Need some help please - Where to go for real southern food?

I have visitors in town and they want to go out to eat and have real southern down home cookin! They particularly want fried okra and collard greens. Can anyone tell me where to take them?

 

Upscale - The Pit in downtown Raleigh (Davie St) YUM!

Down-home style - Main Street Fuquay - Joyce and Family Restaurant

 

Toot N' Tell in Garner
The Meadow Restaurant in Meadow
McCalls will do in a pinch but always changes their veggies
Rockin' Comet has good fried okra, not sure about collards

 

Bill's BBQ in Wilson.

 

Four Oaks Grill and King's Restaurant in Four Oaks

 

I'll tell ya another place, however its probably a bit too far for you to drive. Fuller's in Elizabethtown. I think they also have one in Lumberton. I've eaten at their buffet in Elizabethtown. Very good country-cooking. Bill's buffet is a good place, too. They do more than just barbecue. They've got a full buffet.

Toot 'N Tell...I haven't eaten there in probably 10-15 years. I never really was impressed by it. The food was sort of bland to me. The problem with country cooking is you have to season it with meat just right or its just bland.

 

The Robin's Nest near JR's in Smithfield is good. Park restaurant in Pine Level also.

 

Mama dipps in chapel Hill is great.

 

Thanks everyone, it looks like we have lots of choices!

 

That's not even the best BBQ joint in Wilson.

 

If you're going as far as Elizabethtown, skip all the grease at Fuller's and go to the Front Porch instead. Much better buffet minus the grease. Plus you can order off the menu also.

 

Bill's in Wilson has buffet and collards/pastry. Parker's in Wilson is good but no buffet and collards/pastry the last time I checked. It's been awhile though.

 

Souther Food

Ron's Barn, Hwy 55, near Coates. Buffet with fried chicken (the best, real southern fried chicken), BBQ, fish, fried okra, cooked apples, the list goes on and on. Consistently good and reasonably priced for a buffet.

 

The problem I have with most of these places is the fried okra they use. It's been battered and deep fried, which being from JC and having all of my family from southern wake county and harnett county just isn't the way fried okra should be.

Fried okra the way it should be is to take a plastic bag and put a ixture of flour and corn mill in the bag, take your okra and slice it up, dump it in the bag and seal then shake to give the okra a light dusty covering, take out of the bag and drop into a skillet (preferably cast iron) with some type of cooking oil (preferably lard) and fry till lightly crispy.

Wife hates fried okra....atleast till she tried mine made that way and she loves it, but still hates the crap in resturants.


Craig

 

Parkside in Pine Level is "home" to our Red Hats group and most of the ladies are from around here and have lived in this area all their lives so I figure is must be Southern cooking.
I also like to take people to Holt's Lake. The food is okay but you can still get the old timey "family style" and they still sit the big pitchers of tea on the table, etc. Most of my friends are not teatotalers so I also like to have a bottle of NC wine on hand.
I like Smithfield Barbecue too but you can't get the things you are looking for.

 

B's in Greenville


:jester:

 

absolutely! okra should not be battered, but lightly dry coated like you say. imho, battering okra is the same as using "y'all" to address one person, ie the only time i ever hear that is when someone NONsouthern is trying to be southern...

 

It is worth the drive. Especially the fried chicken, all vegetables and pecan pie with ice cream. Mrs. Council is truly a pure Southern cook. Many awards.
Also Big Ed's in downtown Raleigh has great vegetables but not up to Mama Dip standards.

 

Quailty................. Perhaps there is hope for you yet!

 

I've been to Greenville many times and I have never tried B's. I've heard from a number of people they had good barbecue. Wilburs has always been my favorite for pit-cooked eastern-style barbecue.

Another place I've heard is really good is Grady's BBQ located out from Goldsboro. Our State Magazine voted it the best tasting eastern-style barbecue restaurant in NC. I believe its located south of Goldsboro..basically out in the country. So, I guess that would definitely qualify it as country cooking.

McCalls ain't so bad for country cooking. The food is a bit bland with somethings (such as the string beans) but other items are pretty good. String beans are one of those dishes that requires seasoning with something like pork shoulder and slow cooked to get the flavor right.