Dining WHAT’S COOKIN’
FANS OF THE LATE Southern Gourmasian food truck and its brick-and-mortar incarnation, and there are many, are able to fill bellies once again with food turned out by Justin Patterson and C.C. Key. They opened TAE (pronounced “tay” and standing for True Arkansas Eatery) this week in the Hotel Frederica at 625 Capitol Ave. (Yes, the hotel once named the Sam Peck and famous for its Bing Cherry Mold and jazz by the Art Porter Trio.) TAE’s menu is Southern; folks who twigged to the Pig and Swig event recently at Heifer International got to taste a tiny bit of TAE, bites of pulled pork and deeply refreshing pickled watermelon. Other Southern stalwarts, like cheese dip, boiled shrimp, fried green tomatoes, purple hull peas, tamales, chicken and dressing (Nealie May’s, a Patterson family recipe) and meatloaf are also on the menu, along with “Arkansas Toothpicks,” which aren’t Bowie knives but are deep-fried barbecued ribs. The restaurant is open 11 a.m.-2 p.m. for lunch weekdays, and, starting July 7, will be open for brunch 9 a.m.-9 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays, Patterson said. TAE will begin weekday dinner hours after it gets its liquor license in mid-July. TAE, which can seat 60, is on the first floor of the hotel on the east side of the building so that there is access to the parking lot. THE METEOR BIKE and coffee shop at the Stifft Station intersection of Kavanaugh Boulevard and Markham Street is hosting Food Truck Fridays from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. This Friday’s food truck is Pinches Tacos, the hot pink mobile Mexican eatery. The Meteor will sell $2 beer along with its other beverages, and the intoxicants can now be enjoyed on the patio off the parking lot. Stone’s Throw Brewing will also operate its Stifft Station Taproom in the building just behind The Meteor as part of the PopUp Stifft Station road diet demonstration. ZIN URBAN WINE & Beer Bar owners Troy Deal and Michael Puckett announced Monday that the bar’s last day of business at its downtown location, at 300 River Market Ave., will be Saturday, June 27. ZIN, which opened its downtown bar in 2010, will host a farewell party Friday night and an after-party for filmgoers at “Generation Wealth” screening at the Ron Robinson Theater on Saturday night. ZIN Wine Bar West at 11121 N. Rodney Parham Road will stay open. IRA’S, THE RESTAURANT in the making for 18 months in the Rose Building, 311 Main St., has once again delayed its opening. Owner Ira Mittleman did not give a new opening date, but said on Facebook that “I will let you know the minute I can” what that date is. 26
JUNE 28, 2018
ARKANSAS TIMES
CATHEAD’S ‘COUNTRY BREAKFAST’: Pulled pork, eggs, biscuit and gravy, fried chicken tenders and a donut on the side.
Fine diner
Cathead’s lives up to hype.
W
e love a good diner, a place that can be late-night raucous after the drag show empties out, or early-morning silent with nothing but old men shuffling newspapers and sipping coffee. That’s the kind of place we seek out at home and on the road. It’s where our kind of people go and where atmosphere (sometimes) matters more than food quality. So, imagine our surprise when we heard that local celebrity chef and fancy food slinger Donnie Ferneau was opening up a place called Cathead’s Diner. Hubba wha? The man who’d been behind the food at such trendy, tony places as Ciao Baci, Ferneau’s and the 1836 Club was opening a diner in the East Village area of Little Rock? After confirming that this was not fake news, we decided to investigate. Cathead’s is strictly a breakfast and
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lunch establishment, located in a mixeduse development known as the Paint Factory. We set out for an early meal on Cathead’s second day of operation last Thursday, were promptly greeted and seated inside a spacious dining room with an industrial feel and ordered up. The breakfast menu consists of five “entrees” that range in price from $9 to $14, including “Biscuits Benedict,” “Grillades & Grits,” the “Pancake Plate” and the “Blue Collar Breakfast,” along with five other “Biscuits and Burritos” options. We opted for “Cathead’s Country Breakfast” ($14) without properly reading the description. Folks, it was a mountain of delicious food: scrambled eggs, smoked pulled pork, a cathead biscuit with gravy, two fried chicken tenders and a salted caramel doughnut on the side. We did not come close to finishing it, but it was the kind of
breakfast that could carry a hungry man through the day. Let’s talk about these doughnuts. Cathead’s bakes its doughnuts onsite, under the eye of head baker Kelli Marks, and they are far beyond your dad’s glazed dozen. Think maple bacon, triple chocolate, topped with breakfast cereal or with a glistening and crunchy strawberry glaze. The doughnuts alone are worth a stop at Cathead’s. A return trip to lunch the following week revealed another surprise for a Ferneau establishment. Rather than table service, diners wend their way through a cafeteria-style line for a “meat and three” plate lunch on a tray ($11), dished up by the friendly and chatty Ferneau himself. From a variety of tempting choices, we enjoyed excellent fried chicken, some of the best mashed potatoes we’ve had in years, tender squash, purple hull peas that were perhaps too mushy and a fluffy cathead biscuit. For the chicken, Cathead’s offers a squeeze bottle of “Maple Hot” sauce that added a sweet and slightly spicy tang to the