SONG OF THE SOUTH
So, I’m sitting at a table at Judy’s Bar & Kitchen with zero expectations. This place is billed as having a Southern regional menu, and I have lived up here in Yankee land long enough to be very skeptical of that claim. I adore Southern food and am not thrilled with drab versions of it.
I have had jambalaya so boring I nodded off in the middle of eating it, shrimp and grits that were closer to gritty shrimp, cornbread so sweet it should have been a dessert and candied yams that were just a ladleful of fibrous orange slop.
I avoided coming to Judy’s for over a year because frankly, I could not stand to have my heart broken again. One day, with little else on my calendar, it seemed like a good idea to head to Stamford, if only for the fact that I could take a detour into Lord & Taylor.
It took me a while to find Judy’s, even though it is situated on the very busy, highly trafficked High Ridge Road. The restaurant is elbow-to-elbow with a hardware store and I must have driven past it at least three times before I realized which was the restaurant and which place was having a sale on drills.
I was guided to a table by a very pleasant server. I noticed right away that the decor was clean and cheerful and the napkins bright cloth squares.
When I was a kid I remember in cartoons when a character saw something amazing their eyes would pop from their head. I am pretty sure my eyeballs stayed in their sockets, but I felt as bug eyed as the cartoon lady when I read the menu.
What made me sit up and take notice was the depth of the menu. Not since my last trip to the Carolinas have I seen so many “Low Country Suppers” available. I do not mean a dish or two of this genre, but 13 seriously complicated and traditional offerings. Judy’s, where have you been all my life?
The dishes looked so terrific that I wanted every one. I do find it a bit much to say “give me everything” so I “daintily” chose buttermilk-fried chicken, a half rack of St. Louis-style barbecue ribs, and shrimp and grits. What came from the kitchen was as good as any versions of these dishes I have
had wandering south of the Mason Dixon Line.
Ordering the fried chicken was a nobrainer, meaning I have yet to taste a piece of fried chicken so bad I could not eat it. Even crappy fast-food fried chicken is OK. At Judy’s, the crisp crusted fried chicken was so lush that one bite made juices run down my chin. The shrimp and grits was so generous, it seemed enough for two, and the bland grits surrendered to the spicy andouille sausage cooked alongside. Chicken and waffles were well-crusted chicken tenders, crisp and flavorful atop bronze waffles slathered with honey butter and dark maple syrup.
Maybe most surprising were the St. Louis ribs, a true eye-opener and a dish so good it threatened to tear my allegiance away from my favorite Memphis ribs. What exactly are St. Louis ribs? They are spare ribs cut in a particular way with the sternum bone cartilage and rib tips removed so that a well-formed, rectangular-shaped rack is created for presentation. In other words, they are the neatest-looking ribs anywhere, so tidy they would please someone with OCD. And unlike other regional ribs, they are grilled instead of smoked. They were utterly delicious.
I just loved all the adventurous directions that this menu could take me. What about an order of “frickles,” deep-fried dill pickles with ranch sauce. How about a BLT with fried green tomatoes and a generous portion of pimento cheese, maybe alongside a batch of Southern-fried onion rings with palate-tingling horseradish sauce.
Many years ago, I had a favorite restaurant in Austin, Texas, called Threadgill’s. Here they served Chicken Fried Chicken Livers, a dish so rich and cholesterol filled that rumor had it that the local cardiologists would meet for lunch and order it as a dare. At Judy’s, Chicken Fried Chicken Livers are on the menu, as good as those at Threadgill’s and served with a great addition of onion jam.
I would call this a “can’t go wrong” menu, meaning there is not a dud among the many choices. I ate like a starving man stranded on a lonely island, but as full as I was I had to order dessert. With dessert came another “pop my eyes out of my head” moment. I ordered the quintessential Southern dessert, banana pudding with Nilla Wafers.
This is a dessert is served all over the South in fancy restaurants and little soul food shacks. But here was the shockeroo, it has been years since I was served “nanner pudding” that was not made from bananaflavored pudding mix. This shortcut is so ubiquitous I have come to expect it, but Judy’s version was a revelation. Banana pudding made with actual bananas. Atop the pudding were the requisite Nilla Wafers and a cloud of real whipped cream.
Dare I say that a little restaurant in Stamford puts 99 percent of the places in the South to shame? I better keep my Yankee mouth shut, but one to one, I am telling you.