The Unvegan » southern

Southern Discomfort at South

The Unvegan — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 17:00:17 +0000

This passes for southern, apparently.

A couple years ago, the Michigan Alumni Association started gathering at South in Santa Monica. This struck me as strange, because Michigan is about as north as a state can get. Yet, any place willing to host the legions of Michigan football fans was a winner in my mind. Plus, it didn’t hurt to have Abita on tap. But in these years, I had not attempted their food until the past weekend. I heard some bad things, but sometimes you just have to eat.

South offers a brunch menu for us early risers and I found myself ordering their Fried Chicken and Biscuits for $11. Eventually, they arrived and looked delicious, if not small. You see, the menu had described the dish as coming with gravy and waffle fries, but I found that there were only three waffle fries included and they were completed covered in gravy. No, covered isn’t the right word…let’s go with drowning.

Nonetheless, I went with it and started eating. I quickly found the waffle fries to be soggy, the biscuits to be hard and the gravy to be relatively tasteless. The only redeeming factor was the fried chicken, which was good, but truly nothing amazing. I don’t get it, Southern food isn’t hard to make taste good. Sure, like all cuisines, it takes skill and effort. I’m not trying to downplay Southern food, but realistically a dish like chicken and biscuits should be relatively simple. I’m no Southerner, so maybe for some it offers a degree of home comfort, but for a Northerner looking for tasty Southern food, South is a disappointment.

But as long as they host my football games, I’ll be coming back. I’ll just do my best to eat before, as to not be tempted by the poorly-executed Southern menu.

Yargh! at the Blue Bayou

The Unvegan — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 17:00:09 +0000

Gumbo wirh Dumbo.

If you’ve ever ridden the Pirates of the Caribbean at Disneyland, you may have noticed the restaurant next to the beginning of the ride, where diners ignore the people in pirate boats heading towards certain pirate doom. On my last trip to the happiest place on earth, I found myself not in one of those boats, but instead as one of those bystanders in the restaurant called Blue Bayou. In a land of ceaseless twilight, Blue Bayou can be found in the French District of Disneyland and serves up New Orleans-style food.

Although we had made reservations two months in advance, we realized we had to eat earlier in order to make it to World of Color. We only had to wait about 20 minutes to be seated, and then were brought into the world of Blue Bayou. Our waiter was friendly and told us the story of the southern mansion we were dining at, which was quite thrilling.

I was overdosing a bit on beef from having a steak the night before and a burger for lunch, so I skipped over the beefy items and set my eyes on the chicken. Their chicken was called Tesoro Island Chicken. It was cooked in pan au jus and came with Blue Bayou potatoes and seasonal vegetables. Despite my hatred for vegetables of any season, there were no other options on the menu to switch them out for, so when I ordered I made no move to change things up. On top of these, the chicken came with my choice of chicken gumbo or salad. I went for the gumbo, of course, and then waited for mah suthun meal tah be brought out tah me.

First came the gumbo, which tasted like the offspring of awesome and soup. I mean I guess you can call it soup, but it’s really much thicker than your average soup and packed with rice, chicken and good flavor.

Back off, carrot, or I'll sic a pirate upon ye.

Post-gumbo came my chicken, which looked just great. I was especially glad to see that my seasonal vegetable gamble had paid off and my plate was only tainted by three random vegetables that had no impact upon my real food. I cut into the chicken and found it to be juicy and great-tasting. It was surrounded in a light sauce that made everything it touched taste even better. The potatoes were sliced like au gratin and were creamy, but not really in a cheesy way, just in a “these potatoes are creamy” way. The only downside of the main course was that a couple times I bit into my chicken and met with an overwhelming amount of salt. And I love salt…like a lot…so if I think something is killing me with salt, you can believe it’s true. I’m not sure what happened to these random bites, but it didn’t ruin the overall pleasure of the meal.

After all, while the meal was pretty good, it can hardly compare to the atmosphere of the Blue Bayou. I mean where else in Southern California can you eat a southern meal at a southern mansion where it is always dusk and there are pirates raiding the Caribbean just down the river from you.

Gator Chomping at Tart Restaurant

The Unvegan — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 18:08:00 +0000

Munchin' on gator.

On the recommendation of a friend, I ventured out to Tart Restaurant near The Grove on Fairfax to try out their alligator. This friend had never actually had the alligator, so it was a bold suggestion, yet I always thought it would be great to consume gator just as Brandon Graham consumed Tim Tebow in the Senior Bowl on Saturday. Tart isn’t just some random restaurant serving gat0r, though. The whole place is a Southern theme, which the gator fits right into, so I went in looking forward to some good Southern eats.

The gator was actually an appetizer, so the four of us at dinner split it. It was described on the menu as “White Meat Alligator Tail marinated in buttermilk and Cajun seasoning…” It came out and looked just like little bits of fried chicken, but we knew there was something more interesting lurking beneath that breaded and fried exterior. I took a bite and could truly say that this didn’t taste like chicken. Instead, it tasted a whole lot like calamari, but without the ring shape. I should have guessed it would taste like this since it came with cocktail sauce. To me, it tasted overly fried and a bit too chewy. I’m not sure what a gator connoisseur would think, but I’ve tasted a lot of strange foods in my day and my gator experience didn’t leave me searching for the next place I could try gator.

Fried up good.

For the main course, I ordered their Southern Fried Chicken. This was a free-range chicken served with a Crispy Grit Cake, Mustard Greens, Corn on the Cob, and Lavender Honey. All of this looked great except for those frightening mustard greens. I substituted these for some Mac & Cheese for a little price increase, but it was a small price to pay to avoid greens. The chicken was massive when it came, and really didn’t need those sides since it was already so huge. Nonetheless, it definitely looked good. The batter was light and slightly flaky. I tasted it and the flavor of the batter wasn’t terribly strong. This gave the chicken more of a subtle taste that was pretty welcome and went pretty well with the honey.

Cheesy and basic.

The side dishes were pretty great. I loved the grilled corn, while the grit cake was relatively flavorless, but had a great texture. Finally, the Mac & Cheese was pretty damn good. It came in two little bowls and was really basic in a good way. Sometimes trying too hard with Mac & Cheese can have disastrous results and it was nice that they kept this pretty simple at Tart.

With the gator and all, this was a pretty good meal. It didn’t set a new standard, and was a little pricey, but I could definitely embrace this Southern cooking as a tastily fried comfort food.