I spend a lot of time at restaurants that have some sort of theme. They have some sort of ethnic or regional flair, you can throw peanuts on the floor, they set stuff on fire at the table, you get the idea. Now I have nothing against these places (many of which are chains), but for all the pomp and circumstance, I sometimes find that these places are missing once critical component……soul. They have decent food, but it’s massed produced and largely blanded down so that people’s palates won’t be offended by salt or pepper. The problem with this is that I grew up eating Mama’s food, which always had plenty of spices and usually a decent amount of heat. So no matter how fancy a place is and what kind of gimmick they sell, more often than not I find myself shaking out some salt and asking for some hot sauce.
Well, FINALLY I have located a place that cooks not only the kind of food I grew up eating, but it’s also so well cooked I don’t have to add a thing to it. Kitchen Express at 4600 Asher in Little Rock has made me nothing short of ecstatic. When I first walked in to the cafeteria style restaurant, I was greeted with the sight of some of my favorite things; fried chicken, fried catfish, and smoked turkey legs. Yes, giant caveman sized turkey legs. Then on down the line to the sides, they have greens, REAL macaroni and cheese, black eyed peas, and one of my personal favorites, candied sweet potatoes. I went for the fried chicken, with greens, mac and cheese, and the sweet potatoes. I also had a roll, which was perfect for dipping into the delicious greens juice.
Every bit of it was a good decision! The greens were perfect and I’m going to jump out there and say that they have the best greens in Little Rock. They are seasoned to perfection, and don’t have that weird chemical taste that the big chain restaurant greens have sometimes. The chicken was crispy and juicy, the sweet potatoes were fabulous, and the mac and cheese is REAL. It’s not that fake stuff from a box and it’s for sure not the big #10 can of cheese dumped over noodles. It’s cheesy and perfect. Then as if all that wasn’t enough, they have a peach cobbler that is so good I just wanted to eat a giant plate of nothing but cobbler. Seriously, it was a perfect ending to a delicious, well-made meal.
http://thekitchenexpress.com/ is their site so you can scope them out online. I went to their site and was beside myself to see that they have breakfast!
and they do catering……..I feel an excuse to party coming on!
