#20  NORTH CAROLINA – Livermush!

I was not familiar with livermush, “the poor man’s pate”, until I starting searching for a breakfast spot in North Carolina and saw it on a few on-line menus. Frankly, it sounded like something you would feed your sled dog team at an Iditarod rest stop, but nevertheless, I wanted to give it a try.  Apparently, you can only find it at small mom and pop restaurants in the Piedmont region of North Carolina.  We were going to be driving from the home of my favorite sister near Charlotte to Chapel Hill and this would take us through “The Livermush Belt” that extends from Shelby NC to Greensboro NC.  There were a number of livermush breakfast possibilities in and around Salisbury NC and I settled upon this one in a little strip mall on a busy highway outside of Salisbury:  

Wahoo’s Diner
Granite Quarry, North Carolina

 

AMBIENCE:  Wahoo’s Diner looked like the type of place where Andy, Barney, and Goober would stop in and linger over a cup of coffee while discussing the latest stop sign violation. It only opened a couple of years ago but gives the appearance of being well worn and loved. Wahoo was the name of the co-owner’s father.

The diner has 66 seats (no, I didn’t count them; I read this in a newspaper article) of which only one was occupied on this Monday morning.

 

Upon sitting down, we were presented with our silverware which came in a small paper bag. I hadn’t seen anything like this since my dentist pulled out his little instruments of torture from a sanitized packet. Perhaps, there was some infectious disease rampant in Granite Quarry and the cutlery had to go through some sterilization process and couldn’t be touch by human hands before being used. Ironically, The Healthy One came down with some sort of stomach bug the next day.

The fork and knife are snug in bed. The spoon had run away with the dish.

4 1/2 out of 5 stars

FOOD:  I ordered the Steak, Egg, and Cheese Wrap and, of course, a side of livermush. The Wrap was decent enough, but I would have liked it better with some salsa inside.

The livermush was very much like scrapple (see my Delaware report). This is not surprising given that it was first introduced by scrapple happy German farmers who had migrated from the Mid-Atlantic to the North Carolina Piedmont region in the mid-1700s. Livermush by law must be at least 30% hog liver. The rest is made up of ground pig parts mostly found above the neck. It is flavored with sage, salt, pepper, and cornmeal.

  

  

The Parisian, Alexandre Balthazar Laurent Grimond de la Reyniere (1758-1837) who wrote the world’s first restaurant reviews (his byline must of taken up half the page) stated “everything in a pig is good. What ingratitude has permitted his name to become a term of opprobrium?” Alexandre, I suspect, would have been a big fan of livermush because as one commentator noted it contains “everything but the squeal”. I, on the other hand, thought it was just okay. I much preferred the scrapple I had in Delaware for two reasons. First, I could taste a much more funky liver flavor in the livermush than in the scrapple. Second, this livermush was grilled in a pan while the scrapple was deep fried. Deep frying gave the scrapple a much more, hard, crunchy exterior than the grilled livermush and my palate just preferred more crunch and less mush.

Both The Healthy One and my sister readily declined to order a side of the livermush and even did not want a taste of mine. The Healthy One went “traditional” and got scrambled eggs, bacon, and potatoes which she thought were all very tasty.

My sister went “big league” and got the Open Face Steak Biscuit with Gravy.  She thought it was excellent but could not clean her plate. She should be sent down to the minors.

4 out of 5 stars

COFFEE:  The coffee was not memorable – neither great nor awful.

3 out of 5 stars

SERVICE: The waitress, who also happened to be one of the co-owners, was very nice and welcoming. She kept calling The Healthy One “sweetheart”.  I thought a waitress, who I guessed to be in her 30s, calling an older female customer “sweetheart” was both endearing and disconcerting. I just couldn’t help but remembering that the caretakers in my mother-in-law’s assisted living facility often called their charges “sweetheart”.

5 out of 5 stars

COST: $22.00 with tip. This was the first breakfast place we’ve been to that offered a senior discount and it was a significant one at 10%. I am both discomfited and pleased to say we qualified.

A FEW WORDS ABOUT GRANITE QUARRY:  A few words about Granite Quarry are probably too many words about this small town of 3000 people. Quaintness and charm are not to be found here.

A little “digging” on the internet turned up the fact that there is still some quarrying done in Granite Quarry but the town is well past its stone age heyday.  Curbing stones once quarried here can be found in cities all over the United States.

There wasn’t much going on as we took a post-breakfast walk up and down the not so beautiful Route 52 corridor. We passed a few small businesses, including the ubiquitous North Carolina barbeque establishment. We did stop in a small grocery store and I bought a can of Cheerwine, a locally produced, super-carbonated soda that taste nothing like wine.

BURN THOSE BREAKFAST CALORIES OFF:

-          - Walked around the pretty little town of Pittsboro NC.

-         -  Walked the length of downtown Chapel Hill and the campus of the University of North Carolina.

November 7, 2016

NEXT UP: The plan is to take the winter off and then visit 6 states in the Southwest in the Spring: Oklahoma, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Arkansas.  

#19   SOUTH CAROLINA – Breakfast With The Lycra Crowd

It was a beautiful Saturday morning in Greenville, South Carolina and we wanted to get out and walk after breakfast before getting on the road to our next destination. Breakfast needed to be quick and easy without having to deal with the usual Saturday morning crowded restaurants. We decided to forego the usual breakfast practice of being seated, perusing a menu, and giving our order to a server.  Instead we decided on a place that was half café, half grocery store.

Swamp Rabbit Cafe
Greenville, South Carolina

AMBIENCE:  The Swamp Rabbit Café, located just outside downtown Greenville, sits next to a 20 mile rails-to-trails paved path called the Swamp Rabbit Trail. The café and the grocery store share the same building but are in different connecting rooms. There are a few tables inside the café and a couple of picnic tables outside. You get in line and order at the cash register which is parked next to a glass case containing all sorts of enticing baked goods. Then you wait until a young man with a voice that could sink a ship yells out your name and hands you the goods. 

As we ate and sipped our beverages, we watched the people in line and it became very apparent that the café’s customer base was made up entirely of walkers, joggers, and bicyclists, from the trail. There was enough spandex in that line to stretch from the café to the North Carolina border. There were singles, families, and small groups, all who looked extremely fit and healthy. These looked like the type of customers who might truly enjoy drinking one of the Café’s offering: The Vegan Hulk Smoothie made with almond milk, avocado, apple, banana, and kale. These looked like the type of customers who could order an organic pastry (is that an oxymoron?) without any guilt because they just biked 20 miles pulling a trailer filled with rosy cheeked toddlers.

We really liked the informality of the place. Everyone was polite, cheerful, and sweaty.

5 out of 5 stars.

FOOD:  I got in line to order our breakfast while The Healthy One went over to the grocery store in search of yogurt.  She wanted me to get her a cinnamon bun roll. I guess with no granola on the menu, a cinnamon bun was the next best thing. As I neared the register I noticed this free sample of bread and olive oil:

This was like putting treats in front of a dog. Fortunately, there was a family of five in front of me putting in a large order so that I had time to dunk four or five of these babies in olive oil and ingest. I hoped no one was videoing taping this frantic action.

I did notice on a chalkboard above the counter that there was one non-pastry breakfast item – an egg and cheese sandwich. Since I half believed the Healthy One would give me part of her cinnamon bun, I eschewed the pastries and ordered the sandwich.

The egg and cheese sandwich came on Stecca bread which was unfamiliar to me (but may have been what I was tasting in line). Google told me that Stecca is Italian for “stick”, reflecting the baguette style of the bread. This bread didn't look like a stick but more like a branch or small log. The sandwich was excellent with the bread being the highlight.

When The Healthy One came back with her yogurt she had a funny expression on her face. “What’s wrong?”  I asked.  She said that the little 6 oz. container cost $3.00. “Are you kidding me?” I said. She wasn’t kidding me. This was Atlanta Fresh Greek Yogurt – Artisan. I believe “artisan” is Latin for overpriced. Trader Joe’s Greek Yogurt is about 19 cents an ounce. This stuff was 50 cents an ounce! I guess that’s the price you pay for probiotic rich, non-GMO yogurt made from humanely treated, fully pastured, grass fed Georgia cows. We hoped at 50 cents an ounce, it had the ability to counteract the calories in the cinnamon bun.

She reported that  the yogurt tasted fine and the cinnamon bun was delicious and she even let me have a substantial piece.

4 1/2 out of 5 stars

COFFEE:  The Swamp Rabbit Café served Counter Culture Coffee.  This coffee roaster, based in Durham NC, has a national reputation among coffee aficionados.  It was excellent. Too bad they didn’t give free refills but I’m starting to realize that usually free refills = mediocre coffee. The Healthy One got a de-caf cappuccino made with Counter Culture Coffee and Happy Cow Milk. No word on whether these were happy Georgia cows or happy South Carolina cows.

 5 stars out of 5

SERVICE:  Self-serve.

COST: $17.58 with tax.

A FEW WORDS ABOUT GREENVILLE:  Greenville is an impressive little city of 62,000 people. It has been lauded in a number of publications for everything from its quality of life to its impressive economic growth.

Throughout the late 19^th century and until the 1960s, Greenville was widely known as the “Textile Center of the World”. During the 1960s and 1970s many cities, including Greenville saw their manufacturing jobs evaporate, leaving vacant factories and stores, and causing massive population migration out of the central downtown areas.

The city leaders didn’t sit idly by but began to envision a plan to revitalize the downtown area. Thirty years of urban planning and public-private investment partnerships have paid big dividends. Downtown Greenville has busy restaurants and retail stores, high-end hotels, bars, theaters, residential offerings, public art, and riverfront pathways. Businesses located in Greenville including Michelin’s North American headquarters and Lockheed Martin’s Aircraft & Logistics Center.

The centerpiece of the downtown area is Falls Park. The park showcases the Reedy River and large waterfalls that once powered some of the textile mills. Forty years ago, the falls were hidden beneath a four lane highway bridge. That was demolished and replaced with a dramatic pedestrian walkway over the falls.

The Swamp Rabbit Trail is a big deal. It’s used by more than 400,000 people a year and has spawned a significant number of small businesses along the trail. A swamp rabbit, by the way, is a large cottontail rabbit found in the swamps and wetlands of the Southern United States. Those of a certain age may remember that President Jimmy Carter was “attacked” by a swamp rabbit while fishing from a boat.  We didn’t encounter any swamp rabbits when we used the trail.

BURN THOSE BREAKFAST CALORIES OFF:

We rented bikes and road the 40 mile round trip Swamp Rabbit Trail. We also took a side trip off the trail and rode through the campus of Furman University. We did some walking around downtown Greenville.

November 5, 2016

NEXT UP: North Carolina

#18   GEORGIA – What? No Greek Diner In Athens?

You would think there would be a Greek diner in a city named Athens; you know, one of those diners with 10 menu pages of breakfast choices, mirrors, murals, and bright lighting. That did not turn out to be the case as an internet search for breakfast places turned up only one viable breakfast candidate. It turned out to be a great substitute.

Mama’s Boy
Athens, Georgia

AMBIENCE:  Mama’s Boy opened  in 2006 and since has won a number of awards including “Athens’ Favorite Breakfast” for the last nine years in a row. Southern Magazine listed it as one of the South’s best biscuit joints.  Every review I read warned about the long waiting lines to get in. When we arrived, the small parking lot in front of the restaurant was filled so we drove around back to the much larger auxiliary lot which was also filled. After driving the side streets and reading all the “No Parking” signs we finally found a spot about a 10 minute walk from the restaurant. I feared a 15 minute search for parking would translate into an unbearable wait for a table. We were joyously surprised that we were seated immediately upon our arrival.

Mama’s Boy bills itself as “Southern Fun Dining” and both staff and customers seemed to be having a lot more fun than such an early hour of the morning deserved. There were a couple of people who were even eating chocolate cake for breakfast.

The place is not real big, maybe with a capacity of about 50 customers.  It is cheerfully decorated with a quirky mason jar chandelier and wallpaper you might find in Austin Power’s bedroom. The ceiling-to-floor windows in the front of the restaurant let in plenty of sunlight through sheer curtains.

5 out of 5 stars.

FOOD:  Many of the reviews I had read raved about the biscuits so it was predetermined that I would be ordering one. Furthermore, I had yet to have the iconic southern biscuits with gravy.  It was an easy decision; I ordered two of the homemade biscuits topped with sausage-thyme gravy. To top it off, I also asked for a side of bacon.

As is my habit, I eat all of one item on my plate before moving on to the next item. I tackled the bacon first and it was outstanding. Next, the main course looked like a tsunami of gravy, all but obliterating most of the biscuits. I thought the taste was more akin to turkey stuffing than sausage, probably due to the influence of the thyme. It was very good but I would probably have preferred a more sausage laden gravy. Speaking of heavy, I read that a healthy breakfast should energize you for the rest of the day. If there was any doubt that this was not the most healthy breakfast in the world, when we got into the car to drive to South Carolina, I promptly fell asleep.

The Healthy One ordered Cook’s Trail Mix granola with yogurt, fresh fruit, and honey. She has now had granola with yogurt in five of the fourteen breakfast stops she has visited on the tour; a very respectable .357 average.

The presentation of the granola, et. al. as a parfait in a mason jar was pleasing to the eyes but made it difficult to mix everything together. Valuable granola bits were lost during the mixing process. Nevertheless, she thought it very tasty.

4 1/2 out of 5 stars

COFFEE:  The coffee was quite good and was the restaurant’s own special blend from one of the best named roasting companies I’ve run across – Jittery Joe’s.

4 1/2 stars out of 5

SERVICE: Our server was friendly and helpful. Most of the staff was tattooed and pierced and she was no exception.  About a month before we ate at Mama’s Boy, a server was arrested after he reportedly stole a Donald Trump campaign sign from the neighboring property because he felt the sign “reflected poorly on the business”. As I said, the service was outstanding.

5 stars out of 5

COST: $29.65 with tax and tip.

A FEW WORDS ABOUT ATHENS:  Athens is to Georgia as Madison is to Wisconsin or Austin is to Texas or Boulder is to Colorado. The small city is a liberal university-centric enclave nestled in the middle of a conservative state. The University of Georgia’s 36,000 students along with the resident Athenians support a vibrant downtown district. There are a ton of bars and music venues and restaurants. Athens gained national music fame for spawning such rock bands as R.E.M. and the B-52s back in the late 1970s. Today, the music scene still very much thrives but is much more diverse with rap, country rock, folk, Latin, and other genres entertaining the populace.

UGA, founded in 1785, dominates life in Athens. The University’s economic impact on the local economy has been put at $2.1 billion. The mascot of UGA is the bulldog or “dawg” as they like to say. There are more than 50 statues of the mascot throughout the city of Athens. The official live mascot bulldog’s name goes by the not-so-creative name of “Uga”. Since the original “Uga” was paraded out in 1956 date, 9 dogs have carried the name “Uga”. Each of the 9 males has been descended from the original “Uga”, and has frequently been the son of the predecessor. If seeing a statue or two or three doesn’t sate your “Uga” appetite, you can always visit the mausoleum where all the previous “Ugas” are buried. It is located at the football stadium.

BURN THOSE BREAKFAST CALORIES OFF:

We walked the downtown Athens area and the massive campus of the University of Georgia. Go Dawgs!

November 4, 2016

NEXT UP: South Carolina

#17   FLORIDA – Destined To Gain Weight

Usually after eating a substantial breakfast on the road, I try to tone things down during the rest of the day. Lunch might be an apple or a small salad and dinner a salad, sandwich, or a piece of fish. This all fell apart when we came to Florida. After arriving in Destin FL we decided to go to a restaurant called McGuire’s Pub for dinner. The amount of food I managed to ingest at McGuire’s was almost obscene.  I ordered an appetizer called Irish Bleu Chips which are homemade Irish potato chips covered with bleu cheese crumbles and bleu cheese dressing. Since this was listed as an appetizer I also ordered a cup of navy bean soup and shrimp scampi alfredo (shrimp scampi combined with shrimp alfredo sauce and pasta!) as my entrée. Here is a picture of the appetizer. Although delicious and addicting, if an appetizer is defined as a small dish whose purpose is to stimulate the appetite, this one failed miserably on many levels.

The Healthy One said “You don’t have to finish everything, do you?” Silly question. Needless to say, when I woke up the next morning I was still feeling totally full. We were on a schedule and that schedule had us driving to Georgia that day so if I wanted to have breakfast in Florida, I had to suck it up, or suck it down in this case, and do it that morning.

Asiago’s Skillet
Destin, Florida

AMBIENCE:  Asiago’s Skillet is an offshoot of the Asiago Catering Company in Fort Walton Beach. I assume that the catering company emphasized asiago cheese because the Skillet only had a couple of dishes with asiago cheese. Asiago’s Skillet only serves one meal - breakfast. When we arrived at about 8:30 AM, the place was empty of customers. According  to our waiter Dutch, we had missed the crowds. The restaurant opens at midnight and closes at noon. Peak times are at 2 AM when the bars let out and at 4 AM when people get a bite to eat before heading out on a charter fishing boat.  I first learned about the unusual hours of operation from this sign we saw upon entering the restaurant.

I found the sign somewhat confounding. Who or what was Bloody Mary Buffett? A Jimmy Buffett inspired cocktail maybe? Or a Warren Buffett tomato juice company investment? Or maybe just a misspelling of the word buffet?   It turned out that the sign maker did not know how to spell very well. In the corner of the restaurant was a Bloody Mary Bar where, after receiving a large mug of vodka, you perused the bar to pick and choose your ingredients, just like a buffet.

A Bloody Mary bar seemed like a fine idea. This way the bar patrons could keep their buzz going until dawn while the designated driver could drink coffee to stay awake.  Drinking a Bloody Mary or two and then taking a boat out into the Gulf of Mexico however does not seem like a great strategy for catching fish. Nor did it seem like a smart idea if you had a 6 1/2 hour drive ahead that day up into Georgia. 

The somewhat small restaurant sits on the major highway that runs through Destin. Inside was pleasant enough with a diner feel. The place was amazingly clean given that there were probably a whole bunch of drunk people inside just hours before we ate.

   

4 out of 5 stars.

FOOD:  Even though I wasn’t very hungry, I didn’t feel I could hold back.  First, I ordered a large fresh squeezed orange juice because that’s what you do in Florida. I next ordered the Bagel Boy Bull’s Eye which was described as a grilled bagel with eggs cooked inside. It came with potatoes and a couple of sausage patties.

The orange juice came right out and I was a little dismayed that there was a big ice cube in the glass. You dare dilute my fresh squeezed OJ? I felt better and a little chagrined when I discovered upon finishing the juice that the ice cube turned out to be frozen orange juice. It was a nice touch.

My breakfast missed the bull’s eye by a couple of inches. The grilled bagel didn’t work for me. It was as if the flavor of the bagel had been grilled away. If there was some way to toast the bagel and then stick the egg in the middle I would have been happier. The potatoes were outstanding, crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside. The sausage was very good.

The Healthy One got the Breakfast Burrito containing two scrambled eggs with cheddar cheese, pico, & chipotle sauce. She also had a choice of bacon, sausage, ham, or chorizo, to put in the burrito. She declined all four meats – that’s why she’s the Healthy One.  I had established a pretty good rapport with our waiter and was tempted to ask him to give me the Healthy One’s meat choice on the side but the appetite was still stunted by last night’s dinner so I held my tongue. The Healthy One was very happy with her meat-less burrito and also agreed that the potatoes were awesome.

4 1/2 out of 5 stars

COFFEE:  We each got our own individual carafes of coffee which was much appreciated. As much as I liked Dutch, it was nice not to have to wait for him to come around and refill the cups. The coffee itself was nothing special. It had your typical mediocre diner-like taste.

3 1/2 stars out of 5

SERVICE: Our waiter Dutch was excellent: friendly, informative, and everything went without a hitch.

COST: $30.74 with tax and tip.

A FEW WORDS ABOUT DESTIN: 

Destin lies on the Florida panhandle’s Gulf Coast, once known as the Redneck Riviera but since rebranded as the Emerald Coast. It has grown enormously in the last 40 years from a modest fishing village to a major resort community. Destin is famed for its beaches which have some of the whitest sand in the world. The nice beaches and clear water have attracted hordes of tourists, high-rise condominiums, traffic jams, and gaudy T-shirt emporiums. Tourists spent $738 million in Destin during 2015. According to a local economist, 75 percent of Destin’s economy is tourist-based.

BURN THOSE BREAKFAST CALORIES OFF:

We walked the beach at Gulf Islands National Seashore. According to exercise research, given the same distance you burn 36% more calories walking in sand versus walking on a hard surface.

November 3, 2016

NEXT UP: Georgia

#16   ALABAMA – Chicken and Waffle Whiff

Anthony Bourdain:  “I like chicken and I like waffles but I don’t understand them together.”
Questlove:  “You don’t want your food integrated?”

-                  -  CNN’s  Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown – Miami

Chicken and Waffles have recently become a trendy  thing in Washington DC as well as in other major urban areas.  I agree with Bourdain. I like chicken and I like waffles but what is the appeal of eating them together? In Alabama, I got my chance to find out.

Warehouse Bakery & Donuts
Fairhope, Alabama

AMBIENCE:  The Warehouse Bakery & Donuts has only been open less than a year. It is located in a refurbished building that I could intelligently guess was once a warehouse. (Put me on Jeopardy!). The room is large and is presented as, what I would term, warehouse chic – lots of brick, industrial lighting, and a shiny cement floor. In the front were two large garage style doors which were open on this warm, sunny day.

We ordered our food at the register, went to the coffee dispensers, filled up, and then found a table. Next to us was a table filled with five or six chronically gifted men discussing Bama football, how the fish were biting, and who had what malady.

5 out of 5 stars.

FOOD:  So there it was, staring at me from the menu; chicken and waffles or in this case waffle. The restaurant had named it “Fry Fry Chicky Chick and Waffle”, a cute name for maybe an ugly idea. Fried chicken and waffles became prominent in the 1930s, when all-night diners in Harlem NY started serving the dish to the jazz musicians coming off their gigs at three or four in the morning. The combination worked, no doubt, because these guys were high as a kite and craved both breakfast and dinner. 

The almighty internet was unable to answer why this particular combination of foods evolved and not some equally as bizarre combination like pancakes topped with macaroni and cheese or catfish on french toast.

The Warehouse’s rendition of fried chicken and waffle came with whipped Sriracha butter and Alabama cane syrup.

I was faced with a number of options:

1) I could eat the chicken with the Sriracha sauce separately from the waffle with the syrup.

2) I could eat the chicken covered with syrup separate from the waffle spread with Sriracha.

3) I could take a little piece of chicken with Sriracha and a little piece of waffle with syrup and eat       them as one bite.

4) I could just pour the syrup over the whole thing and go at it.

Trying to establish some common ground for the chicken and waffle I chose option number four. It wasn’t very good. The fried chicken tasted like the oil in the fryer had not been changed in at least a week. The waffle tasted a bit stale. The syrup was good but couldn’t save the main ingredients.

The Healthy One ordered the Warehouse granola. On the granola scale she gave it a 7 out of 10.

2 out of 5 stars

COFFEE:  Finally! A great cup of coffee was served in the South. It certainly helped that Fairport Coffee Roasters was in the back room.

5 stars out of 5

SERVICE: The staff was helpful and had their act together taking orders and delivering food.

COST: $20.48 with tax.

A FEW WORDS ABOUT FAIRHOPE: 

Fairport has a population of about 16,000 and is one of the most rapidly growing towns in Alabama. It reminded me of an affluent Coastal California town if you substituted Mobile Bay for the Pacific Ocean. The beautiful central business district is filled with boutiques, art galleries, and restaurants. Flowers abound in public spaces. A large park follows the Mobile Bay shoreline giving walkers and bicyclists great views of the diving pelicans.

Fairhope was established in 1894 by a group from Des Moines, Iowa who wanted to establish a colony based on the social and economic theories of Henry George. Remember him from your Economics 101 course? He is most famous for believing that people should own the value they produce themselves, and that the economic value derived from land should belong equally to all members of society. The government should finance all of its projects, he argued, with proceeds from only one tax. This single tax would be on the unimproved value of land—the value that the land would have if it were in its natural state with no buildings, no landscaping, or other improvements. 

The Fairhope Single-Tax Corporation still operates, with 1,800 leaseholds covering more than 4,000 acres in and around the current city of Fairhope. It is one of two single tax colonies remaining in the United States (the other is in Arden, Delaware).

BURN THOSE BREAKFAST CALORIES OFF:

We hiked the alligator trail in Fontainebleau State Park, Louisian but only saw squirrels. We also did a five mile walk through Fairhope and along Mobile Bay.

November 2, 2016

NEXT UP: Florida

#15  LOUISIANA – Where Y’at, Y’all?

After a five day respite from breakfast restaurants while visiting our daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren in Texas, I decided it was most practical to hit Louisiana, Alabama, and Florida via the Gulf Coast. This would take us enticingly close to New Orleans where I am sure you can find 30 or 40 restaurants serving a fantastic breakfast. Since I had been to New Orleans on 12 different occasions, I stuck to my criterion of choosing a restaurant in a town I had never before visited. That town was Mandeville which lies on the North Shore of Lake Pontchartrain and is just a 35 mile trip to Bourbon Street, including traversing a 24 mile bridge over the lake.

In Mandeville, Liz’s Where Y’at Diner was the obvious choice for breakfast given the great reviews I found on Yelp and Tripadvisor. I was curious about the diner's name. Was Liz someone who was always missing? Perhaps the owner’s wayward dog?  After a deep dive into the internet, I discovered that Liz is Liz Mundy who owns the restaurant. Liz is a Yat which is a true native of New Orleans. According to her bio, her introduction to the food industry began working at the Foxy Balls Snowball Stand in the West End of New Orleans. Liz then waitressed for 15 years before she realized her dream of owning her own place.

Yat is derived from the greeting “where y’at”. You may meet a Yat in New Orleans who could very well say to you “where y’at”.  If you know what you are doing and want to act like a native you reply “what it is”. You can also respond with “alright”. I was prepared.

Liz’s Where Y’at Diner
Mandeville, Louisiana

AMBIENCE:  You can’t help but feel happy after walking into Liz’s Where Y’at Diner. The beach colors, quirky furniture, checkerboard floor, and cute sayings painted on the wall can't help but make you smile and clear the cobwebs from your mind, even before that first sip of coffee.

5 out of 5 stars.

FOOD:  We both ordered types of “scrambles”. A scramble is essentially an omelet without clothes. All the ingredients are hanging out there for you to see. I got the “Cool Brees” named after the New Orleans Saints quarterback. It just hit me now as I am writing this why the “Cool Brees” is one of the scrambles – because that’s what quarterbacks do when defensive linemen get close. Good one Liz! The “Cool Brees” contained bacon, ham, sausage, bell peppers, spuds, and pepper jack cheese or just about everything in the kitchen. It came with a biscuit and I ordered a side of grits because one review I read said they were the best in the United States.

My scramble was very good, the biscuit was tasty, but the grits were disappointing even with my supplementing them with a healthy splash of Louisiana hot sauce. As opposed to the grits I had in Tennessee, these had a soupy consistency. I am by no means a grits expert, but it seems to me that they should be eaten with a fork rather than a spoon. Although there are five more southern states to visit, I intend to go grits-less for the remainder of the trip.

The Healthy One ordered the vegetarian scramble with spuds, and a biscuit and declared it excellent.

4 1/2 out of 5 stars

COFFEE:  The coffee was better than what we had been getting elsewhere in the South but still not great.

3 1/2 stars out of 5

SERVICE: As I wrote above, I was totally prepared to answer the waitress when she asked “where y’at”.  It didn’t happen. Instead we got a “how Y’all doin?.” This made me believe that "where y'at" is strictly a New Orleans thing and that Mandevillians are in a different colloquialism sphere.  It turned out that “Y’all” was her go to word. “Y’all want some coffee?”  “Y’all ready to order?” “Y’all doing okay?” “Y’all finished?” “Y’all want the check?” Nevertheless, she was very friendly, didn’t screw up the order, and kept our coffee cups filled.

After breakfast, we left the car parked in front of the restaurant and took a 90 minute walk around the immediate neighborhood. Upon our return, the waitress came out to the car and asked us if “Y’all are okay?” because she noticed our car had been sitting in its space for a long time and she was worried. The Healthy One and I had different interpretations of this encounter, which points to the fact that our perspectives on a situation are not always Sympatico. The Healthy One thought our waitress was truly concerned that we had been kidnapped by Cajuns or been eaten by an alligator or something, while I thought she was just pissed that we had monopolized a parking space for a good chunk of time.

5 out of 5 stars

COST: $33.12 with tax and tip – our most expensive breakfast in the Southeast.

A FEW WORDS ABOUT MANDEVILLE:  

Mandeville is a small town of about 12,000 but is said to be rapidly growing. We walked about a mile from the restaurant to the Lake Pontchartrain shoreline through an evolving residential neighborhood. The first couple blocks held a few rundown houses but then we started to see more neat little “double shotgun” houses (i.e. two houses sharing a central wall).

The farther we walked the more the environment became “Old South” with huge moss-draped oak trees, mature gardens, and elegant 19^th century mansions. The Lake Pontchartrain waterfront was a gorgeous green space with a long walking/running path. On our walk back to the restaurant we were reminded how little mileage laid between us and New Orleans.

BURN THOSE BREAKFAST CALORIES OFF:

We followed two historical walking trails in Natchez, Mississippi and took the bluff trail along the Mississippi River. Curiously, we saw many more Hillary for President yard signs in Natchez than in any other town we visited on the entire trip.

November 1, 2016

NEXT UP: Alabama