Hot Dish Review

 
My days always start with a healthy breakfast.  Egg whites, turkey sausage, maybe wheat toast if I’m doing grains/carbs, and always a cup of berries.  My cat, The Bunny, has recently developed a rather intrusive habit of laying on the table while I am eating breakfast.  In fact, while I am scrambling my eggs she is positioning herself directly on top of my notebook of lists for the day….food lists, chores, goals.  Without it I am lost.  I swear I’d forget to shower if it wasn’t on my list, but that’s a story for another day.

Today I woke up (a good start already), sliced my strawberries, washed some blueberries and put them in their little white bowl on the table.  As I whisked my eggs some commotion was taking place on the table….The Bunny attempting to bury the berries.  I can’t figure out why exactly, as if it’s not bad enough that she has to lay her hairy body on the table, she must also sniff my food and coffee and try to cover them up like piles of shit. 

By the time I sit down with my eggs and sausage, she is happily asleep on my notebook.  I reach for the berries and….huh?  There are only a few pieces in the bowl.  Momentarily perplexed, I’m rather certain The Bunny did not eat them.  I find them, however, strewn about the table.  Under her tail.  Covered with hair.  Best part?  I picked the hairs off and ate the berries anyway!

Helen, Georgia is a quirky combo of faux Bavarian village and north Georgia white trash.  Cluttered with bikers, bratwurst, and honky tonks it’s hardly the kind of place one expects fine cuisine.  For years now, Nacoochee Grill has been the lone star in a sea of mediocre dining options in Helen.  There are a couple of decent German restaurants but most cater to visitors that think funnel cakes are fancy.  The menu features finer things like seared duck breast or grilled mahi mahi with mango salsa.  There are plenty of Southern inspired dishes too, especially the collards and sweet potatoes on the side paired with an entree such as the cornmeal dusted trout.

Having recently changed ownership, the menu has remained true to its original vision.  However, on my visit last weekend they certainly kicked it up a notch.  After tubing down the river and drinking a six-pack of Miller Lite the day before, I was ready for something a bit more refined.  Imagine my surprise when one of the appetizer specials was seared foie gras!  I tried to resist but to no avail.  I made it my entree with a sweet potato and side salad with their amazing honey balsamic dressing, one of my favorites anywhere. 

The foie gras was served on a baby biscuit round with toasted pecan and roasted apple chutney and a red wine syrup underneath.  A bit cloying, it could have used one acid element, but the foie gras was perfectly seared and delicious, and priced crazy low by Atlanta standards at just $13.

What could top foie gras in Helen?  How about some hot boiled peanuts!  I’d been craving them for months and finally found a vendor open on my way home.  Headed towards GA400 there were signs warning of an impending ‘Peanut Crossing’.  I was excited to see the pots still boiling and stopped for a big styrofoam cup to go.  Still hot when I got home, they were great with a couple of Oatmeal Stockyard Stouts from Trader Joe’s.

Nothing gets my dander up like the “mishandling” of fried green tomatoes.  I grew up in Tennessee and LOVE fried green tomatoes.  What pinches my nerve is how they are served in restaurants….topped with crumbled goat cheese, drizzled with aioli, gussied up like hookers on Ponce.

Let me make this very clear:  fried green tomatoes are a vegetable, a side dish to be served alongside the meat and the other vegetables.  They are NOT an appetizer!  Who the hell decided that they were an appetizer anyway?  My grandmother never served them with f*#ckin aioli!  Just slice them thin, dredge lightly in cornmeal and fry ‘em up in a pan….delicious!

Fried green tomatoes are routinely overbreaded in restaurants, the heavy coating completely overpowering the delicate tangy flavor of the under ripe fruit.  It’s a shame that every “Southern” restaurant bastardizes this vegetable.  They all deserve a nice fat Knuckle Sandwich….with aioli on it!