Smoked Tomato Whaaaaa? – #1LinerWeds

That is not the center of a hush puppy.

I knew this wasn’t going to be a good idea, but I was drooling over the thought of hush puppies.

I should have known better. I should have, but I have a weakness for hush puppies. And I’m an optimist. Still, I should have listened to that voice in my head that was saying: “no,dude, that’s not right.” I should have gone with my instinct to look up what, in the name of all that is holly, ‘queso menonita’ is. I should have thought harder about why they were including ‘smoked tomato espelette vinaigrette’ instead of, oh, I don’t know – BUTTER!

I should have done all that, but something inside kept saying “hush puppies.” “Hush puppies, they have hush puppies!” I saw all that other stuff, but I told myself that it was just some goofy dipping sauce and I didn’t have to use it. I told myself I could just ask for more butter – because if you order hush puppies, you’re getting some butter…right?

I asked the bartender if the hush puppies were good. I should have finished my beer and walked away when he said: “I haven’t tried them, but I’ve heard good things” cuz who wouldn’t have tried hush puppies?

I ordered them, along with a Chicken Waffle slider and a Pulled Pork slider. I’d had the pulled pork slider before – it was good. So, I expected everything else to be good. The hush puppies were a new item, and in fairness to me, we don’t see hush puppies on the menu up here in New England very often, so the desire was strong.

The hush puppies were over-cooked. I could tell, but hey, they could still be good, right? I broke one in half with my fork. What the fritter? There was stuff inside. That queso menoito stuff was inside – inside – my – hush puppies! Who does that? Nothing goes inside hush puppies. Hush puppies go all the way through. And there was no butter, but butter wouldn’t have helped. I texted the Editor. She replied: “that doesn’t look right.” I tasted one – awful! Hard crunchy thin hush puppy-like shell around gross cheesey stuff with a mashed potato consistency but none of the flavor. It was like a Tootsie-Roll Pop specifically designed to insult southern cooking.

The pulled pork slider was good. The chicken waffle slider wasn’t bad, but the waffle tasted like the frozen, toaster variety. The beer was good.

When the bartender asked how I liked my meal, I said:

“For future reference: if someone asks you if the hush puppies are good, tell them no, no they are not, not if you like hush puppies.”

I didn’t complain about the leggo-my-eggo chicken sandwich, because it was a misdemeanor compared to the capital offense of those hush puppies. He apologized and gave me a beer on the house.

This post is part of Linda G. Hill’s fun weekly series One-Liner Wednesday. If you have a one-liner, I’d encourage you to join in on the fun. You can follow this link to participate and to see the one-liners from the other participants.

Today’s gallery is a mixed bag of photos. Some are related my recent injury. If you actually want to see the current state of that finger, you can click here. I didn’t want to put it in the gallery.

The day began with breakfast at Maddie’s.

This is how dinner began. I was feeling pretty optimistic.

Sun setting behind my beer.

I kept trying to capture the sun setting behind this beer.

Pulled pork on the right – chicken waffle slider on the left.

As soon as they were delivered, I realized there was a problem.

These guys are still blooming.

I am making progress with the macro feature.

Maddie decided that we were sitting, even though I didn’t take the cot outside with us.

It looks homemade, but it tasted like frozen.

Uh oh! Zip-ties.

Next meal out was fish & chips at my regular place.

Note: diagonal cutting pliers were used to cut those Zip-ties.

“Excuse me. I see that you’re working, but do you have any peanuts?”