Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
comfy leather booths and walls loaded with
music memorabilia.
Finally, head north to the
Colonnade
(1879 Cheshire Bridge Rd. NE.;
&
404/874-
5642
) to find the ultimate southern cook-
ing throwback, an unpretentious rambling
restaurant that's been here since 1927.
Don't let the coffee-shoppish 1950s-vin-
tage decor fool you: The fried-chicken is
superb, crisply battered yet juicy inside,
and it's served with pepper-flecked cream
gravy. Fried chicken livers are another
treat you won't find on too many menus
these days, and be sure not to miss the
divinely soft yeast rolls.
(
Atlanta International (12 miles/20km).
L
$$$ The Georgian Terrace Hotel,
659 Peachtree St. (
&
800/651-2316
or
404/897-1991; www.thegeorgianterrace.
com). $$
Hotel Indigo,
683 Peachtree St.
(
&
404/874-9200;
www.hotelindigo.com).
Hometown Dish
205
That Catfish Place
Something Fishy at the Taylor Grocery
Taylor, Mississippi
The battered storefront, with the faded tin
Coke sign over the porch, a rusted gas
pump out front, and the scuffed screen
door propped open, looks more like some-
thing out of
Deliverance
than one of Mis-
sissippi's top seafood restaurants. Looks
can be deceiving, though; this century-old
general store in the sleepy southern ham-
let of Taylor, 8 miles (13km) south of
Oxford in the hills of northern Mississippi,
morphed into a restaurant in the 1970s.
Since then it has grown famous for serving
some of the best catfish in Mississippi, the
epicenter of catfish cuisine. Though its
famous cook Mary Katherine Hudson is no
longer at the fryer, under new owners—
Taylor native Lynn Hewlett and his wife,
Debbie—the roadhouse is cracking along
just as good as ever.
The catfish at Taylor Grocery is all locally
pond-raised (wild catfish being harder to
come by), and though it's briefly frozen to
prevent spoilage, it still has a meaty fresh-
caught flavor. It comes all sorts of ways—
filleted or served whole on the bone;
battered-fried, blackened Mississippi-style
(spicy), or simply grilled. The fried version is
a little spicier than typical fried catfish—it's
soaked in eggs, milk, Worcestershire, and
hot sauce before being dipped in cornmeal
batter, then fried at a slightly lower tem-
perature so the batter remains delicately
golden, and the fish inside is still flaky and
moist. The menu lists steaks, shrimp,
chicken, and pork tenderloin as well, but
most people go for the catfish, often as an
all-you-can-eat blowout. A side of hush
puppies—deep-fried balls of cornmeal
dough—is a given. The decor is Vintage
Roadhouse, with cluttered wood-paneled
walls, red-checkered tablecloths, and graf-
fiti scribbled absolutely everywhere.
Taylor Grocery follows its own idiosyn-
cratic rhythm—lunch buffet only, Monday
through Friday, with dinners added Thurs-
day through Sunday. That lunch buffet
serves meat and veggies only; you'll have
to wait until Thursday for the catfish. On
weekends, there's usually live music as
well, a rotating mix of bluegrass and blues.
There's generally a line, but hanging around
the rickety porch waiting for your table is a
memorable experience in itself.
Note:
Tay-
lor is a dry town, so the restaurant doesn't
serve alcohol.
Note carefully:
Most of the
patrons arrive carrying their own Styrofoam
