"Hush" My Mouth!

Some puppies are just better than others

I’ve had my share of hush puppies, primarily at barbeque joints throughout eastern North Carolina and seafood stops such as The Seafood Hut in Calabash NC. Over time, I’ve come to realize that fried corn meal can be good, tasty, and fresh, or bad, chewy, and onion flavored, depending on when and where, homemade at the stop or frozen from the food supply vendor,

The best hush puppies my wife, Nancy, and I have had came a few years back at a brewpub in downtown Boone NC: Lost Province Brewing Co., just half a block off of Main Street. For $9.50, the Jalapeño Hush Puppies came with a spread of whipped malt syrup butter, a few house-made pickles, and, for an additional $3.00, a side of Jalapeño pimento cheese. Consume slowly to enjoy the most. While the Pups were good by themselves, maybe those spreads pushed Lost Province to the top of the Hush Puppy list of Best We’ve Had.

These Lost Province delicacies were worth a follow-up visit next time in the area. The texture of the hush puppies were crisp on the outside and soft on the inside. With the butter and pimento cheese, even at the upscale cost, we considered ourselves lucky to have ordered the appetizer. Previous stops at Lost Province yielded its excellent wood-fired pizza. Try it all, along with its really good beer; you’ll like it!

Coming in at No. 2 on the Hush Puppy rating chart is a recent entry, the Hush Puppy Basket at Cape Fear Seafood Company in Cary, about a mile from our home. Sitting at the bar around noon, we knew the lunch entrées would be more than enough to satisfy our mid-day feeding, but in a weak moment and the last before the bartender (we like to sit at the bar when we eat out) placed our order, we fell victim to a basket of Cape Fear’s version, about 25 substantial pups with a dip of whipped butter for just $3.99, a bargain, no doubt. The difference between first and second might be the Jalapeños but, for the price, Cape Fear is a very strong contender for top spot.

Take a close look at the photo above and imagine the piping hot crunchy crust during a steam releasing bite to find a smooth and not over-cooked, not chewy center. We each had a couple of these Pups before we came to the conclusion we could eat the entire basket full and ask for to-go containers for our entrées. Instead, we pushed aside the hush puppies and mustered every ounce of resistance, passing on the cornmeal for our meal.

We took the remaining Cape Fear Hush Puppies home and re-heated them in our toaster oven as part of dinner that night. Just as good the second time around, as Shalamar sang to us in 1979.

Many years ago, we took our son of a young age to an Italian restaurant, owned by a Greek (aren’t the good ones?), where he ordered the Hot Beef and Gravy sandwich: two slices of white bread, covered with thin slices of tender roast beef, smothered in brown gravy with French fries, of course. He ordered it every time we went to Two Guys on Hillsborough Street in Raleigh, on the advice, “When you go to a restaurant and there’s an item on the menu you can only get there, order it every time.”

Which can also get you into a dining rut, narrowing your selection of restaurants and eats, reducing your food orbit to the familiar instead of trying new food, at least new to us.

For instance, we like going to Ruckus in Apex where I order the Three Island Tour, an item NOT on the menu. It’s a blackened Mahi with creamy slaw sandwich on a soft bun. There’s The Dugout Tavern and Grill in Apex where the chicken salad sandwich is one of about three extensive menu items we prefer. And, there’s Mi Cancun Mexican Restaurant, the Morrisville location, where I always, and I mean every time, order the Choripollo Burrito stuffed with grilled chicken, chorizo, and onions, topped with cheese sauce and served with rice and refried beans. The chips and salsa there are also good.

A common denominator of those three is the draft beer selections with none relying on the old but weak standards of Bud Light, Miller Lite, Coors Light, and so on and so forth. Yuck! Our choices are several IPAs on tap. Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it several times to acquire the taste. I did, and I’m hooked.

We have a few other places and meals as fallback restaurants but remembering the Hot Beef at Two Guys story, we pretty much stay close to our home circle of eateries and selections.

Until recently when our son, the kid who order the Hot Beef at Two Guys and who is now somewhat of a self-made home chef cooking his own delicacies for his family, challenged us to try other restaurants and entrées. Which brings us back to Cape Fear Seafood Company, a “locally owned” establishment with eight locations, the newest just a mile down the road.

Our first visit there came a few days after its recent opening, and, we must tell you, and the service and food were as if the restaurant had been open for months, maybe years. There were no gaffs to speak of. Nancy ordered the fried shrimp basket, and I asked for the fried flounder basket, both accompanied by French fries and Cole slaw. No hush puppies.

We enjoyed what we ordered, offering each other tastes of our choices, and we remarked both were better than the lunch popcorn shrimp and the lunch flounder at the Seafood Restaurant at the North Carolina Farmers Market, but not necessarily above Calabash selections. The jury remains out on the latter comparison though the two do not really compare to each other.

We’ve now been to Cape Fear three times, all at lunch. The second visit was nearly halted due to a jack-hammer being used to work on remodeling of a business next door to Cape Fear Seafood. We moved from the bar, which shared a wall with the jack-hammer operator, to a table on the other side of the small but efficient-use-of-space restaurant.

I suggested we not focus on determining a single entrée for every visit there but take a run through the menu, tasting and examining the wider selections, especially the “Lunch Specials” which are probably just a smaller portion of the same served after four p.m.

The Cape Fear Shrimp and Grits was my choice as a chance to compare it to others of the same at other restaurants, one coming to mind in Beaufort NC. The Cape Fear version, for $14.99, included shrimp, applewood smoked bacon, tomatoes, scallions, mushrooms, low country cream sauce, and stone ground cheese grits. It was plenty for lunch and is a winner.

The Jambalaya with shrimp, scallops, andouille sausage, okra, onions, tomatoes, spices, and rice pilaf, for $13.99, was Nancy’s choice. It was okay, she said, pointing out her dislike of scallops. Not on her re-order list.

The third time, we were back at the bar where we swear the service at every bar is better than at a table though the second time when we moved from the bar to a table we were taken care of especially well. My choice this time was the Shrimp Risotto: five substantial sized shrimp with blackened spice, basil, roasted red peppers, tomato, scallions, and scampi style risotto for $12.99. Again, another tasty and great choice.

Nancy wanted more of the fried shrimp basket, but this time, she was disappointed. The shrimp seemed to be smaller, more along the popcorn version, than what she ordered the first time, shrimp around the size of a silver dollar. It was tasty, she said, but Nancy was disappointed overall, wanting the meatier taste of the larger version of shrimp. Her shrimp were not as large as those I had in my Shrimp Risotto.

We’ll return to Cape Fear Seafood Company, where, from the lunch specials, I’ll pick the Shrimp Scampi or the Shrimp Diablo. I may even try Nancy’s Jambalaya, but I’ll pass on the Smoked Salmon Alfredo. If I go somewhat healthy, I’ll ask for the lunch special Soup and Salad with a choice of a small house, Caesar, or mixed greens salad served with a small cup of house made Roasted Red Pepper & Crab Bisque.

We might venture out on a Sunday after church to try Cape Fear Seafood’s brunch menu which, if looks could kill, would include killer selections. I mean that in a good way. At some point, we may venture out more into the regular menu where the selections look and sound awesome.

One thing, for sure: We’ll probably place another order for the Hush Puppy Basket, consuming two or three each and taking the remainder home for a late afternoon snack. There’s a chance these could climb the ladder one place and at least tie, maybe move in alone, for the top spot on our Hush Puppy list of Best We’ve Had.