I grew up in Alabama, and having lived in both Mississippi and Georgia, as well as spending long, hot summers in Arkansas and Texas (yes, I’m about to talk about a restaurant that serves Southern food and I’m playing the Southern card), I’ve eaten a lot of Southern cooking. But believe me when I tell you that restaurants were not the places I was eating the good stuff. Whenever we ate out, which was pretty rare in my childhood, we ate at exotic restaurants. Places that served tacos. Pizza. Egg rolls. Even in the South, most restaurant Southern “cuisine” isn’t very good. Southern food isn’t good in restaurants for the basic reason that it takes time to simmer it into having a decent flavor. Fried chicken is plopped into baskets and dropped into hot grease and then checked again in 12 minutes. It’s not put into a skillet (cast iron or electric) and cooked with the lid on to steam it while it’s frying, pulling the lid for the last five minutes of cooking to crisp the crust. This takes time, as well as standing over a pot of grits and stirring, stirring, stirring over low heat to release the starches that create the true creamy goodness that has nothing to do with gritty at all. Greens (collards, mustard, turnip–I’ve never had a kale in my life, I think they do that in Kentucky) require lots of prep time as well as cooking and really good greens have that thing that no health-minded person would consider putting into their vegetables. Fatback. Also a key ingredient in any decent jambalya, which also takes a long time to cook. Just typing words like fatback and lardons (even the fancy food word for them can’t hide that they’re really just crispy pieces of pig fat) would make you think that it’s easy to prepare tasty Southern foods–everybody knows you just add pork fat and you’ve got flavor. What with the fatback, butter, starch, lardons (and all members of the lard family), there’s no way to make Southern cuisine healthy, and if some restaurant is claiming they’ve got healthy Southern cuisine, they’re just whistling Dixie.
Having lived in Seattle for almost six years now with no family within a thousand miles from me and only a rare occasion to whip out the cast iron skillet myself, a body is forced to venture out and to find tastes of home and fortunately for me, there are a few good places around. Kingfish Cafe (I’ll be writing a blog on this place in the near future) is my favorite, but recently I’ve found a couple of contenders down in Portland. I wrote about one here, and a couple of weeks ago, I found another. The Screen Door on Burnside.
We went to the Screen Door for dinner on a Saturday night and had to wait about 45 minutes for a table, which was just enough time to sip a Porch Swing Lemonade. I have to admit the sage didn’t do it for me–I like my greens with aforementioned lard, not with my liquor. I went back to the bar to purchase another Porch Lemonade (without the Swing) and asked the bartender not to put the green in because, as I’ve already mentioned, the sage didn’t do it for me. He suggested a mint julep. It was very loud, the place was packed, but I did hear myself say “No, please, just the lemonade without the sage.” He nodded and walked down to the second bartender and passed on the undeliverable message in a game of bad telephone. I watched as second bartender put mint into a glass of ice, muddled it with a muddler, added the local vodka and lemonade. I really didn’t have the heart to tell the guy I didn’t like mint, so I drank that damn minty lemonade. I hate fresh mint. Not as much as I hate cilantro, but oh, so close. My ex mother-in-law put mint in her soups and why yes, yes this cocktail did taste like the chicken broth soup that she served before every meal.
We met a couple of friends for dinner, but they’d already eaten and were just having dessert. I was disappointed, as there went an opportunity to try additional items–good friends can be so selfish sometimes, can’t they? So we ordered a couple of sides as starters. Grits and macaroni and cheese. I already said Southern food isn’t healthy, I’m not apologizing for it again. The macaroni noodles were slightly mushy and the cheddar overwhelmed, but it was good (it’s no Old Mac from La Montage). The grits were perfect. No cheese, just butter, and surprisingly tons of creamy flavor. Somebody stood and stirred these grits beautifully. Get the grits when you go, they will not disappoint.
The first time I go to any Southern restaurant, I’m trying the fried chicken. It’s the litmus test that none have passed, but it must be done. This chicken breast and thigh were boneless, however the skin remained and that was a nice surprise. Boneless, skinless chicken is a recipe for disaster. The chance of any chicken flavor remaining after removing those flavor impacting items is little to none. The excessive crust indicated that it had been dropped into a basket, and I know that it would’ve been so much better if it had been skillet-fried with less batter, but it was still pretty tasty. The greens were spicy and flavored with some type of pork fat, and I thought they were awesome.
James had the jambalaya and cornbread, neither of which I tasted. The grits are to blame! I kept guiding my spoon to try the jambalaya, but the bowl of grits pulled it in every time. So good.
As good as the grits were, I’m going to say something I never say about restaurants. The dessert was the best part of the entire dining experience.
I’d never even heard of the word ban-offee until a couple of months ago when I saw Paula Deen prepare the pie on her show. However, her pie didn’t call for the pecan shortbread crust they serve at the Screen Door, and I don’t know how they’re sweetening the whipped cream that goes on top, but it’s perfect. The bananas were firm, the toffee wasn’t too overwhelming, and the crust had me at hello. This dessert is magnificent. Best dessert I’ve ever had at a restaurant, and I’ve eaten a lot of desserts in a lot of restaurants. Skip the macaroni and potatoes, but do not skip this pie!
The Screen Door does know something about Southern cookin’, and if there weren’t so many restaurants in Portland that I haven’t tried yet, I’d have it on my list to go every time I was in town.
