Buttermilk Channel

Buttermilk Channel is lovely. The food is delicious, but there’s something about it that is good in an unobtrusive way. You’re more focused on your conversation than the mind-blowing entrees, and that’s okay. It’s a place that does exactly what I, personally, want food to do. It brings friends to the table in a comfortable, unpretentious setting to enjoy a good meal and each others company.

Dinner last Thursday night was a celebration, and a prelude to the holiday weekend, so I started with a (forgettable) cocktail. The menu’s description was promising (tequila, honey, grapefruit, jalapeno, lime) but it was basically just a glorified margarita, so why didn’t they say so?

While we made our critical dinner decisions, the waitress brought out a plateful of warm popovers drizzled in honey and sprinkled with flake salt. The idea was amazing but the execution was slightly wanting. The popovers were a bit overdone, so mine had a faint burnt taste. Le sigh.

On to the appetizers! The olive-sized hush puppies were a bit heavier than I would have liked, but their presentation in a miniature ice cream dish filled with green chile aioli won me over. I am a sucker for cute and these definitely qualified.

House-made pickles. Good, but a bit floppy and the vinegar fumes they gave off with every bite made my roommate a little faint. Baked oysters. Now we’re talking. Plump and warm, these were a satisfying blend of creamy, crunchy, savory, and sweet. I only wish they hadn’t been $3 a piece or I would have eaten many, many more.

Duck Meatloaf. Swoon. Anyone that’s known me for a while—and has therefore shared a few meals with me—can tell you that I am very territorial when it comes to food. I demand the first bite, and if you take it away from me I will shoot you with my laser eye beams. Or stab you with my fork. Be warned. Actually, while I'm being perfectly honest, I don’t like sharing things I find totally delicious, but because I wasn’t raised by wolves, I share. Though no one I was with is as keen on duck as I am, I found this meatloaf so absolutely wonderful that I had to keep myself from licking the duck jus off my plate. The creamed corn still had whole kernels in it and the onion ring was the perfect crispy counterpart to all the other textures on my plate. I didn’t take pictures of our dessert selections—chocolate chip bread pudding and a pecan praline sundae—because they didn’t blow my mind nor were they inspiring to look at. The sundae was tasty, but the bread pudding was so dry I found myself biting into pieces of bread that hadn’t been soaked in egg custard. I’m not a fan of soupy bread pudding, but come on!