Cuisine Review

While there were no earthshaking moments or movements in our local food and restaurant scene, some events and happenings have cleared the path a bit more, while others came right behind and spread crap all over it. The year was about even in the quest toward a vibrant eating scene.

The largest happening is the continued emergence of Midtown as “the” place to be and the decline of Springhill. It used to be that to do almost anything, eating, shopping or happening, if you did not go out of town or to the mall, you had to trek to Springhill. The last decade has seen MiMo and LoDa repopulate and WeMo come into its own.

The result is that a good haircut, boutique clothing, antiques and wedding gifts can be had all over town. Combined with the high rents on Old Shell Road, this has led to the decline in Springhill. The merits and cause of the “village” as it is now being called are admirable. But, it will never be a Mountain Brook Village until the SUVs are banned and the intersection of Old Shell and McGregor stops serving as a daytime parking lot due to gridlock.

Midtown has made great strides. The Office Depot shopping center has done well with Tijuana Flats, a Quizno’s and Starbucks. The Water Table has added another great place to eat at the Loop and the area of Old Shell from Florida to past the Dew Drop has completely changed.

Naman’s Market is such a boon for the area, already serving as a gathering place for the community. I find the market has excellent produce, meat and grocery items, some at Fresh Market and others at Bruno’s prices. This anchor will cement the success of gift shops, antique stores along with take-out food shops like Memories. Even high end boutique jewelry businesses have chosen to relocate to the area. One day Doughboy’s will open. The area around the Dew Drop is being spruced up to become another hub of commerce for the area. This is a great time to live and work east of I-65.

NoJa is quietly setting the bar. Chakli Diggs has always pushed the tide in his own ventures, and that results in raising all boats. And over the last year he has done so with NoJa. The atmosphere is cozy, modern and stylish. The kitchen, with few exceptions, produces a consistent product. Chakli actually changes his menu, something rarely done of late around here, presenting food and styles not seen with others. This is all made evident by the fact that you can hardly get into the place without a well-made and long-planned reservation.

A lot of our best restaurants are great when the head chef is in, but spiral down quickly when he is not. Unemployment is low and our town is not yet drawing any young upstarts wanting to apprentice in our restaurants. But, there is no reason our locals cannot provide consistency in preparation, quality and taste when the head person is off.

Time and time again in the last year I have had this experience. At least twice a week someone will call me from their car and ask where they should go, right now. Frankly, I have to give a caveat before I make a recommendation now. That is – “(I) have no idea if the chef is in, but if he is not, be careful. I have had some good meals but cannot promise anything.”

Invariably a return call is made to me the next day with some minor horror story. I have no idea what this is caused by, whether it is attitude, incompetence or lack of caring. If you want people to return, provide a consistent product. I ate at one restaurant I like twice in two days. The first day was horrible; the next evening I had a stellar meal. Why?

Meanwhile, the Eastern Shore continues to blossom with some excellent restaurants. In the last year, two places I reveled in were Will Hughes Catering and Brandon’s. Just this week someone told me about another new sushi place and a potential tapas bar. Plus, if you have not already done so, make a beeline for Camellia Café in Old Daphne behind the Post Office. Their food is beyond excellent. These are just a few of the many locally owned restaurants putting real effort into not just being different, but excelling at what they do.

The invasion of Starbucks, who literally has come into town overnight, can be overwhelming. People are either freaking out or praising God. I am somewhere in the middle. Personally, I am dedicated to Carpe Diem – but there is only one of them and up until a few months ago you could count on one hand places to get a real cup of coffee or espresso.

The locals are not going to go out of business unless their product is bad, service slides or owners panic or mismanage themselves. I find it highly unnecessary to have four Starbucks within two miles of each other, which is perplexing. But Starbucks does not enter into markets traditionally to boot out the local.

They are too far beyond that. Starbucks does know traffic counts and future demographics, which could be taken as a good sign for our area. East of the interstate, we have four places to get a drink – Naman’s, which is carrying Carpe Diem coffee, two Starbucks, one of which is open only during the day at the City/County building and Mostly Muffins, which I do not care for. I happen to like Starbucks coffee and welcome them to MiMo. But as always, I support locals as much as possible – when the food/drink is good and the service personable.

My wishes for 2007 are to have a true deli open, a good place to eat breakfast that isn’t all country cooking, some new cooks move in and change up some menus and sushi chefs to stay put. Is that so much to ask?

Kinnon Phillips is Lagniappe cuisine editor. Contact him at kphillips@lagniappemobile.com.

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