Southern small plates. Well if that isn't an oxymoron, I don't know what is. Southern portions are about as big as southern hearts, and although the hospitality is all about sharing, no one ever serves anything small.
Neither does The Hart and the Hunter, for that matter, and we figured that out right quick. The Avocado Toast is the size of Texas, smeared with a generous layer of green-goddess avocado in its prime. Let the soft-boiled egg sit in its rightful place atop the toast, add a spoonful of smoked olive tapenade, and you have the greatest thing since sliced bread...on a slice of bread. I never thought tapenade could go with avocado, but wow, what a smoky, salty-sour highlight! Maybe everything goes with avocado.
When a restaurant claims that they have the best of something, I can't help but roll my eyes. So I ate my "famous" Butter Biscuit smeared with skepticism, maple butter, and pimento cheese, oh my. Oh my. These really are the best biscuits I've ever had, and it must be a cold day in hell because Bojangles just took a back seat.
More southern comfort coming, a deep-dish Chopped Scallops sitting on a hominy hill. It ain't worth a hill of beans without the bacon to bring out the saline scallop. Wayy more hominy than shellfish, but it kind of comes together as a stewy soup; a hearty, hard porridge; one heck of a comfort food.
The entrees can stand alone, but the deceptively simple sides are worth a mention. The Sprouting Broccoli doesn't photograph well, but that chili pepper kick made both plates disappear before I could try for a better angle.
Same with the Grilled Carrots, down the hatch in record time. Rainbow carrots with a rainbow of colored flavor, ranging from turnip-y clean to rich and ripe like a rooted beet.
The Grilled Pork Collar is a little bit random, but it is the tenderest pork, soft and juicy like suckling veal, asleep on a soft mattress of polenta that tastes like the sweetest dream. The escargot was random, but bless their heart for daring to put all this together.
A steak is a steak is steak, and the Ribeye Cap Steak is a STEAK. The creamed corn and hominy underneath is unsurprisingly similar to the polenta, but I can always have a little more of that liquid cornbread.
Quite the hoedown up in here, and dessert is the final encore. The Butter Cake is as light as a bluegrass banjo, crumbs with a sugary twang, jamming with stewed berries and ice cream that plays percussion. The mint ice cream hits hard, a cymbal-clap of liquid leaf, fresh off the vine with the texture of silk.
I reckon it ain't a real southern meal without a piece of pie. I prefer pecan myself, but I'll settle for this Banana Cream Pie. It's a fluffy slice with a nice crust of graham and toasted cream with gooey banana in between, the kind of thing the King would eat in Graceland.
Keep on truckin', y'all; your food is pretty damn good. I've been hunting for a good southern-y meal, and this place is the hunter after my own heart.
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