, the meat and cheese inside remains at three thousand degrees for several minutes, and when bitten in to the innards shoot out with the force of a locomotive into the tender parts of your mouth, where it sticks like boiling tar. I think it’s what napalm is made out of.

BLT + Fries

The food arrived in good time. Mine, a simple sandwich and fries was well made, the bacon thick and extra-crispy, the fries generic but well cooked. I could not be disappointed. Angel’s plate was mostly gravy though she insists there was an actual CFS and mashed potatoes underneath. Adam’s sandwich didn’t have any gravy on it, so he took the bun top and set it down in his mother’s plate, coating the underside of the bun completely. She even spooned some more onto his sandwich later in the meal. She actually ate her okra, (after dipping it into the gravy as well) if only to make me angry.

All the food was well prepared, served simply, very tasty and satisfying. Angel had weighed herself down, I had smartly left room for some apple pie, which I had made at home earlier in the day.

Summary:

The bill came to nearly twenty eight bucks, $4.79 of which was the ravioli starter. Which means that Granny Franny’s is on par with Kim’s and most other locally owned eateries of this style. A lot of food, good food, for not a lot of money. The staff, the silver-haired lady was quick, polite, and professional. The entire transaction was seamless and without error or mishap.

It’s not a place I will frequent, but only because it is well out of the way of pretty much everything I need to do, but it’s nice to know it’s there, serving that rural area of the county. If you happen to be traveling down Highway 67, though I can’t imagine why you would be, then by all means stop in and chow down!

Kim's Cafe

DeSoto, Mo

In celebration of TWO YEARS of Eat and Critique (nearly 100 posts!) , Please stick around for a  special guest-post at the end of this review!

Facebook, the ever-changing social media tool that everyone loves to use and complain about, delivered an upsetting message to my ‘wall’

“Kim posted on your Wall:

"Hello to my favorite critic! Just wanted to let you know that I have put the cafe up for sale. Hope to see you and your family one more time before it sells."

I haven’t learned the reason for Kim’s selling the place, but I certainly am aware of the millions of reasons that any sane person would want to get out of the business.

A while back I read Anthony Bourdain’s book “Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly” and while the book was about upscale Big City restaurants rather than diners in DeSoto Mo., the pains and pitfalls of running an eatery are pretty much universal. That a single-owner or family-owned restaurant can survive very long anywhere is pretty remarkable. Customers are incredibly fickle, food prices surge, hours are always long, and profit margins are threadbare. Fast food franchises often offer cheaper meals, though not as fresh and varied, but especially in value-demanding times and places the bottom line reigns supreme.

I do know that Kim works incredibly long hours on her feet, in a hot and quite dangerous environment, hot stoves, knives, raw meat, cramped spaces.

A restaurant/café/diner is about the last place I would want to invest in or operate, though I love them and greatly respect and admire those that manage to make a go of it.

As it turned out, Adam and I were going to be alone this weekend and when left alone to put our heads together are lousy at making decisions. Angel is our family's rudder, though she would never admit to it. What we didn’t want to do was to try some new place without her, so a repeat was called for. Kim’s announcement made the choice obvious.

I replied back to the FB comment indicating that Adam and I would be there on Saturday. She answered back: “Sounds great. All u can eat fried chicken on saturdays.”

That made it especially easy, I’d never tried her fried chicken.

The Place:

Main street, DeSoto, next to a recently closed bank, in a strip mall that is only about half occupied. I was driving my newer little car as Angel had taken the family truckster to Iowa to attend an annual seminar for E-collar dog trainers. She’d left us with only four rather sedate dogs, all ours, to tend to. Adam had them walked and fed by the time I got up from my mandatory nap and was ready to go. “I get to ride in your new car!” he exclaimed.

“Whoop-dee-doo” I replied, underwhelmed. Not that there’s anything specifically wrong with the little Chevy, it did a fine job of getting me to and from work in its first week of ownership. It’s just not an impressive vehicle. When people at work ask me what I got, the reaction after I tell them is generally; “Oh.”

The unimpressive car at Kim's

It has a four cylinder engine that I am still trying to get used to. It sounds different, and of course has less raw horsepower than my past few vehicles, all which sported six cylinders. As we left the driveway and took on the back roads that lead to highway 21, it seemed as though the little machine was begging, pleading its way up the rolling hills.

On 21 the road flattened out. Unlike the slave-to-indigenous-terrain farm roads, the steeper hills on 21 had been professionally flattened out, crushed, blasted away. There are still hills but the road was cut to scrape them down to longer, less severe obstacles. On this road, as well as I-270, where I spend the vast majority of my driving time, the little car doesn’t even break a sweat, cruising along quietly and easily. The car was picked out for precisely this type of mileage, not to sate my inherent, flash-and-roar machismo.

We turned into the lot, parked right in front of the door, got out, groaned, then got back into the car. A sign on Kim’s door announced that their card reader was inoperable, cash only. I don’t carry much cash, ten or twenty dollars is about the most a mugger would ever get out of me. I have been assimilated by the plastic-Borg and live off my ATM card. The closed bank in the parking lot used to be my own bank which would have been convenient. As it was though we had to drive a half mile further to the town’s one remaining branch. I could have used the machine at another brand of bank but there’s always a fee involved and I’m a renowned cheapskate.

We got the cash and returned. We were the only customers.

We sat at our usual booth and were greeted by a young and charming blonde lady. She offered menus and asked about drinks. Adam looked at me and grinned. I mildly panicked. There’s a hand written sign on the tea dispenser that reads “Fresh brewed tea.” Kim and I have gone back and forth on this very issue before as I have regularly reported that her tea was woefully bland or at best, unremarkable. I’d even avoided ordering it the last couple of visits so as to not find fault with it. But on this day I’d already had a soda (or ‘pop’ for you unsophisticated southerners) earlier in the day and was still sugared up and bloated from it. I took a chance, threw caution and better judgment to the wind and went with the tea. “Ooooo.” Remarked Adam. The little blonde looked confused. “Can I get lemon with that?” I asked. “Sure.” She answered. I mentally crossed my fingers.

The menu was familiar with a couple of exceptions, a few options were crossed out, most notably the ribs, which Angel had once thoroughly enjoyed.

She brought the drinks, Adam had chosen Pepsi. The tea looked different, it was surprisingly clear and bright. I dunked the sizable lemon slice and took a sip. Remarkably it wasn’t at all bad. (still a little weak though, sorry Kim)

The Food:

My mind was already made up. “The all-you-can-eat chicken, please.” I announced. “Okay, but that’ll take about twenty-five minutes.” She answered.

“Twenty-five minutes?” I barked rudely.

“We make it fresh to order, we don’t cook it ahead of time to dry out under a heat lamp.” She explained. Color me impressed. Take that KFC!

I assumed Adam was going to get the same thing, he didn’t. He’s always throwing me a curveball. He instead ordered the chicken strips. I conceded to the default sides, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans and a biscuit. His was ordered with fries (crinkly) and macaroni and cheese, it also came with toast.

I looked at my watch, he pulled out his phone gadget. I marked the time, he started browsing or playing a game or whatever it is that young men do with their fancy mobile telephones these days. A thought occurred to me while his face was buried in the tiny screen. I got up, went to the car and retrieved my book, a real book, not one of those fake electronic books. (I own an E-book but I’m having trouble adjusting to it. I’m definitely perched on the brink of fogey-ism.)

We sat quietly, not talking, engaged and immersed into our individual amusements. I was briefly taken from the pleasant DeSoto diner to the ugly desert in the Middle East, following young, arrogant and thuggish Brits from ‘the Regiment’ into the dangerous and clandestine infiltration of a remote WMD factory. The time passed quickly, the lads had barely started amassing a decent day’s body count when our food arrived. We dropped our devices and absorbed the sizzling aroma.

All-you-can-eat.

‘All you can eat’ would be more appropriately called “More than a normal guy could possibly eat in one sitting.” A drumstick, thigh, an enormous breast and a wing, expertly lightly breaded and golden brown filled the plate, nudging out the small bowl of gravy-laden mashed potatoes and the bowl of slow cooked green beans. I estimated about twenty pounds of food, expanding to thirty if I actually ate it all. I realized that my desires and eyes were much bigger than my handsome tummy. Just looking at it made me feel full.

I pulled the skin off the thick end of the drumstick. Steam poured out of the fried-flour casement. My fingers seared quickly and I dropped it back on the plate. Adam giggled. “Hot?” he joked. “The lava flow from Mount Pinatubo was hot, this is an entirely new level of temperature extreme!” I answered, dunking my oily, reddened fingers into the icy tea. He laughed because I was in severe pain. I was exaggerating only a little though, I should have paid more heed to the sizzle.

I used my fork to break open the drumstick and the thigh in several places to cool. I let the wing and enormous breast continue to bask in their own internal infernos. I buttered (margarine-d) my thick biscuit and took a tour of the sides. The gravy was thick, white and deliciously infested with chunks of real pork sausage. The potatoes were thick and piled high. The green beans had obviously been simmered low and slow alongside some pork fat, just like grandma used to lovingly clog our young arteries with. I enjoyed thoroughly, but cautiously. There was a lot of chicken to plow through.

Chicken Strips

Adam’s strips were similarly perfectly cooked and he tore into them with the gusto of a young man having a tasty, casual meal. The strips were breaded and fried in the same manner as my chicken, actual chicken slabs, not reprocessed bits, pieces, odds and ends.  Our drinks were dutifully refreshed, I made it sloppily through the leg and thigh, clawing my way up the luscious chicken one limb at a time, enjoying every finger-sucking, moist and tender bite, every crunch of golden brown skin. I skipped over the enormous breast, it was too enormous. It was the kind of enormous breast that can completely intimidate a short, timid, middle aged man with modest appetites and full awareness of his own limitations. This breast was about the size of a catcher's mitt, definitely more than a handful, certainly larger than I'd ever had laid out before me. Perhaps it just appeared enormous, cut or deliberately dressed to visually entice. Flustered and intimidated, I eventually skipped ahead and disassembled the wing instead. I was filling up fast.

“Would you like us to start making you some more?” asked the blonde. I had forgotten that I could have all I could eat, she wasn’t aware that I was already well-past that point. “No thanks, this’ll be just about enough.” I kindly understated, barely suppressing a heavy, lumpy belch. I could barely imagine any standard human being able to take on more than one serving of this large, but tasty feast. Adam was no help, he’d surrendered in his battle with an entire strip remaining. We sat back for a moment groaning and swelling.

Summary:

There was absolutely nothing bad or wanting about this meal. Kim’s crew can sure cook the standards. The chicken was about as good as any fried chicken I’ve had in this life, much better than that served by the much-celebrated Hodak's in St. Louis (Where chicken lovers come to roost!). Home-style, tender, juicy, crunchy. Not heavily seasoned, they let the chicken itself do the talking. (Of course I am aware that chickens don't really talk, especially those that are dead and have been chopped up and deep-fried. I'm speaking metaphorically.) The bill came to twenty seven dollars and change, only that high because they wisely hedge their bets for any ‘all-you-can-eat’ offering.

I’m truly sorry that Kim’s selling the place. I can’t imagine it will be any better under new ownership. Kim cares, Kim cares a lot. Her food is always good, she stresses over the details and always maintains high quality at a low price. I will miss her. She’s a sweet, hard-working and pleasant person, a patient and generous hostess and an awesome cook, with the most enormous breasts I’ve ever seen.

Here's to you Kim, may love, fortune and joy follow you down whatever path you take!

_____________________

Guest Post!

A tangent from a larger blog post by my dear friend, Annette. See the entire story at her blog site:  http://annettecrey.wordpress.com

A Licking Meal

Eaten by Annette Rey

On a rainy day inside a building made of pine over 100 years old, I ate an unusual meal. Licking, a rural town in Texas County, Missouri, held their 'Licking Mill Festival' on Saturday, September 17, 2011. The event was not your run-of-the-mill (so to speak) festival.

It offered unique entertainment to the area and other refreshingly different offerings. Instead of the usual and boring hamburger or hot dog fare, I was treated to a bowl of ham and beans; sweet, warm, juicy and cooked to perfection. Inserted into the bowl were as many long, darkest green, crispest green onions I wanted and I have ever eaten – picked fresh that day from the vendor’s gardens! The meal came with a square of corn bread – no, not Jiffy Mix (I know that is the favorite of some people). This bread was probably made without sugar as it slightly resembled corn pone, but was not hard. It was tender, crumbled a bit and was whitish in color. Included with the meal was a “dessert” – a choice of an individually wrapped Twinkie or a Hostess Cupcake (I chose the chocolate) and the drink – coffee or hot chocolate – again, I chose the chocolate.

The meal was filling, tasty – loved those onions. It was enjoyable, too, because it was a nice surprise – like I said, not the average offering of hamburger/hot dog.

And now the best part – all of that, drink, dessert and all, cost me a meager $4.00.

Despite the rain, it was a great day! Visit Licking for some of their future events and experience something new in a pleasant, unassuming small town. 

 __________________________________

Bistro at the Square

48 Jefferson Square

DeSoto, Mo.

http://www.bistroatthesquare.com

We were looking for one place we’d found a listing for online, but couldn’t find it. Not knowing how old the listing was and considering the volatile nature of the retail food business, we assumed it was now defunct. We were in the general area though of a place we’d tried, liked, and had not revisited in quite a while. So it was settled, Bistro at the Square.

The Place:

Inside a shopping center/hotel ‘Jefferson Square’ just north of DeSoto on Highway 21. The serving area is split between a small dining area, a large banquet room and in between, in the enclosed courtyard, the ‘atrium’. White linen cloths covered the tables, green paper placemats in place, an unlit candle on each table. We were greeted and seated in the empty atrium, the standard dining area held a dozen or so patrons. Ahead of us a middle-age gentleman was setting up racks of amplifiers, mixers, effects boxes and speakers. All the cables ran to another stand, where sat an expensive and rather large electronic keyboard. Live music was certain to ensue this night. Behind the equipment and facing the tables was a banner board boasting ‘Dave Blum.’ I recognized the name from a visit to Taytro’s in Festus, he was to play there once as well. We dine too early for the shows, blame it on the dogs and their peculiar schedule. Someday I’d actually like to hear Dave perform, we seem to frequent the same places.

The menus were delivered, the drinks ordered, Tea, Diet Dr. Pepper, and Pepsi. Why Angel likes Dr. P, I’m not sure, in my mind the only thing worse in this class of soft drink than Dr. Pepper, is Diet Dr. Pepper. But perhaps I shouldn’t worry too much about Angel’s odd choices and likes.

There was a lot to choose from, not too much, nothing odd or fussy, just a simple menu with simple offerings. The appetizers were a little tempting, but also a little pricey.

The Food:

We didn’t take long to pick. I ordered the Catfish Filet and ‘Cowboy Potatoes’ Though I had to ask what they were. Angel went for a heavy breakfast, country fried steak, eggs and hash browns. Adam decided on the Buffalo Chicken sandwich and standard fries. Within moments the bread basket arrived with warm, soft bread along with a basket of condiment-cup butters. Or rather butter-ish condiments. Mostly Country Crock, but one or two actually contained actual butter. Packets of mostly grape and strawberry jelly were also provided.

The bread was soft. In my mind maybe a bit too rubbery, but Adam and Angel didn’t think so. The butter-ish stuff wasn’t hard-frozen, but almost. It took friction and effort to get it to melt.

The man setting up the equipment, perhaps Dave himself, tested the sound with a CD, or IPod, or some other form of music device. Kenny G. swooned through with a saucy, oozing sound. “Bring on the porn music!” Adam called out. How he knows about porn music I have no idea, I mean I’ve only read about it myself. I wouldn’t know porn music if a giggly, blond, cleavage-intense and flirtatious French maid sat in my lap and sang it to me. It may be time for Adam and I to have that little talk.

         The food arrived soon enough. It was everything it was advertised to be. My filet was large, crispy on the outside and tender and moist on the inside. The potatoes were, on first test and taste, delightful. Cowboy fries are nothing more than quarter-inch thick potato slices, pan fried with onions and pepper. Some of the diced onion and/or pepper was burnt, I didn’t mind that though. A few charred ashes among tender chunks gives depth to the flavor.

I reported to the family that I was quite pleased. They applauded that as my personal satisfaction is uppermost on their list of priorities in life. They even offered up opinions on their own choices. “The steak is really good, crispy on the outside, moist and tender on the inside.” Barked Angel, in her soft, soothing voice.

“The chicken is good.” Adam added. “Crispy on the outside and . . .”  In unison we finished the sentence for him:  “. . . tender on the inside!” He also boastingly showed us the inside of the toasted and buttered bun which in itself was crispy on the outside, etc.

Okay, so we like a certain type of food preparation. I never claimed that we were complicated.

All would have been well had it not been for my sensitivity to that earthen mineral, the only rock fit for human consumption, salt. The potatoes had just a smidgen too much. It was not immediately noticeable but it built up  over time. Once I realized it I stopped eating them, about halfway through.

Summary:

Except for the saltiness of my potatoes, the meal was exceptional. Simple, well prepared, crispy on the outside. . .

The bill only came to thirty two dollars and change, much better than the sports bars and suburban chains. The atmosphere was quiet, cool and relaxing, the wait staff dressed in crisp white shirts and black pants and aprons were polite, dutiful and timely. The young blonde that waited on us got flustered at first when I accused her if rushing me, but like any good young blond, she soon figured me out for the sorry old fart that I am and started joking back.

On the way home, after a short trip through Orscheln’s, the attached farm and home supply store, we chatted up the Bistro and decided it was now one of our favorite places. So we will go back, and we can highly recommend it. Casual, neat, affordable, simple, yet a little classy. It’s great place for a serious date or business lunch, or just for a nice meal for the whole family, even with the alleged porn music.

Bon Appetit! 

Off The Hook

12636 State Route 21

De Soto, MO

http://offthehookfish.net/

The heat was building, it would be getting worse. With the mix of ninety-plus degrees, no breeze and humidity in triple digits, the air was thick and hot enough to hang and cook meat on. Angel tended to the dogs most of the day, letting them out for only fifteen minutes or so at a time, putting frozen water bottles in the outdoor watering buckets. I stayed indoors as much as possible. Unlike Angel I’m a cubicle dweller by trade and do not manage well outdoors in such ridiculously stifling, soul-sucking weather.

It was Adam’s turn to pick the eating place, he chose well.

The Place:

Off The Hook is a large, locally owned family style restaurant, a free-standing building on a large lot between Hillsboro and DeSoto. It’s quite a popular place, generally very busy. The large parking lot sits on small, rather steep hills, not a slot on it would be a good place to let go of a shopping cart or bowling ball. Angel parked the SUV on a significant slant and we slid out. The heat met us there as well, slapping us in the face like we’d just jerked open the door to a pizza oven.

The lot was not even half full, we went in and were immediately seated at a table. The motif/décor is river/pond nautical, and not entirely consistent, certainly not professionally designed but not obnoxious either. The menus were handed to us by the hostess. I made a cursory once-over, though I’d pretty much decided what my meal would be. Angel didn’t seem to be having any trouble either. Adam looked content, of course he should have been, he’d chosen OTH after all.

By the time the waitress finally stopped by again we were ready and gave out our orders, drinks, appetizer and entrees all at once.

The wood table was topped by a thick laminated ad space, local builders, flower shops, tanning salons each had simple ads glued down and glossed over. In the middle was a list of twenty or so trivia questions, the answers were randomly spread around the various ads. Adam took note and started reading them off.

“How many feet in a mile?” He asked his mother.

“Why would I need to know that?” she responded.

“Five thousand, two hundred and eighty.” I answered, not really thinking much about it.

“Why would you know that?” She sounded irritated.

I slumped in shame. “Uh, I read a lot?” I wasn’t sure why that would be a satisfactory answer but she left it alone. Adam fired off another one. “How many U.S. states have ‘West’ in their name?” Angel looked at me.

“Two” I said, sounding confident.

She furrowed her brow, Adam cocked his head like a baffled mutt.

“West Virginia and West Dakota.” Angel frowned, Adam snickered.
Adam jumped to the next one. “How many states have four letters in their name?”

I sat quietly and confidently as the two of them conferred, they both came up with Utah but forgot Ohio.

“All of them. All fifty states have at least four letters in their names.” I corrected them. They did not accept this as the correct answer, nor did the table, though I remained steadfast.

The Food:

Our Drinks came quickly, Tea, Pepsi and Diet Pepsi. The tea was weak, cloudy and flat, they don’t serve beer. Our appetizer arrived, Fried Corn Nuggets, corn poppers. These are basically small hush puppies with real sweet corn blended in and deep fried, a family favorite. While munching on these an attractive young lady at the next table started making overt passes at me. Staring, grinning stupidly, cooing and spitting. I waved to her and made a face. She squeezed her fingers into her sticky palms in an effort to wave back, blowing a decent saliva bubble while she was at it. Her young parents seemed amused, encouraging her to wave. She rocked back and forth in the high chair and cooed some more. Her round face and nearly bald head made her raven-dark eyes pop, the drippy near-toothless smile went easily from ear to ear. I waved some more, she cooed some more, our eyes locked and we telepathically conspired to make trouble.

“Leave the baby alone.” Angel scolded. Too late, the tiny thing was still smiling, but now refusing her spoonfuls of applesauce. Yet another corruption mission accomplished.

The food arrived, Angel and I had both ordered the catfish plate. It came standard with hush puppies and fries and two ‘sides’. I chose baked beans and slaw, Angel opted for white beans and green beans. The sides were contained in small half-cup ramekins, one of which, toppled off its precarious plate-edge perch, spinning, spraying and spilling the entirety of it’s holdings. Sticky and tiny cabbage shreds spread out on the carpet at my feet. Fortunately no one was seriously injured. The waitress sighed and offered to fetch me another batch.

Adam’s plate held his beloved country-fried steak, mashed potatoes and corn; all made it safely to the table.

We dug in, it was to be quite an uphill battle. Four filets and two hush puppies each, fries and two sides is a lot of food. We knew this going in though. As we did last time we simply ate until full then asked for boxes, two meals for the price of one.

Armed with only a broom, the waitress struggled for several minutes to clean up the mess, essentially chasing down miniscule cabbage shards one at a time into the dustpan. She eventually gave up, it was obvious that too-noisy power tools would be required to complete the chore properly.

The food was simply awesome. The catfish was moist, flaky and fresh. The hush puppies tender and fresh, as were the fries, the beans excellent, though possibly straight from a can. The slaw, not so much. It was vinegar style, not creamy, I prefer the latter. So there’s a certain irony to the spilled slaw. I didn’t eat much of the replacement at all. The waitress seemed to notice this, though she was a professional and said nothing to my face about it.

Adam’s plate emptied fast, not a crumb remained. Angel and I both managed to eat half the fish, She donated her fries to Adam. We refused desert and asked for boxes and the check.

Summary:

The food, except for the slaw was exceptional, the best catfish I’ve had in the area. The service was timely and except for the spill, quite professional and efficient. The cost was exceptional, thirty eight dollars and change for more quality food than we could ever eat in one sitting. The place is kept clean, except for the slaw in the floor, it was well staffed and quite busy. This isn’t the best restaurant in the area, but it is close, inexpensive and quite satisfying. As a comparison I’d say it is more like Cracker Barrel than Ruby Tuesdays, more rural in offerings and style. We will go back, and would not be the least bit embarrassed about taking guests, if we ever actually had guests, even though the tea is simply lousy, even worse than Kim’s.