Tales from the Bill Clinton Eating Tour

Cotham’s Mercantile
5301 AR 161
Scott, AR




“What the...???”

That’s what I mumbled to myself as I wheeled my suitcase past the gleaming new sign welcoming arriving passengers at the Little Rock airport.

“Welcome to Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport.”

Are you kidding me?

After eight years of President Clinton -- and now the prospect of eight more years of another President Clinton -- can’t these people just leave me alone?

What happened to the days when they waited a few years after you were dead to start naming stuff after you?

You know, in case it turned out you did something embarrassing -- like molest an intern or something.

While I don’t particularly share Bill Clinton’s affinity for chubby interns and tax increases, I’ll follow the man to Texarkana and back on a restaurant tour of Arkansas.

Say what you will about President Bubba, but the man knows how to eat.

One of Bill Clinton’s favorite haunts (before he and Hillary shook the fertile Arkansas mud off their boots and moved to the leafy New York suburbs) was Cotham’s Mercantile, just ten miles southeast of what the locals now refer to as “Hill-Billy” National Airport.

In the old cotton plantation town of Scott, Cotham’s Mercantile is geographically near the state capital -- but light years away in laid back attitude and ambiance.

Cotham’s is a century old country store perched on stilts high above the banks of Horseshoe Lake -- a cut-off bayou that was once connected to the meandering Arkansas River generations ago.

Not much has changed in Scott, Arkansas over the past century. The landscape is still blanketed with fertile farmland from horizon to horizon.

And farmers, locals, tourists and Little Rock politicians alike still creak across the old floorboards of the Cotham’s dilapidated front porch in search of an epic Southern meal.

The “Hubcap Burger” is what put Cotham’s on the culinary map.

It didn’t disappoint.

Yes. It really is as big as a hubcap -- nearly a foot in diameter.

But this burger isn’t just wide -- it is nearly an inch thick too.

We’re talking over a pound of beef here!

The beauty of this burger is how well it is constructed.

Onions, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, mayonnaise and meat all held together by over-sized buns that are actually up for the job.

I briefly considered taking my knife and cutting it in half. My grandmother would have considered that the polite thing to do.

But what fun would that be?

Miraculously, I was able the lift the whole thing off my plate and eat it like God intended with minimal condiment spillage.

A bit more well done and drier than I would have preferred (my waitress never asked me how I wanted it cooked), the meat was still very tasty with plenty of salty burger seasoning evident.

The side dishes were a major dilemma.

Cotham’s is almost as famous for its fries and giant hand-battered onion rings as for its Hubcap Burger.

The menu also offered the option to upgrade my side to fried green tomatoes for $2.75.

I couldn’t resist.

More yellow than green, the generous portion of fried tomatoes packed a powerful flavor wallop. The tart tomatoes and crisp thin corn meal breading was a perfect Southern treat.

It was a lot of food.

But not TOO much food. I finished every last bite.

Unfortunately, that meant I had absolutely no room for dessert.


Cotham’s is also famous for its decadent fried chocolate and apple pies. And for its Mississippi Mud pie.

Cotham’s left me wanting to come back for more.

I mean, what about Cotham’s famous fried chicken and catfish?

And those towering piles of onion rings I saw on my neighbors’ tables that gave me junk food envy?

Oh well. I’m sure there will be a next time.

After a century, Cotham’s Mercantile isn’t going anywhere. It’s the kind of place you feel like will always be in your life.

Just like Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Only in Cotham’s case, that is actually a good thing.

Rating: Seriously Thought About Buying Shirt.

Picking Fist Fights in the Bluegrass State

Hall’s on the River
1225 Athens Boonesboro Rd.
Boonesborough, KY




I plead guilty.

I’ll be the first to admit it. I bear an anti-Kentucky prejudice.

Call me a bluegrass bigot.

The quickest way to pick a fist fight in these parts is to tell a Kentuckian that his state isn’t part of the South.

I understand the sensitivity. Who wouldn’t want to be a southerner?

We have nicer weather, tastier food, better music and hotter chicks.

Oh, and we don’t care how many or what types of guns you own. In fact, the more you have, the safer we feel.

So I get it.

But here’s the problem.

Kentucky is NOT a southern state.

Kentucky didn’t secede.

Or sure Kentuckians will whine that their politicians in Frankfort were forced to remain in the union at the point of federal firearms, but still…

…the fact remains, Kentucky never officially joined the Confederacy.

Therefore, Kentucky is NOT a southern state.
That and the fact that unlike every southern state, Kentucky still forces its workers to pay union dues as a condition of employment.

So I don’t care if the Wildcats play football in the SEC. Kentucky isn’t a southern state.

Case closed.

However, as you drive up and down the rolling hills of western Clark county, past the ancient stone walls and picket fences, through horse and cattle farms and by the old leaning red barns that dot the bluegrass fields south of Lexington, even an anti-Kentucky bigot like me has to admit, this sure FEELS like the South.

Tucked down in the bottom of a hollow at the bend of the Kentucky River, you’ll find Hall’s on the River, a quintessential Kentucky culinary landmark that has been serving up the best uniquely Kentucky dishes for decades.

Down here in this part of the Commonwealth, the Southern accents are thicker, the pickup trucks are muddier and the camo trucker caps are worn more sincerely than in vast swaths of Georgia, Alabama or Tennessee.

In fact, as I pulled into Hall’s parking lot I thought for sure I could hear Kentucky kickass-country-rocker Chris Knight singing “River Road” over the ripple of the water flowing by the pilings:

So drive til you can’t drive no more
Til the road runs out and the green water rolls
Think you’ve gone as far as you can go
Well the party’s just getting started on River Road

As if to testify to Kentucky’s southern authenticity, Hall’s menu is stocked with southern fried delicacies.

Frog legs. Catfish. Chicken fried steak. Fried green tomatoes. Sweet tea.

Hall’s is a taste of Old Kentucky.

My waiter said that in the summertime, the catfish on your plate sometimes comes straight out of the river flowing under the floorboards below the restaurant.

No meal at Hall’s can begin without a sample of the restaurant’s world famous beer cheese, a uniquely Kentucky concoction of sharp cheddar cheese, beer, garlic and cayenne pepper.

Spread on Saltine crackers, Hall’s beer cheese is a cheesy, flavorful condiment with a slight kick of spice, perfect to wash down with…

…what else?

Beer.

Somewhat surprising for a rural southern-style joint straight out of a Chris Knight song, Hall’s has a pretty decent beer selection.

Of course you are not allowed to step foot in the Bluegrass State without sampling Kentucky’s famous Bourbon Barrel Ale.

Aged for months in real Kentucky bourbon barrels at a distillery in Lexington, the predominant flavors are oak and vanilla while the malt and hops fade into the background.

Bourbon Barrel Ale packs a hefty punch -- both to your blood stream and your wallet.

Usually served in a ten ounce snifter for close to ten bucks, this is sippin’ beer. But at over 8% alcohol, at least you get some bang for your ten bucks.

I don’t think this is the kind of beer Chris Knight was singing about though.

Well there’s a cinder block juke joint down by the riverside
It’s where I carry my cash from the working week
They got a waitress that will turn your head
Bring you catfish and cornbread
Beer bustin outa the keg like it’s springin a leak

No. But it could very well have been Falls City bustin out of those kegs, an old school Kentucky brew that went extinct for decades and is now making a comeback thanks to some enterprising entrepreneurs in Louisville.

This cloudy pale ale has a nice mildly hoppy flavor as I sipped it admiring the view of the river below.

Also on draft, was Old Man Winter, from one of my favorite breweries in America, Southern Tier.

This microbrewery from Lakewood, New York (Yankees are good at a few things) makes some of the most delicious stouts and hoppy ales that have ever graced my liver.

Both hoppy and malty at the same time, Southern Tier’s Old Man Winter is perhaps the single greatest reason to endure the dark days of winter.

Just to prove to my loyal readers that it is possible for Suit757 to eat fruits and vegetables (as long as they are fried), I ordered a combo of fried green tomatoes and fried banana peppers for an appetizer.

The tomatoes were firm and crisp with just a thin coat of batter and topped with honey mustard and everyone’s favorite condiment -- bacon bits.

Fried banana peppers are another one of those uniquely Kentucky novelties.

These peppers were huge!

Butterflied, battered and fried, they had nice peppery flavor without the sting from the seeds.

Somewhat inexplicably, the dipping sauce provided was a standard issue cocktail sauce. Yuck.

I managed to save room for my entrée, a southern fried combo of catfish and frog legs.

Yes, frog legs.

Meaty, juicy and tender, these appendages came from some mighty large amphibians. Kinda like really tender chicken wings.

Only more rednecky.

Cool.

 

The catfish was pretty bland and dried out, but livened up a bit with a few splashes of Frank’s hot sauce.

On the side came a “tangy slaw” -- a vinegar-based cole slaw that yielded more sweet than tang.

The green beans were prepared just the way I like my vegetables -- spiked with bacon.

The southern-rooted cuisine was matched by the ambiance.

Perched high on stilts way above the Kentucky River, Hall’s has survived numerous floods, fires and other disasters through the generations. A high water mark just below the roof line -- and at least 40 feet above the current river level -- decorates the waiting area.

A cozy fireplace and friendly staff add to the southern hospitality.

So, yeah, I have to admit, Hall’s on the River in central Kentucky has its stilts firmly planted in the South.

Too bad you have to go to that damn Yankee Bluegrass State to get there.

Rating: Seriously Thought About Buying Shirt

Welcome to Suit757’s Worst Nightmare

Moonlight Bistro
6080 Highway 117
Mentone, AL



Let’s say you just scored a multi-million dollar Energy Department grant to conduct a study of hippies living off the grid -- by hiring your congressman’s brother (that’s how these things usually work).

My guess is you probably wouldn’t begin your hippie hunt in Alabama.

But if you happened to stumble into Mentone, Alabama on a Saturday night like I did, you’d find yourself in the right place.

Across the street from the Moonlight Bistro, from the upstairs room above the oldest hotel in Alabama, the folky sounds of hippie music emanated throughout this tiny mountaintop village of 300 people. A couple dozen Mentone “Occupy Wall Street” wannabees twirled and gyrated to the sounds of Chattanooga band “Lumbar Five”.

Okay. So not really my usual scene, but what the heck? What else am I going to do this evening?

Mentone seems to be the only town in Alabama on this autumn Saturday night that has no interest whatsoever in college football. There’s not a television set in the entire town as far as I could tell.

But you know what? The band was pretty good.

So, okay. An evening away from glowing monitors. Some talented musicians. A little cultural exchange. Maybe I can deal with this.

Except for one major problem.

I’m pretty sure scoring pot in Mentone is easier than finding a beer.

Look. Modern travel is no picnic.

But up here in DeKalb County, Alabama I stumbled into Suit757’s worst nightmare – being stranded for the night in a dry county.

That’s right. No beer.

So much for Bob Wayne’s battle cry that “Everything’s Legal in Alabama”.

Hey, it happens. Alabama. Oklahoma. Utah. Sometimes when you travel the back roads of America you bed down in a town where you can’t get a beer.

That’s why it’s always a good idea to travel with a bootleg six pack in the trunk.

Just in case.

Before a completely debilitating depression came over me, I walked across the street to the Moonlight Bistro to catch a bite to eat.

Situated inside an old log cabin that’s been perched up here on top of Lookout Mountain since the 19th Century, the Moonlight Bistro is a dim, candlelit place that serves old fashioned country comfort food.

Perusing the beverage section of the menu, and against all odds, still holding out hope, I asked my teenage waitress about the “Cabin Cooler”. Could it be some clandestine code for skirting county law?

No such luck.

Much to my chagrin, she said it was a mixture of Sprite and Cranberry Juice.

As if that weren’t soul crushing enough, she came back 90 seconds later to tell me, “We don’t sell that any more.”

Becoming ever more desperate, I opted instead for a three dollar “Blackberry Lemonade” – which turns out is your basic lemonade in a red plastic Coke cup with a few blackberries floating on top.

I should have just opted for Appalachian tap water.

My depression subsided momentary when she brought out my fried green tomato appetizer.

I’ve eaten my share of FGTs, but this was among the very best. Perfectly fried crisp in a seasoned batter, topped with shredded parmesan cheese and bacon bits and served with a side of creamy remoulade dipping sauce, these were four star tomatoes.

Always on the look out for something I’ve never had before, I opted for the “Chili Corn Pone”, a twist on the traditional Southern Appalachian meal that’s been cooked up in cast iron skillets since the frontier days of Daniel Boone.

The menu described the dish as corn bread topped with chili.

But that’s not what my waitress brought to my table.

It was a bowl of tortilla chips topped with chili, cheese, lettuce and tomato. Think really, really messy nachos.

Unfortunately, the chili almost instantaneously transformed the chips to mush.

As I began poking through my mish mash of chili and chip mush in a fruitless hunt for the corn bread supposedly buried underneath, the owner walked by and noticed my frantic searching and asked what was wrong.

I inquired about my missing corn bread.

She immediately called out to the kitchen to bring me some.

I explained that the menu indicated the corn bread was supposed to be underneath the chili.

She said, “Oh, that’s how the old owners did it. We serve it on the side now.”

Uh, okay.

Silly me for paying too much attention to the menu.

The corn bread she brought out was a pair of corn bread sticks – not too inspiring.

It was like that tasteless corn bread you make at home from those “just add water” mixes.

Major disappointment.

While I’ve never had it, as described on the menu, chili corn pone sounds like it could be a great hearty cool-weather comfort food. You’d need good, thick, sturdy homemade corn bread to stand up to the chili assault, but it sounds delicious.

You’d think one of these hippies in town could figure that out.

In fact, if I ever get home, I just might make some chili corn pone myself.

A perfect accompaniment on a crisp fall afternoon for downing a few beers and watching college football.

You know, those other things, besides good corn bread, that apparently aren’t legal in Mentone, Alabama.

Rating: Wouldn’t Wear Shirt if They Paid Me.

Fillin’ Up At T-Rays

T-Rays Burger Station
202 South 8th St.
Fernandina Beach, FL

Beer selection: A few standard domestics if you really need one.

Food: Five Star burgers!

Life isn’t all T-bones and microbrews for us Suits in Strange Places.

Far from it. Although that’s the sort of thing we like to write about.

I’m generally not going to bore you with my 2am trips to the Texaco in search of some sort of sustenance.

But that’s the unglamorous reality for Suit757.

I’ll let you in on a dirty little secret – no matter how much you paid for that airline ticket, it doesn’t include food. Even in first class.

So by the time you land in Savannah, stand in the rental car line and drive to Woodbine, it’s 2am and the only place open in town is the 24 hour service station.

Those hot dogs that have been revolving on those little rollers for God-knows-how-long and the stale buns and the little packages of watery onion slush start to look pretty good when you haven’t eaten anything in 16 hours.

Oh, yeah, I’ve partaken in many a gas station meal. Sometimes, several times a week.

So eating a meal inside a gas station doesn’t faze me in the least.

The shocker is, T-Rays out here on the Florida/Georgia line is darn good gas station fare!

Literally hiding out inside an Exxon station, T-Rays is the place to go in Fernandina for biscuits & gravy, fried shrimp, delicious burgers and small town gossip.

One of my many Suits in Strange Places theories about finding a good place to eat is that quality and advertising are inversely proportional. If you’re good, everybody already knows where you’re at.

Under that theory, T-Rays is Five Star fine dining.

T-Rays not only doesn’t advertise, it darn near camouflages itself. Not even a sign out front.

It’s just an old beat up Exxon station. There is no outward indication that anything special is going on here. Except for all the cars and pick-ups parked out front.

But open the front door and your nose will instantly tell you something better than oil changes is happening here.

Owner Big Ray Mullis sold gas here for nearly four decades while his son, T-Ray, flipped the burgers on the grill next to the beer coolers.

Until about two years ago when federal EPA bureaucrats essentially shut Big Ray down by demanding he spend a quarter million dollars replacing his perfectly good fiberglass gas tanks (probably part of a trillion dollar “job-creating” stimulus plan).

Thanks to T-Ray’s world renowned skill behind the grill, Big Ray’s decision to shut the pumps off for good made sense: most of their little company’s profit came from burgers and onion rings, not gasoline.

So the old pumps – which couldn’t go above $3.99 per gallon anyway – still sit out front rusting while Big Ray now works the lunch time crowd inside, slapping backs and cracking jokes with the his loyal contingent of regulars.

This is the kind of place – and the kind of town – where everybody knows everybody. And the appearance of a stranger (suit or not) prompts lots of head swivels and stares.

The cramped little “dining room” with mismatched chairs and tables is cluttered with knickknacks celebrating the true passion that unites this part of America: SEC football.

Like the rest of this border town, the décor tilts decidedly toward the Georgia Bulldogs. But Gators, Seminoles – and even, God-forbid, Gamecocks – are all well represented in the posters, coffee mugs, bobble heads and even serving plates at T-Rays.

But, needless to say, the décor is not the main attraction here. It’s T-Ray’s burgers.

As someone who has gotten quite a bit of practice lately describing extraordinary food, I find it hard to pin-point exactly what makes T-Ray’s burgers so good.

They’re not the biggest. Not the juiciest. But they just might be the best.

Perfectly constructed on high quality toasted sesame seed buns, these nicely seasoned, ideally cooked burgers come with an excellent accompaniment of crisp lettuce, fresh tomato and sautéed onions.

Like Irina Shayk on the cover of a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, all the parts just come together so nicely.

The French fries and corn nuggets -- a local delicacy -- that come out of T-Ray’s magical deep fryer are the perfect side dish.

Corn nuggets can best be described as little lumps of creamed corn breaded and deep fried.

If the above sentence doesn’t sound appetizing to you, then you obviously haven’t been paying attention to this blog.

Let me repeat: corn is nice; deep fried corn is exquisite.

Crunchy on the outside, soft and sweet inside, corn nuggets are an addictive Southern side dish.

But nothing says “Welcome South” like good ‘ole Fried Green Tomatoes, which just happened to be the appetizer special of the day.

Already knowing what T-Ray can do with his vat of bubbling grease, I was anxious to see how this ultimate Southern delicacy would turn out.

Let me just say, I wasn’t disappointed.

These beauties were perfectly breaded and fried with an excellent horseradish dipping sauce that cleared my sinuses.

While thanks to the eternal wisdom of our federal government, I couldn’t fill up my gas tank at this old Exxon station, I had no trouble filling up my stomach.

Gas station cuisine may never get its own Zagat’s fine dining category, but as something of a gas station fare connoisseur, this Suit can boldly claim that T-Rays serves the best meal to be found in any gas station in America. Proving once again that being a Suit in a Strange Place is sometimes the best place to be.

Rating: Bought the Shirt!

A Liberal-Hater’s Confession

Early Girl Eatery
8 Wall Street
Asheville, NC

Beer selection: Exciting variety of local brews for lunch or breakfast!

Food: Delicious, down-home, sustainable, natural, cage-free, hormone-free, hand-scooped, grass-fed, free-range, organic, personally-blessed-by-Pope-Benedict Southern cooking.

I hate liberals.

I’ve dedicated my entire life to defeating everything they stand for.

I especially hate that they see every problem, vice and inconvenience of everyday life as an opportunity to use the levers of government to take more money and liberty from me.

Why don’t you just leave me the #@$% alone!?!

But after a visit to the Early Girl Eatery in liberal heaven Asheville, North Carolina, even I have to confess they get a few things right.

Like food. And beer.

I mean, think about it. Think about your city.

Where do “conservatives” live...and eat…and drink?

Right. On a cul-de-sac amid some cookie-cutter soulless expanse of suburban hell.

They hop in their minivan with “W” sticker attached and drive exactly 2.7 miles (which takes 15 minutes due to all the traffic lights) to the nearest strip shopping center where they dine at some corporate chain outparcel restaurant and order the “2 for 20” and a 22oz. draft of Bud Light.

Where do liberals in your city live?

Right. In the cool part of town.

With the cobblestone streets lined with a canopy of century old oak trees, 100 year old Victorian mansions and interesting, eclectic shops, bistros and bars. And the old timey movie theater that plays the obscure “edgy” (a favorite word of liberals) flicks the cineplex won’t run.

Think Germantown in Columbus. Georgetown in DC. Ghent in Norfolk. Riverside in Jacksonville. Every city’s got one.

Granted, the weirdo dope-smoking, forehead-pierced cross-dressers creep the crap out of me too, but that’s the price you have to pay for a good local craft beer and gourmet pizza.

Of course most of my friends who describe themselves as “paleo-libertarians” (think, conservatives who like to have fun) aren’t familiar with either of these living arrangements.

No. Paleo-libertarians live deep in the swamp, out in the woods or up on the mountain where they can kill their own meat, collect their own rainwater (before Obama banned it) and sit on a tinder box of ammo in anticipation of the “conservatives” and liberals screwing the whole thing up.

These are the guys who will be prepared when America is reduced to a rubble-strewn landscape patrolled by marauding flesh-eating zombies.

Okay, so these guys have probably watched “Red Dawn” and “Zombieland” a few too many times, but you get the idea. I’m headed to their house the first sign of trouble.

Which somehow gets me back to the liberal, organic, free-range downtown of Asheville, North Carolina, the quintessential liberal neighborhood.

And my confession.

Organic, free-range, all-natural just tastes better than frozen, processed, boxed, nitrated.

There. I said it.

Here’s the problem.

Unfortunately, liberals think all six billion people on the planet should be force-fed this way by government fiat.

As far as I’m concerned, if George W. Bush supporters want to live off a steady diet of Chicken McNuggets, Bud Light and high fructose corn syrup, they should be free to do so.

Me? Given the choice, I’ll take the all-natural fare served at the Early Girl Eatery.

Every day.

Everything I ordered – from the locally brewed Ninja Porter to the fried green tomatoes to the North Carolina Smoky Mountain stream trout to the candied yams to the ham-studded collard greens to the buttermilk biscuit – was made fresh, organic, all-natural and local.

And absolutely delicious.

The local organic fried green tomatoes just tasted more tomatoey. The collards tasted greener. The yams tasted yammier.

You get the idea.

And it makes sense when you think about it. The less you molest your food between seedling and plate, the better it will taste when it gets there.

That’s a concept even an avowed enemy like me of liberal dope-smoking weirdoes can appreciate.

Rating: Seriously Thought About Buying Shirt.