Chomp!
October 11, 2013
By Ron Aiken
October 11, 2013
Fried Catfish! Mr. Friendly’s! Habanero cookies?
A few weeks back, Chomp! asked top local chefs what items on their menu rock but that for whatever reason people just don’t order as much as they should.
One of the responses held particular interest for Chomp!’s mother – Ricky Mollohan of Mr. Friendly’s New American Cafe wrote that he’s always surprised more people don’t order the Farm Raised North Carolina Catfish. At just $11 on the lunch menu, it’s a steal, and you can get it cornmeal-fried, blackened or lemon-pepper.
I should note that my mother’s side of the family resides in Natchez, Mississippi, and whenever we visit, fried catfish is eaten in copious amounts from a number of sensational local places. It’s just one of the best dishes of the entire South, period, and Natchez, being on the Mississippi River, has always enjoyed the kind of special relationship with the dish, both a fondness for it and care toward it, that Charleston and the Lowcountry have with shrimp and grits.
So, when my mom read about Mr. Friendly’s catfish, it was simply a matter of time before we got our schedules together and found a reason to go.
In short, it was as sensational as Ricky said it was. Flaky, crisp and gorgeous, the cornmeal was out-of-this-world, as was the succotash and creamy stone-ground grits it came with.
Here it is!
Why aren’t YOU eating this right NOW?
I ordered the special, which was fried red drum, a species of bass native to our shores, which I ordered with the Creole slaw and grits. It came with a cayenne mayo garnished with a shrimp and vegetable relish on top. It also was superb. See for yourself:
Impossible to resist, right?
While we were there, my mom, girlfriend and I also HAD to split an appetizer, which in this case was a salmon croquette and the always mind-blowing butternut squash soup.
The croquet was crispy and succulent. Hard to top this version anywhere, really.
It was as good as it looks, and as you can see, it looks GREAT! Does ANYTHING say fall better than butternut squash soup?
In all, my mom agreed with Ricky – why aren’t you ordering this more? It’s so good I probably could eat it every day, run the extra mile to work it off and be happy with my life thereafter. Hard to imagine a higher tribute to a plate of food.
Habanero cookies?
Yes! You’ll recall I recently made jalapeno coconut cookies, and they were so outstanding I’ve made them twice since, to great acclaim and fanfare. So, last night, Chomp! Decided to take things a little further, and I bought some habanero peppers from the store to up the ante.
Well, the ante got upped, alright. It got upped and right into my eyeballs as I accidentally wiped the corner of my eye while de-seeding the habaneros. Hayo! Talk about basically not being able to perform the functions of a human being for a bit…that’ll do it, right there. Please, exercise extreme caution when handling them. I was careful after that to wash my hands repeatedly, and thankfully avoided any more trouble (my dad had a great story about a similar adventure when he went to the bathroom after cutting habaneros for a salsa, but children read this, so I’ll leave it right there).
The result was that the cookies were significantly hotter, even with the addition of the tiniest amount of super thinly sliced habanero. I made one where I basically said ‘To hell with it’ and put in a fair gob, but it wasn’t impossible to ear – just unpleasant.
I’m afraid I don’t have any pictures to share with you because the amounts I used didn’t photograph well, but imagine a chocolate chip cookie with little red shreds in it (the habaneros I got were red, not yellow). The moral of the story is that while jalapeno cookies were a revelation, habanero cookies were an abomination. Too hot to enjoy, really. We made blueberry cookies alongside them, and those went faster than my dad did to the hospital after his habanero episode (he did actually go to the hospital over it). So make those jalapeno cookies, and enjoy!
Follow Chomp! on Twitter @RonAiken and on Facebook. Email Chomp! at [email protected]. He even answers his phone sometimes: 803-200-8809. Cheers!
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