Southern Comfort

One random Tuesday night Richie Bear (new alias for Little Richie) and I were on Tech campus for a seminar. After it was over, we went to dinner at JCT Kitchen, a restaurant that Richie Bear loves and had told me a lot about. As far as I know, it's not a part of any restaurant group, but its atmosphere and decor remind me a lot of Abattoir, Two Urban Licks, Rathbun's, etc...

The menu offered a lot of Southern classics which I regret I don't have too much experience with. We started with deviled eggs as an appetizer (sorry, no pictures). Honestly, I have no idea what they do with the yolks, but they taste so light, you'll forget all about the cholesterol. For my main course, I went for the the most Southern of Southern dishes - fried chicken. The one at JCT Kitchen was supposed to be particularly good, and it completely surpassed my expectations. Actually, it is so popular that the restaurant was out of the breast-on-the-bone pieces. However, they were nice enough to fry a boneless piece of breast meat for me. It was very crispy on the outside and exceptionally moist on the inside - by far the best fried chicken and maybe even any chicken I've had. Keeping a chicken breast so moist is an art. Plus, it didn't feel greasy at all. In general, the bone makes meat even better, so I can imagine what the real fried chicken will taste like. Oh, I almost forgot. The chicken came with sauteed green beans and mac & cheese. The mac and cheese would have been amazing if it didn't have pieces of bacon in it. Even Richie Bear agreed with me on that one. The bacon taste was just too overpowering for the creaminess of the macaroni.

Richie Bear decided to try the lamb burger, something he hadn't had before. I might have mentioned it before, but I can be picky when it comes to lamb. Well, the one at JCT was the good kind. The burger was moist and tender, but I wasn't a huge fan overall. It came with goat cheese that overpowered everything else that was in between the buns. That's strange of me to say because I love goat cheese, but I just wish the flavors had been balanced a little better. 

I've had several exposures to Southern food so far, and I am slowly shedding my misconceptions about it. It's not always rich and greasy. Indeed, it can be very delicious and not-too-unhealthy when prepared properly.