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Beach Casual Food & Attitude
m m 73 m crbbs;
ALL YOU CAN EAT GRAB LEGS
EVERY TUESDAY s 19.95
LOW COUNTRY THURSDAY
Oysters Half Shell, Steamed
(by the dozen or half)
Peel N Eat Shrimp (by the lb l
Pried Catfish
Bluegrass Music 5pm-9pm
Every Thursday!
Marti’s
at Midday
1280 Prince Ave. • Normalt
706.543.35^tx
www.martisatmidday.com
Jittery Jo
LIVE MUSIC
Wed. Sept 30 - DAVID PRINCE
Fri. Oct 2 - KINKY WAIKIKI
Sat. Oct 3 - LEAVING COUNTRIES
(after the game)
Free Wi-Fi Since 1994
Catering & Private Parties
Mon-Sun 11:30am-Until • Plenty of Parking
1080 Baxter St. • 706-850-5858
www.gnatslanding.net
EARTH-FRIENDLY • WATER-WISE
ORGANIC GARDENING
SOME GROW
•is aVRobby,
WE DC^IT FOR
A LIVING
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HYDROPONICS
www.FloraHydroponics.com
706-353-2223 • Mon-Sat 10am-6pm
Newton Bridge Rd. to Paradise Blvd. - Behind Terrapin Brewery
TOP DAttO
Activity Bar & Nightclub
^4 ■
Mondays- Karaoke & Free pool
Tuestlay-Ladies N igh t
1 •uiidit'. Wv.ll'. Pr»»:vn 1 •:ink-
Wednesdavs-Becr Pong, Wii on the ICO”
a i 1.
rhursdawDJ Rich Rock
Friday-DJ or live Music
ViHvK \\ WAV. i*
Saturday- College Football in stunning HD
STOMP
6 ri;i'iri>i> Cs. L\ HI ’ 'trcvti
400 E. Clayton St Upstairs
athenstopdawg.com
FUFU AND SHITO
Something Special: Thank you, Blake Britt, and thank you,
Flagpole, for allowing me the forum of a blog on the website.
Without both of those things, wherein Blake left a comment
that directed me to African Aslan Jamaican Grocery (50
Gaines School Rd., in the shopping center that also contains
Alibi, 706-850-6696), I might not have found one of the more
interesting and unusual dining experiences in Athens, let alone
feasted on African and Jamaican food in the back of a truck in
the parking lot. The fabulous Mrs. TT (her real name is Miriam),
from Mali, will cook you just about anything you can imagine,
and while the fliers advertise hot dogs and turkey sandwiches,
and her catfish is quite good, you really want to call ahead and
get her to cook you some West-African food. She seems to do
most of her business with the international students in town,
and the "grocery" aspect of the store isn't exactly useful for
everyday shopping (although if you want a folder with a pic
ture of Keith Hernandez on the front, some fishnet stockings,
carrot oil for your hair, a Spiderman pihata or a bag of yam
flour, you're in luck), but she's extremely friendly, especially
if you are a persistent white girl insisting that, yes, you want
the okra soup. And you do, I promise. African cuisine tends
to treat this marvelous vegetable rather differently than we
Southerners do, enhancing its slimy, gooey texture through
boiling and stewing
rather than fearfully ...amazing beef meatballs
breading and frying
it—as tt put it, "we lurking therein...
eat more vegetables
than you do"—but be ballsy and jump in with both feet.
The soup is really more of a thick stew, the green of the okra
darkened, with amazing beef meatballs lurking therein, and
you can eat it over rice (she makes jasmine, regular and riz au
gras, a short-grain rice cooked with an orange oil that coats
each grain and gives it a chewy texture), with fufu (a sort of
porridge made with yams that could be best analogized to an
unbaked roll and is excellent for wiping one's plate) or just a
with a spoon.
A "tomato soup" made with turkey was almost as good, with
long ribbons of cabbage and peppers throughout, although a
few pieces of meat were drier than others. Peanut butter soup
was a little soupier, with big hunks of chicken and a taste that
brought to mind the peanut's status as a legume, rarely present
otherwise. Of the three, it's probably the most of an acquired
taste, and at the very least, you have to be kind of into peanut
butter, but it's certainly interesting.
Shito, on the other hand, a paste of dried fish and shrimp,
oil and hot peppers, never quite clicked with my palate,
although I kept sampling it just in case I'd magically like it
this time. Jeffrey Steingarten's rule that if you "try something
eight to 10 times, you'll find yourself liking it" has never been
so sorely tested. I didn't have quite the reaction of one of the
three-year-olds I was with who wanted to sample it (she drank
half her bottle of apple juice), but it certainly does have a cer
tain wet dog flavor. Ah, well, the fried plantains it was meant
to accompany are the most delicious I have had in Athens or
anywhere. It's easy for the sweet ones to be too sugary, too.
fibrous, too much of a muchness, but these were gorgeously
caramelized on the outside, with a mix of chewy and crunchy
that gave way to a deep, comforting, essential taste.
The beef patties—TT also explained that she does Jamaican
food as well as African because they're very similar, which is
true—maybe don't quite match the ones at Kelly's, but the
combination of curry chicken and fried rice, the quality of
neither of which is conveyed by such simple names, was fill
ing, complex, warmly spicy and maybe the best way in for the
less adventurous. The grocery store doesn't seem to keep very
regular hours, but if you call ahead and order, your food will be
ready whenever you desire, and you can expect it to run about
$7 a person, with tremendous amounts packed into each sty
rofoam container. The store has nowhere to sit down and eat,
but the braiding shop across the way has a table or two. Drinks
(I recommend the ginger beer in the brown bottle) are in the
cooler at the back, and the store thankfully takes credit cards,
which should accommodate your impulse buys.
What Up?: Check the Grub Notes blog at www.flagpole.com for
all the recent closings and news of a few upcoming openings.
Hillary Brown food@flagpole.com
16 FLAGPOLE.COM • SEPTEMBER 30, 2009