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I used to wonder why Arkansas doesn’t have its own
trademark cuisine. We often associate Louisiana with its scrumptious Cajun-Creole cookery. Folks in the Keystone State are known for their German-style Pennsylvania Dutch cooking. Texans have Tex-Mex, Floridians have Floribbean, and our friends in South Carolina and Georgia make us lick our lips with the seafood, grits and rice dishes distinctive of their Lowcountry cooking. So why haven’t Arkansans developed a special cuisine
we can call our own? Having traveled thousands of miles around Arkansas
and eaten with folks in nearly every county, I think I have an answer. For Arkansans, variety is spice. We like foods of all kinds. And while untold numbers of great cooks — professional and non-professional — live here, they’ve never gotten our citizens to focus on one style of cooking long enough to develop an Arkansawyer cuisine. That’s not a bad thing, however. If you like eating as much as me, the resulting hodgepodge of delectable eats one can find while traveling the Natural State provides a never-ending source of tastebud-titillating pleasure. From great Southern-style cooking to superb foreign cuisine and everything in between, Arkansas has it. Look hard enough and you’ll discover many specialty dishes created by Arkansas chefs and served nowhere else in the world.
One huge sandwich A happy Bucket List customer tries unsuccessfully to polish off one of the restaurant’s enormous double bacon cheeseburgers.
So how do you find all this great grub? Start with the following guide to some of the best bites in the
What to order: The menu is extensive for
Natural State. And while traveling from here to there
a country establishment seating 32. Breakfast
sampling tasty tidbits at these wonderful restaurants,
selections include regular morning fare, plus the
watch for other cafés, drive-ins, diners, coffee shops,
Bucket List’s own hungry-man pileups like the
grills, cafeterias, sandwich shops, dairy bars, food trucks,
Sloppy Sherryl (hash browns, biscuits, eggs and
bistros, saloons and greasy spoons where good food
choice of ham, bacon, breakfast sausage, Italian
awaits the hungry traveler. No matter where you go in
sausage or bologna stacked and smothered with
Arkansas, another memorable meal is somewhere just
gravy) and the 55-Gallon Lid Pancake. (It’s really as
around the corner.
big as the top of a 55-gallon drum. If you can eat it in an hour, it’s free.) Lunch selections are more
Conway County Cuisine
extensive with a variety of home-style plate lunches
Bucket List Café
and sides. Favorites include many items piled high
Center Ridge Pay attention to the address because this hole-
with delicious local ingredients, like the monstrous
in-the-wall north of I-40 at Morrilton has no sign
a hoagie loaded with locally made Italian sausage,
to indicate the metal building is a restaurant.
three cheeses and grilled onions. It won’t be easy,
Apparently it doesn’t need one as locals pack the
but leave room for dessert, too. The Fried Filookie is
place for breakfast and lunch seven days a week. The
highly recommended. It’s a battered, fried chocolate-
reason is simple. The friendly folks at the Bucket List
chip cookie cake with a molten chocolate center,
serve huge portions of delicious food at reasonable
smothered in ice cream, caramel and chocolate syrup.
prices, including specialties found nowhere else.
(5308 Highway 9, 501-893-9840)
Reuben with homemade kraut and the Salty Sam,
Front Porch
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arf b .com
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