Something of a Disappointment

We didn't leave until 4:15 p.m. on a revised schedule and pulled in to the parking lot at 5:04 p.m.  So hah! to the naysayers and traffic terrorists. 

First impressions gotten on entrance.  The door handle is a bent serving spoon held to the door with a nail through the hole at the top and another through the bowl of the big spoon.  It's a long, narrow room with the kitchen and bar on the left and a long string of four-top wooden booths down the right side.  The walls are pine paneling from the floor to halfway up the wall where gingham-checked wallpaper takes over.   Old license plates and tintype photos of old farms and people dot the paper. 

Should you be the right gender for the Ladies, a sound track plays the contented clucking of hens which segues into bulls roaring.   Richie reported he heard chickens in the Mens.

My Bloody Mary came in a Mason jar with a skewered spear of pickled okra and a sad-looking olive.  I tried to pawn it off on them, but no takers.  No trouble selling the onion rings though because they were just what they should be - crunchy, hot and not greasy at all.  The barbecue dipping sauce was very, very good, too.   Mouton liked them so much he ordered them as a side to his dinner.

The fried green tomatoes, six, were nicely dusted, the bacon was thick-cut, diced and fried but the promised smoky chipotle sauce was 1,000 Island dressing.  At the table, I didn't know the difference and it wasn't until this morning when I re-read yesterday's column that I noticed the substitution.  I would have preferred the chipotle.  The servers were very nice and I'm sure that if I'd known and asked for the additional sauce, they would have happily rushed off to get some.  Very affable young people. 

The burnt ends I had been thinking about all day were burnt all right.  They were charcoal black and fatty.  Back in the day, they were not nearly as "well-cooked" and it was lean meat, not the fat stuff served.  The grits were gummy, the cheese sparse and there was no discernible flavor to them.  It was my first go-around with grits, never having eaten them before, and my last.  Now I know why there are so many jokes about grits. 

We were all too full for dessert, but they do have deep-dish peach pie, pecan pie, Elvis banana-chocolate pie, beignets with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and that's all I can remember. 

Mouton lives in Long Beach, but "D" and we live up here.  On a whim, we decided to pull in to Suzy's "a local tavern" for a beer to be used for medicinal purposes like an Alka-Seltzer. 

At first we were dismayed to learn that Tuesday nights are open mic nights.  But the opening act - a rock'n roll guitarist-singer and the house musicians - two brothers; one on drums, the other on guitar, were so good that our fears were allayed.  The singer was singing about his car:  "She don't care if I'm a little stoned or slightly drunk.." 

All in all, it was a good night out.  Suzy's serves food - there are six different steak sandwiches on the menu - and it's four blocks from home.  If we can teach them to barbecue ...

Suzy's   1141 Aviation   Hermosa Beach