Carolina Kitchen - A Totally Biased and Unfair Review

Anyone unfortunate enough to spend more than 30 seconds in conversation with me will walk away knowing 3 things.

1. I was born in the States
2. I grew up in the mountains of Western North Carolina
3. Everything is better there. Except maybe this. Seriously guys. WTF.
4. Southern food is awesome.*

*it's my blog, I'll count badly if I want to

"What is it about Southern food that's so awesome?" I don't hear you asking? It's the fact that Southern food is honest, humble and completely lacking in pretension.  No one is going to give a shit if the primary and secondary ingredients in a recipe are lard and more lard. What matters is that the end result is tasty and worth coming home to. 

Since moving to Australia I've struggled to recreate the dishes of my past. Collards become Kale, grits are rationed out like gold and Crisco is nonexistent. Because of this, I'm always excited when a local eatery claims to have the goods. That's why I've been looking forward to checking out Carolina Kitchen for some time now. However, either because of the distance (it's an hour long round trip) or my fear of being disappointed (it has Carolina in the name. That raises the bar), I've only just gotten around to it. 

With nothing much on the cards for a Saturday afternoon, my wife and I decided that the time had come. So, after half an hour or so in the car, and a slight diversion to an ATM (CK's was down), we found ourselves standing in front of a nondescript building claiming to be the home of excellent ribs, wings and burgers. Their sign also mentioned hoagies, but who wants a sandwich when ribs are on offer? 

My first thoughts on walking in were that someone needed to inform the decorator that you can't just throw a bunch of Americana into a room and call it a day. That being said, it did make me wonder if you could actually get away with putting a penciled drawing of Malcolm X on the wall of a restaurant in the South (sporting a star and crescent ring no less). Quirky, that's the only word I can think of to describe the inside. When it comes right down to it though, I don't care if the place looks like a bomb crater, I'll keep coming back if the food is good. 

The menu though, that had me pretty excited. As this was our first time, we felt like pigging out wasn't only justified, it was damn near mandatory. So, one order of  the following and we were ready to get to it:

• 1 Chilli Dog 
• 1 Cheeseburger
• 1 Regular Ribs
• 6 Buffalo Wings (hot of course)
• 1 New York Fries
• 1 Corn Bread 
• 1 Fanta (orange) and 1 Dr. Pepper (cherry)

There wasn't much seating room inside, and the table out the front was taken, so we made our way around the side of the building where they've got some tables setup beneath a "temporary" canvas shelter. Like I said before, I'm not overly picky about aesthetics. But if I was them I'd try to do something about the rubbish bins from the units next door. Even from the table the farthest away, you couldn't help but catch a whiff of them from time to time. I can't help but think that a bit of a refurb wouldn't go unappreciated. 

Fortunately it wasn't long before the fries arrived. Partly because the smell was more than enough to overpower the occasional odour from the previously mentioned bins, but mostly because they were pretty damn tasty. The amount of seasoning was perfect and the fries hadn't gone soggy (as is often the case when people try to put a topping on fried food). The only criticism I could make is that personally I would've popped it under the grill for a bit before adding the sauce and sour cream. This would brown the cheese a bit and give it some more flavour. Beyond that, they were excellent, definitely the kind of thing that you could eat way too much of. We had just about managed to polish these off when the next round came out.

Exhibit A in the case of my expanding waistline

The burger.... I'm not too sure about this one. It was exactly what the menu said it would be, and I can't deny that it was good eating, it just didn't quite do it for me. Firstly I didn't pick up a hit of flame grilled char. If it was there it was drowned out by the excessive amount of mustard. Anyone who knows me will tell you that I'm a big fan of American mustard. But it shouldn't be the primary flavour on a burger. As an actor it doesn't get top billing. The flip side is that it comes with a decent chilli sauce. Also, it was nice getting a basic cheeseburger without having to spell it out for the person behind the counter. I didn't have to go through my usual litany of "No lettuce. No... no tomato either. No I don't want egg. It's noon dude. We're way passed breakfast. Pineapple? Why? DAMNIT I SAID NO EGG! DROP THE FUCKING BEETROOT!"

I got somewhat overzealous

Few things are as polarizing as wings. To fry or not to fry? How much sauce? How thick should it be? These are all important questions and anyone who has made their own wings will give you a different answer. I'm hesitant to say that any of them are wrong. But that doesn't stop me from having my own personal preference. To me, wings should be crispy. They should be the kind of crispy that you're just not going to get from baking them. Also, the sauce should be thin enough to toss the wings through. What we got was pretty much the opposite of that. They were good, but by this point I was starting to wonder if CK uses the same tomato based sauce for everything. On top of that the vinegar tang makes me think they must use alot of plain Tabasco to try and split the difference between "plain" and "hot". There comes a point where nomatter how much Tabasco you pour on something, it's not going to get any hotter. Most of this can be chalked up to just not being my particular style, so that's ok. The blue cheese dip though? We've got to talk about that. The whole point of the dip is that it cuts through the spicy/vinegariness of the wings. It can't do that without a sufficient amount of blue cheese. Even if the wings aren't overly hot, the dip should have enough blue-cheese in it to make you sit up and take notice. Unfortunately, what we got had a sickly sweetness to it that was much to similar to the wings themselves. So what you end up getting is an overload of the same flavours.

Wings - The struggle is real

By this point I was starting to wonder if maybe we had gone a bit too far with our ordering. Did we have to get the fries and the wings as well as a burger and chilli dog? How long would it be until my stomach starting saying "Dude, just eat a salad once in awhile. Please?"

If it seems like I've skipped something, that's because I have. Unfortunately I neglected to get a picture of Jaclyn's chilli dog. She tells me it was pretty good. It certainly looked the part. The best thing is that is they didn't try to fancy up the bun. It was proper cheap white bread. Nothing works better for a chilli dog.  Now the cornbread...... I really can't bring myself to say I liked it. They get credit for trying (there aren't many places over here that have cornbread on the menu), but for me it was just wrong.  It was far too sweet and it had a cake like consistency instead of the buttery/crumbly goodness that I was hoping for. I think they could use some coarser meal added to the mix. Also, judging by the lack of crust on the edges, I can't imagine they're cooking it in cast iron. I'm a picky man when it comes to cornbread though. I'm probably not being fair though, because to me anything that isn't skillet cornbread isn't worth making.

That brings me to the part I was looking forward to the most. The ribs. Whether you like your ribs dry or saucy, sweet or spicy, everyone knows a good rib needs to be falling off the bone. In that regard, these were faultless. As far as taste goes, I tend to make mine with a bit more of a kick, and a bit more of smoky/charred goodness would go a long way. But these really were the closest thing I've had to Southern ribs since I left those mountains I'm always bragging on. They're definitely worth the trip.

The Main Event

Overall, I'm really glad that we finally got around to going. I know that some folks would be put off by the location and the general state of the place. But those same people wouldn't appreciate the kind of food on offer no matter what you did. Is it a bit cramped? Yes. Could the seating areas do with a bit of TLC? No doubt. But the whole point of this kind of food is it tastes good anywhere. If you've got rib sauce running down your arms you're not going to notice the fact that the table is a bit wobbly.

The results speak for themselves