You may remember that a couple months ago I sampled Johnny’s hot wings. For the sake of variety, Jill and I decided that I should try the jerk wings as well. Still wings but so very different from the hot wings.
I have to confess, I think I prefer the zing of hot wings. Still, the jerk wings were flavorful and delicious. If you’re not a fan of hot wings, I’d say that jerk wings are a yummy alternative. Still tasty, just not spicy!
Johnny always strives to make food that is good for the soul and his soups are no exception! Pintos are a perfect match for anything on the menu but I’m also happy to have a cup of chili or brunswick stew any time.
Johnny’s soups come in the traditional sizes of cup or bowl but if you’re really adventurous, you should give the endless bowl a try. For only $4.95, it’s as much soup as you can eat. Johnny will keep refilling your bowl with any soup of your choice! So go on, try that cup of pintos. Then the chili. Then the brunswick stew. What have you got to lose?
I’ll be up front and say that I don’t like mushrooms or pickles. They’re on my list of foods that I routinely “eat around” and leave on my plate if they happen to be mixed in with something I’m eating.
But I agreed to try Johnny’s fried pickles and fried mushrooms anyway. I wasn’t sure that I would like them but I knew they deserved a chance.
The verdict: YUMMY! I probably won’t be ordering either one instead of a brisket quesadilla any time in the future, but I wouldn’t mind eating them again.
Both the pickles and mushrooms were fried right. The batter wasn’t too thick yet still lent the right amount of fried flavor give the mushrooms a unique taste. Inside the batter, the pickles were still surprisingly crisp and fresh. To top it off, these dishes are both served with Johnny’s delicious smokehouse sauce. I think I would eat nearly anything if only it were dipped in this amazing sauce!
Nearly every time I look at the JMS menu, the hummus jumps out at me. I first tried it at an event a couple years ago and have since had it in the restaurant. Every time, I’ve loved it. So, I’ve been looking forward to photographing (and eating!) it. All winter long, I’ve been looking forward to it.
Jill and I agreed that hummus is more of a spring/summer dish and so we should wait until warmer weather to feature it. So I waited through the icky winter weather. I waited through snow and rain. I waited when the temperature was below freezing and I thought my toes would fall off. Can you tell that I don’t really enjoy winter anyway? Waiting for hummus just became one more reason I couldn’t wait for spring to arrive. Now, warm weather is finally here and so is my beloved hummus.
Johnny’s hummus is delicious. Garlic is a part of many dishes on the menu and hummus is no different. BUT it’s not overwhelming. Two words come to mind when I think about Johnny’s hummus: smooth and cool. Oh yes, this hummus definitely has texture but at the same time it is very smooth. It’s also the perfect snack when the sun has been beating down on you all day and your tastebuds feel half-dead from heat exhaustion. To me, there’s just something about hummus that says “relax and enjoy this delicious food.”
Johnny’s hummus comes with veggie sticks or homemade corn chips. There’s a delightfully fresh *crunch* of eating hummus with veggie sticks. At the same time, Johnny’s homemade corn chips are fresh and crispy in their own way and are quite a delicious companion.
I know you’ll love this hummus but let me know which dipping companion you prefer: corn chips or veggies?
These nachos will blow your mind!
If you’ve never ordered Johnny’s nachos, please take a look at the additional pictures on Flickr. Without seeing it for yourself, you would not believe how much Johnny and Jill pile onto this plate. Johnny’s nachos are not your typical ballpark fare of a tray of chips drizzled with cheese. Put that image out of your mind and instead envision nachos done right: a large Johnny Mitchell’s plate completely covered with delicious corn chips, heaped with black bean queso dip, the best brisket ever, tomatoes, onions, and extra cheese.
These nachos are truly a full meal for two people or a very generous appetizer for four or even six people.
This is the sort of dish that makes you want to bring all your friends to Johnny’s, just to have an excuse to order nachos!
Johnny’s brisket and black bean queso dip are two of my favorite items. I just never get over the flavorful tenderness of the brisket, sure to be the best you’ve ever had. As I think I’ve mentioned before, black beans are one of my favorite foods ever, so of course I love the magic that Johnny works to make these black beans even more delicious. Fortunately for me, the nachos are a perfect harmony of these two amazing foods. What’s not to love?
If you didn't make it to Johnny's today, you missed some amazing specials!
Soup of the Day: Chicken Vegetable
Special Dessert: Mardi Gras Bread Pudding
Johnny says his chicken vegetable soup is good for the soul and I quite agree. The smooth yet flavorful broth, yummy chunks of chicken, and a healthy dose of vegetables make for a soup that will fill your stomach and warm your heart.
In honor of Mardi Gras, Jill put together this very special bread pudding. Unlike other bread puddings I’ve had, it wasn’t mushy! This was a special dish for today only. Recommendation: beg Jill to make it again next year!
In the mean time, be sure to visit Johnny’s often so you won’t miss out on other very special daily specials.
Check back later for photos and a post about the fish filet with onion nibs and mac n' cheese!
I had such an exciting evening yesterday! I’m posting this around lunchtime so that you’ll be able to sit down and eat as you read about last night’s lovely Winter Wine Dinner. Remember: the Smokehouse is open on Saturdays. If your PB&J sandwich suddenly isn’t cutting it, treat yourself to lunch (or dinner) at Johnny’s!
The Pairings:
Amusé: Croquette filled with brisket and two cheeses
Appetizer: Seared Scallop and Shrimp on Lobster Cream; served with Noblissimo Pino Grigio
Entrée: Beef Filet with Peppercorn Reduction, Potato Gratin, and Green Beans; served with Napa Cellars Zinfandel
Dessert: Chocolate Cherry Cobbler and Vanilla Ice Cream; served with Solaire (Cabernet Sauvignon) by Robert Mondovi
Now that your mouth is watering, let me assure you that each dish was just as amazing as it sounds.
I’m already voting to make last night’s amusé a permanent part of the JMS menu. I’m beginning to realize that I love brisket more than anything else in the world. Combining brisket with cheese resulted in a delicious puffball reminiscent of a crab cake but with that extra yummy briskety essence.
As for the appetizer, I was only sad that I didn’t have a spoon with which to scoop up every last bit of lobster cream. Johnny’s scallops were perfectly cooked and the texture of the shrimp somehow accentuated the subtle flavors of the cream.
This menu was exquisitely balanced so that I wasn’t full by the time my beef filet arrived. Good thing because I think my heart would have broken if I hadn’t been able to do justice to this amazing entrée. Not only was the beef perfectly tender, the potatoes were exactly as they ought to be. However, for me, the green beans truly stole the show. Not only were they the most photogenic, but they were also crisp and buttery, delightful yet irrefutably healthy.
The chocolate cherry cobbler was a delicious cap to a lovely evening. I never pass up a chance for chocolate and the cherries were such a nice surprise!
Bottom line: sign up for the next wine dinner! I *promise* you won’t regret it.
Check out Facebook for more pictures! This is the first time I’ve photographed so much food in one sitting but I think these pics still give you a great feeling for how attractive and delicious JMS food is.
Another delicious week at Johnny Mitchell’s Smokehouse! I’m getting sick of this rainy weather and was glad to forget my troubles while sampling some amazing food!
Lucky dog that I am, I chowed down on hot wings. At parties, I usually avoid wings. I’d rather chat with my friends while eating something a bit less messy.
Today, with homemade wing sauce coating each and every one of my fingers, I realized I’ve got to make a point of breaking that habit. Like Johnny’s ribs, these wings are worth the effort! The hot wings had just enough zing to make me sit and pay attention but weren’t overpowering. The blue cheese dipping sauce that Jill brought out was the perfect complement to their spiciness.
Don’t forget: it’s homemade! Johnny and Jill make their wing sauce, dipping sauces, and salad dressings in-house from only the best ingredients. Jill admits that she finds herself turning up her nose at grocery store sour cream and mayonnaise because she’s so used to the high-quality ingredients used at the smokehouse.
This week I was in for a very special treat: two dishes. In addition to the wings, I also sampled Johnny’s ribeye with hashbrowns and a salad. Check back on Thursday for my description of this amazing hunk of meat.
I would say that the outside temperature today was more than a little bit chilly. Fortunately for me, it’s Tuesday and I spent the afternoon lounging inside the warmth of Johnny Mitchell’s Smokehouse. I was super excited about today’s appetizer: crab cakes. With all the distractions like brisket and chicken salad, I had never had Johnny’s crab cakes before.
The two crab cakes are a combination of lump and claw meat. Johnny says his philosophy about crab cakes is to “KISS it” (keep it simple stupid). The crab cakes are as much meat as possible, skipping the additives like potato or bread crumb, which are usually used to make crab cakes. JMS crab cakes are just crab, spices, and a bit of red bell pepper. They’re served on a bed of spring greens with pico de gallo, corn salsa, a lemon wedge, and smokehouse sauce.
This presentation makes for a pretty platter of food, and it even tastes delicious. I can’t call myself a crab cake connoisseur but Johnny’s seem to have the perfect crabby texture and flavor.
Hooray for another culinary triumph that I delighted in eating!
What are crab cakes doing in a barbeque restaurant?
First of all, Jill says that crab cakes are one of her favorite foods and she always wants them on the menu for that reason. Secondly, Jill has a large painting of a crab that she has hung on the back wall of the restaurant. She loves that crab painting but says she feels she has to have crab cakes on the menu to justify keeping the painting up. She thinks everything should be connected, and wi
thout crab cakes that painting would be sorely out of place. What a great combination of love and logic!
Jill's favorite painting: "Meet the Chef" by local artist Keith Lewis
In my mind, Tuesdays are already beginning to mean “yummy food.” I woke up earlier than usual today because–I kid you not–I had a dream about the delicious food of Johnny Mitchell’s Smokehouse. I was starving when I woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep! But I was also pleased because in my dream JMS was packed with happy eaters who had been following my blog. Perhaps an over exaggeration of the popularity of this little writing project but certainly an accurate take on the quality of Johnny’s food.
Last week, I nobly ate half of a brisket quesadilla and brought the other half home. Today, I thought I might need a helping mouth for some of the other larger appetizers. (Plus, why would I have ever brought along an extra person to help me eat my absolute favorite dish- the brisket quesadilla?! I’m a little bit more willing to share some of the other items on the menu, even as I continually realize that everything at Johnny’s is phenomenal and hence un-sharable.)
Today’s delight was the party pick. This is a big, honking appetizer! As willing as I am to attack any dish, I was glad I had brought along an eating buddy. Mom was glad she had volunteered for the job!
The party pick is definitely enough appetizer for four people. It’s a potpourri of four amazing JMS appetizers: black bean queso dip with blue corn chips, rubbed ribs, cheese nibbles, and brisket quesadilla.
I realize I’ve said that the brisket quesadilla is my favorite dish at Johnny’s but I haven’t mentioned that I also have an... understanding with the black bean queso dip. If you count the brisket quesadilla as my favorite entree, it’s safe to say that the black bean queso dip is my favorite appetizer. It is so yummy! I consider black beans to be the single most useful and scrumptious ingredient ever. Johnny’s queso dip is somehow creamy while leaving the delectable black beans intact. I’m running out of synonyms so I will just give it to you straight: chilled in the summer or warm in the winter, this black bean queso dip is probably one of the most amazing things you will ever eat.
See previous posting and above paragraph for my raptures about the brisket quesadilla. (I don’t want to bore you, although I’m happy to discuss and eat brisket quesadillas all day every day.) The party pick comes with half of a brisket quesadilla- four triangles.
The cheese nibbles were a surprise. I expected traditional mozzarella sticks, but ten times better because, after all, this is Johnny’s. Instead, I found part of the plate filled with delightful, lightly-battered white cheddar. Each bite was the perfect mixture of cheese and batter.
Finally we dug into the ribs. I admit, I was saving the ribs for last for a reason. You see, I’m not really a rib person. To me, they’ve always seemed messy and very labor-intensive for such a small amount of meat. Not so at Johnny’s. I guess by now I shouldn’t be surprised that JMS food always surprises me.
Johnny cooks his ribs in house, to competition standards, each and every time. He believes that the mark of a perfect rib is not necessarily for the meat to be falling off the bone. Instead, biting into a rib should leave a perfect semi-circle cutout. He described this to us, Mom took a bite, and I took a picture. Sure enough, as Mom chewed on an amazingly juicy and flavorful morsel, we could see that the meat was missing a semi-circle the exact size of her bite. Emboldened, I put down my camera and picked up a rib, preparing myself to be wowed. I was thrilled that not only were Johnny’s ribs delicious but they were also not as messy as I feared. Johnny explained that he likes the ribs to be moist, but not drowning in sauce. Instead, it was up to me to dip (or not) into the sauces available on our table.
Another amazing tidbit about Johnny’s ribs: you can taste them for a long time. Driving home, I could still feel the ribs on my tongue. It wasn’t just an aftertaste. For about two hours, I swore I could still exactly taste the ribs. It was amazing.
Note: even as two very hungry people, we could not finish off this dish. It’s definitely an appetizer for at least four and a meal for two to three people.
Click here for more pictures of the party pick on Facebook
Starting with my favorite item on the menu seemed like a pretty good idea. Nothing beats a crispy tortilla filled with brisket, cheese, black beans, and yumminess. Add the red, green, and corn salsas served with this eight-piece quesadilla and you have a pleasing appetizer for 3-4 people.
I have a bit of a secret to confess: though I gave it a valiant effort, I couldn’t finish this entire dish. Even after eating my fill (I considered it a very large afternoon snack) I still had quesadilla left to carry out. At home, mixing the leftover green salsa into some rice and stir-fried vegetables was the perfect side dish for the leftovers. If you’re not a fan of leftovers, try ordering the “snack size.” This half-quesadilla is the perfect lunch for one.
That’s my best shot at describing this dish. Now you understand why I’m planning to rely heavily on interviews with Johnny and Jill and pictures of the food. I can’t claim to be any sort of foodie. I like to eat and I can follow a recipe but beyond that I’m clueless. To make up for my lack of discernment when it comes to subtle flavors, I’m putting together this blog. I’m convinced that me telling you that Johnny and Jill’s food is delicious won’t be enough to get you out the door and to Euharlee. Instead, I hope that between the pictures and the interviews, you’ll begin to feel those cravings that can only be satisfied by a meal (or two or ten) at Johnny Mitchell’s Smokehouse.
Click here to see more pictures of the brisket quesadilla on Flickr
