First let me say that our experience at this soul food restaurant was not entirely pleasant, but it had nothing to do with the food (which was excellent), the restaurant itself (we sat outside at a picnic table on a side street), the weather (it was beautiful), the price of the food (reasonable), etc., etc. No, we had kind of an unpleasant experience because Jay had the GALL to bring his friend Greg from work with him, and I was required by law and all that is good and decent to bring the kids along and not leave them hungry and home alone.
A certain girl who will remain nameless but who was wearing a pink princess dress decided that under no circumstance would she sit near, acknowledge or break bread with Greg. Because he is a monster. An ogre. A character from a horror movie. Well, no - Greg is a well-groomed, well-spoken, friendly father of two. Her refusal to eat with him - or even sit at the table while he was seated enabled Ellie to feel free to just cry - loudly - whenever she happened to turn her head so that Greg was located within the scope of her vision.
BUT, let me talk for a minute about Po'Shines.
Located near the giant statue of Paul Bunyan not far from the Interstate Max Line, Po'Shines is a soul food restaurant/non-profit organization connected to a church in North Portland. It's in an edgy neighborhood, and by "edgy", I mean one step up from sketchy and trying to keep improving. The area is shooting for a bit of gentrification, and there are a number of good places to eat lined up on the main street. Now, as far as "soul" goes, I don't know that either Jay or I have an unusually high amount of it, but we do love us our catfish. If we make it at home, I pan-fry it with a special spice rub that we make - our "Ring of Fire" rub. With the rub, it doesn't take too much skill to make a yummy catfish. But the catfish at Po'Shines is something altogether different and dare I say miraculous? It has a perfectly uniformly crispy cornmeal-type coating without having any grease. We can't figure out exactly how it's cooked... Baked? Maybe - but if so, you can't tell which side was touching the pan. I bet it's fried - but then, how do they avoid the grease? Maybe since it's connected to a church, God plays a hand in the cooking?
The sides are good - Hoppin' John, mac and cheese, red beans and rice... but really, I keep coming back to the catfish. They also have greens (we didn't try them) and hush puppies (one is good - more than one gets disgusting to me.) No corn bread, which I really missed.
But, the CATFISH. Did I mention the CATFISH? Because if I didn't, they have some GOOOOOD catfish.
So, yeah, we went to lunch and after trying to eat through one kid hiding under the table and the other crying whenever she was within 10 feet of Greg, eventually, Jay and Greg just left and went back to work. At this point, both children sit quietly at our picnic table and eat their lunch. (Of course.) Now, when I'm sitting outside eating with my two kids in any neighborhood, my mommy radar is on. "Keep away from the busy street!!" "Don't throw yourself on the sidewalk in front of the guy in the wheelchair!!" "Don't drop dishes on the sidewalk!!" "Don't touch the gum on the underside of the table!!" "Get your fingers away from the trashcan - Don't you see the bees?!?!" So, even if I look like I'm enjoying my food, one ear's to the ground, one eye is on any stranger who approaches, and one hand is tightly clasped to my purse lest any ne'er-do-well should look and see how high maintenance my kids can be and decide that it would be easy to make a quick swipe for the wallet. What would I do - run after him and leave my kids sitting there with half-eaten hush puppies? I think not. Moms with young kids are EASY targets, if you are someone who's willing to pay later by going straight to one of the lower circles of Hell.
Needless to say, when an old beater of a station wagon pulled up to the stop light on the side street from behind my left shoulder, I noticed that it was filled with 4 young men. Suddenly, one leaned out the window and started yelling - at me! It took probably a good two seconds to register that he was waving a book out the window - not just any book, no it was his Bible. And what was he yelling? "Did you like the food?? Great!! We're having a poetry reading here tonight at 8:00! You should come back!" Then, the light changed, they drove off and I was able to breathe again. A poetry reading. At the soul food restaurant next to the church.
No comments:
Post a Comment