Jake’s Down South

The heat wave we've been having lately has totally killed any ambition to do much of anything, especially stand in front of the oven. It's also rendered all parts of my apartment into mini-ovens, which made all of my once cool, dark places where things like potatoes and onions live now filled with useless, soft and semi-rotten root vegetables. Anyone have a good recipe for rotten vegetable soup? I didn't think so.

Today actually marked a record high temperature for this town at something like 36 point something degrees. That's a deadly fever, for lack of anything else to compare it to in Fahrenheit, but probably pales in comparison to what a lot of those south of here live with quite often.

Luckily, I beat the heat tonight when my mom made an impromptu visit just for the day and took me out for dinner. This time we decided to go to Jake's restaurant, which has a New Orleans inspired menu. In my experience, both the service and food have been hit or miss, ranging from exceptionally wonderful to exceptionally terrible. I find it hard to have such mixed feelings about a restaurant, but the good memories do keep me coming back. Plus, this was the first (and only, at time of writing) place I tried alligator meat, which I now see has become a permanent fixture on the menu. I'm happy to note that there was an adequate amount of light to take somewhat pleasing photographs this time around.

We'd arrived a little early to order off the proper dinner menu, which was disappointing. I tried to order appetizers that gave us a more dinner than lunch dining experience. Mom always puts me in charge of the appetizer ordering, simply hoping that I don't kill her. For the most part she enjoys everything I pick out. For appetizers I picked out the mussels with chipotle cream for myself and crawfish spring rolls for her. Admittedly, the spring rolls were better than the mussels, which I thought were too salty and not nearly spicy enough. I don't find the lone flavor of crawfish very appealing, but whatever it was paired with (and I'm honestly not sure - judging from the picture I'd say sweet corn and roasted red peppers with rice or something) definitely took away from that. The sweet chili sauce that it was served with was very nice, but I thought the pesto was a little strange. In the center of a plate was a type of coleslaw that was okay.

We both ordered some sort of po' boy sandwich. I had the charred catfish po' boy and my mom had a chicken one, I believe. I guess catfish and absolutely charred flesh go together quite well because I thought this was a great sandwich, complete with chipotle mayo. The little potato wedges did nothing for me, but I was full by that point anyway.