Tried the place out for lunch on a busy but not overwhelming Saturday.
I was greeted politely and seated promptly--tables were empty but not
quite clean, so they are probably still having some of the service
issues mentioned by early customers.
I started off with the
chicken-fried bacon. It's a novelty item, but one that actually works.
The breading is very crisp, and the bacon inside is crisp enough to
snap with it. Great flavor with gravy, I kept going back to nibble at
it.
For my entree I tried one of the Holiday skillets. The beef
tenderloin skillet comes with beef tenderloin tips in a red wine
reduction sauce over mashed potatoes. The beef was reasonably tender
and cooked well, with a nice char. The sauce was nothing special,
basically a mildly sweet brown sauce with just enough wine flavor
to keep it from being off-putting. The mashed potatoes were OK but
could have used more help from the sauce. Overall fine but not good
enough for me to finish.
I went for dessert and got Mama's Butter
Cake. Who doesn't like butter? But again, nothing special. The cake
was supposed to be kind of a cheesecake but was a bit mushy for that.
Cake and crust were pretty much the same texture. The sauce was
basically just a mild syrup, and only a tiny dab of whipped cream.
Piling it on might have saved this dish.
Cotton Patch is moving
into the vacuum left by Black Eyed Pea, and has lots of demand--I've
heard the wait is still long in the evenings. Recent reviews have been better than the early ones. But there are plenty of
places to get good southern food here, like Neal's Restaurant or Mel's
Diner. You can find things on the menu to eat if you're accompanying
someone that loves Cotton Patch--the chicken-fried steak has some mixed reviews but is probably good if they use the same breading as is on the bacon. If you're tempted by that chicken
fried bacon, go ahead and get it, it's absolutely worthwhile. The
service issues are getting better, and I think may be caused in part by a
restaurant labor shortage in this part of town. Several new places are
opening at once.
My Yelp Review
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