Hot Dish Review

We have eaten at Nacoochee Grill in Helen many times since it opened about seven years ago. It has undergone a few minor menu changes but has remained relatively true to its original concept….Southern cuisine with uptown flair.

Set inside a renovated house, Nacoochee makes guests feel at home. Light green walls and country casual decor look shabby chic to us city folks. Probably makes the rednecks scratch their heads and wonder why they didn’t fix it up a little better.

Mom ordered a glass of riesling and I got the muscadine wine by Habersham, the winery right down the street. I left with a bottle of it.

My Dad usually gets grilled or blackened fish with collards and a salad on the side, but opted for grilled shrimp instead. He’s pretty particular about his seafood. His shellfish have to be thoroughly cooked until opaque. I tend to agree, I don’t like the weird texture of undercooked shrimp or lobster. Naturally, his shrimp were a little on the clear side so he sent them back to the kitchen.

Nacoochee Grill serves chicken, fish, and steaks, with an emphasis on their grilled selections, often heavy on the garlic. But don’t forget where you are….in the South. Practically everything is also available fried. Bread service varies, recently featuring cranberry scones and jalapeno cornbread or cheddar biscuits.

Mom almost always orders the Szechuan glazed salmon with a sweet potato and salad. True to form, even on her birthday.

Having had the French country salad several times for lunch I decided to order it with the addition of crab cakes for a lighter dinner. But I couldn’t resist the squash casserole which unfortunately contained more casserole than squash and was covered with cheese….way to make a vegetable unhealthy! My Mom also let me have a few bites of her sweet potato, served with cinnamon butter…..yummo.

The salad was great with field greens, pungent gorgonzola, chewy bacon, walnuts, and sliced apple. I requested it without the red onions and also substituted their house honey balsamic dressing for the bacon vinaigrette that regularly comes with the salad. Their honey balsamic dressing is delicious, so good they sell it. I was planning to buy some on this visit but they were sold out so I took home the leftover dressing from all three of our salads. Free….even better!

No desserts. I had bought a couple of pieces of hazelnut torte from Olde Bavaria Inn earlier. Regretably, they have a new supplier and it was just yellow cake with hazelnut icing….not a torte at all. It sucked.