3 posts tagged “raleigh”

For our little downtown Raleigh festival, we were supposed to get the Drive-by Truckers, and wound up with Eddie Money. That's tough news to take.

Being a bit at a loss for where to eat dinner tonight, I suggested that we try South, a new restaurant in Raleigh from the Urban Food Group. I read today at Raleighing that tonight was the grand opening, and trying something new sounded fun. South is an upscale restaurant that offers traditional southern food. It replaces another restaurant with the same concept in the same location, called Savannah. I never ate at Savannah, which closed within a year of opening. Obviously Stacey and Kevin Jennings, the owners, are betting that the problem with Savannah was the execution.

I was well aware of the risks of visiting a restaurant on the first day, but the other restaurants under the same ownership are excellently run, so we went for it. As it turns out, in spite of the Raleighing publicity, the restaurant was nearly empty. There was a good crowd at the bar, but there were only two other tables of customers in the dining room. I'm pretty sure the waitstaff outnumbered the customers, but they didn't make the common mistake of smothering us (or the other tables) with excessive service. The food arrived hot and in a timely fashion, the service was great, and the decor is tasteful and appealing.

The menu at South features the sorts of favorites you'd expect at a southern restaurant in North Carolina. She-crab soup and fried green tomatoes were on the appetizers list, and the dinner menu featured fried chicken, fried catfish, shrimp and grits, and frogmore stew. Even the bread basket is southern-themed. It comes with hush puppies, bacon cheddar biscuits, and beer bread. The hush puppies and bread were fine, and the biscuits are on the light and fluffy side and very good.

My wife ordered the she-crab soup as an appetizer. It's one of those things she has whenever it's on the menu, and to me, this version (which also featured something biscuit-like submerged in it) was better than most. It was a bit lighter than you find in some places, but the flavors were also a bit bolder and richer. There was also plenty of crab meat in it, which is not always the case.

For dinner, my wife ordered the fried chicken and I ordered country fried steak. (I grew up in Texas and consider myself an authority on country, or as we call it in Texas, chicken fried steak. My tastes have expanded, but I still have a weakness for it.)  The chicken fried steak at South is outstanding. Normally chicken fried steak is a cheap piece of meat, pounded into submission, dredged in flour and shallow fried. The usually accompaniment is bland cream gravy. That may sound unappealing, but I love it. South puts a fine dining spin on the traditional southern dish, so the meat was a nicer cut, still tenderized, and the gravy was something browner and fancier than you usually find. To make this short, the steak was great. It was very well seasoned, the crust was perfect, and the gravy was tasty.  I couldn't tell you what seasonings were added to the steak, but I found the flavor surprising. The sides were mac and cheese (decent enough) and collard greens (excellent). I'd order it again.

I also tried my wife's fried chicken, which I'd also order in a heartbeat. The chicken was perfectly fried, and the flavors were more interesting than you'd expect. The sides were creamed spinach (incredibly rich) and mashed potatoes (well executed).

The entrees were filling, so we skipped dessert. That said, I'm anxious to go back and try their blackberry cobbler. They also have something called a pimento cheese beignet on the appetizer list that I'm anxious to try.

Hopefully as word gets around about South, business will pick up, and the owners will be vindicated in their belief that such a restaurant can work in that location. They won at least one regular customer on opening day.

Raleigh, North Carolina is a wonderful place to live, but it's not tourist bait. Need proof?  Check out the local paper's list of the seven wonders of the Triangle. One of them is a local freeway. Another is a fancy strip mall.