Basics Gourmet Soul in the Cotton Exchange
Star News article about Basics Gourmet Soul restaurant, from November:
http://www.starnewsonline.com/article/20071118/NEWS/711180364
In the spirit of Ian’s post about local restaurants (Being and Being Local), I thought I’d post about my visit today to this new addition to the roster. It’s on the northeast corner of the Cotton Exchange - with entrances on Front Street as well as from inside the building, if you park in the free lot @ Nutt & Water streets and walk through. It has previously housed a couple of Italian places and a deli, of various lifespans and quality.
My friend Catherine, who also shares your preference for locally owned establishments vs. chain ones and works assiduously to promote them, specifically downtown, and I went there for lunch today. I enjoyed the place and the service, but I don’t know that their lifespan will beat their predecessors. The food just didn’t meet my standards for comfort food — I have to confess that just putting gourmet in the name with soul kind of set my teeth on edge.
We started with fried green tomatoes, which is kind of unfair at this time of year, but they were on the menu. The best thing about real fried green tomatoes is the rush of strong tomato-vine scent and the way they sort of melt at the same time they still have a little tooth to them, and the very thin, light batter with only salt and pepper to contain them. These weren’t really green tomatoes, apparently some of the less pink of the refrigerator golf balls that come from the produce guy this time of year, and they had none of that musky vine bouquet, nor any particular flavor or texture. The batter/breading was much thicker than I would like, but since there wasn’t any particularly great prize within, it was OK. I don’t really care about a relish/garnish with a good fried green tomato, but I would definitely recommend presenting it in a souffle cup or otherwise on the side, even in a pool, rather than spreading it across the tomatoes to soggify the crust right quick.
The mashed potatoes were fabulous, and they and the macaroni and cheese joined the fried green tomatoes in containing a lot of very coarsely ground black pepper. I’m a pepper fiend, add it to everything including french fries, but even I found the appearance and taste of the copiously included pepper a little daunting. I got the meatloaf, which was also OK but nothing to write home about. It was a little too dense and didn’t seem to have much in it but meat - the best meatloaf I’ve ever had included almost one part of carrot pulp left over from juicing to 2-3 parts of meat, plus onions, etc. This one seemed to rely instead on a wrapping of bacon for juiciness, and while it wasn’t bad, it could have been a lot better. I like meatloaf to be so moist as to be crumbly, and this was very firmly stuck together.
Catherine got the roasted chicken, and while I didn’t try it, she had no complaints and it looked and smelled very good. She too enjoyed the mashed potatoes (we both practically licked the plate). Her other side dish was hoppin john. I laughed at her for ordering the blackeyed peas on the side, as everyone knows hoppin john has the rice and peas all cooked together, but the laugh was on me as here they are not, and out they brought a pile of steamed rice and a bowl of peas. Both the rice and peas looked and smelled good, again, but I didn’t taste them.
We also both had hot tea, which is a nice thing to provide. Next time I go I’ll try to pick a less frigid day so I can judge the iced tea, certainly a key barometer of whether they are even slightly southern. Catherine said the Sunday brunch was great, too, so I’ll be sure to give it a try as well.
Overall, I would say that it’s a good effort and a great place - there is a bar and outdoor seating both on Front Street and inside the Cotton Exchange, but none of those were tryable on this frigid-windy noontime. Our table was comfortable and I kind of liked they way they combined avant-garde-ish china with flatware and napkins and condiments in a tin-bucket sort of thing on the table. The service was very friendly and accommodating, and the presentation of the food was all very nice. We had no problem getting boxes to take home what we couldn’t finish.
I hope you will all give it a try - it’s always nice to be able to park free in the Cotton Exchange lot instead of fighting for a space on the street - and I hope they will tweak a few things to make me happier, but more importantly I hope they will make enough people happy to last a long time after all.
Great, comprehensive review, Susan. We’d love to see more of that on the GP.
From one pepper fiend to another, you must locate a song called “French Fries w/Pepper.” It’s by the late, lamented band Morphine and it’s off their 1997 CD called Like Swimming. Alas, the lead singer, Mark Sandman, had a heart attack a few years later and died during a performance in Europe.
A devout connoisseur of southern cuisine, I have been fuming since the closing of A Taste of Country over a year or so ago. Roudabush Café made a good run but couldn’t make it work and Charlottes Uptown Eatery folded sometime in August or September.
Part of the spirit of southern dining is the social aspect exemplified by The Daniel Boone Inn in Boone, NC and many other great institutions that dot the Appalachian landscape where you pass bowls of fried chicken around the table and listen to bluegrass-laden gospel music. The Basics dining room has a level of familial intimacy on par to Sunday dinner at Grandmas house – with periodic echoes of Johnny Cash bellowing from the background PA. The other popular format of southern dining is the quintessential grand buffet. There have been a number of southern buffets that have come and go over the years. One by one they fall victim to the worlds warnings about cholesterol and trans-fats - leaving Golden Coral at the head of the table and another point on the scorecard for big national chains. Having abandoned cafeteria-style buffets and bowls of fried chicken and biscuits, The Basics’ “Gourmet” may be the only way to lure foreigners to this genre of cooking in an inauthentic context. I hate to think that the Golden Coral has a monopoly on country cooking.
I appreciate the comments about The Basics’ menu in the relative sense, but this slightly negative presentation in the forum of the grove project may undermine the virtues of a dying art even if it is wrapped in bacon. I’ll take it anyway I can. Next time I recommend trying the chicken and dumpling soup…you won’t be disappointed. I’ve had southern vegetables cooked every way you can imagine from slimy to al dente… I must say that aside from being slightly salty, The Basics’ collards are some of the best I’ve ever had – good texture, great flavor. By comparison, another notable highlight from the menu is the pulled pork BBQ. Although my favorite local pork at the moment comes from Billy’s Pork and Beef (sorry, you have to go north to Wallace for this jewel), the pork at The Basics runs a close second.
There is a huge open fault line between the abstract ideologies of Southern, Low Country and Country cooking and The Basics’ has found a way to at least conceptually satisfy them all. Please encourage all of your friends and family to go. We can’t afford to lose another one. The pricing is extremely affordable and includes student discounts on select lunch menu items.
Regarding Morphine, thanks Ranald for the info. I didn’t realize that they were gone. I really like their music.
Gordon, I share your sense of deprivation at the loss of Taste of Country and Roudabush’s (actually, I haven’t gotten over the loss of the REAL Roudabush’s …) I was going out of my way to be kind to people who came here from elsewhere to embark on the daunting struggle that is opening a restaurant downtown.
Now that you bring real southern cooking and soul food into the discussion, though, I will have to reconsider my review and rating thusly: I’m lowering the rating from 3.5 to 2.5 - Roudabush’s would have been a 3.5, and so far Basics doesn’t approach their quality or value proposition. In terms of the review, I will have to be clearer and mince fewer words as well: the meatloaf was barely mediocre and the fried green tomatoes were pure-T sorry. If that meatloaf was the example of a dying art, you can call the undertaker, as it has passed while we spoke.
I don’t remember seeing the pulled pork on the lunch menu, but I don’t know that I would be so optimistic as to order anything like barbecue at a place like that even before the tomatoes came out. If I go back, I will give it and the collards a try, though, given your ringing endorsement.
I did not find the pricing to be anything like extremely affordable: if you want real Southern blueplate for a real blueplate price, get the meat and *three* daily special at the Pirate’s Table on Carolina Beach Road, including tea, tax and tip for about the price of the meatloaf here. They not only have great meatloaf, they even have liver and onions from time to time, and their hushpuppies alone are worth the trip. I haven’t been in several months, since they discontinued the crabcakes as a daily choice (they weren’t the fanciest but they were mighty good for a $6 blueplate!)but I can’t imagine it’s changed much.
Went here for lunch with a friend and we had the special for the day which was homemade pimento cheese on wonderful bread and a cup of the seafood chowder. Very good, well balanced chowder and the iced tea is great. Give this place a try, I hope they last for years.
This place is awesome… I have been once a week since they opened and love it. Their BLT is the best I’ve ever had and the roasted garlic feta salad dressing is good enough to drink through a straw.
[…] went downtown this morning to try the Basics breakfast and maybe gather our own opinions, but were thwarted by the 10:30AM opening, and so went […]