Run of The Mill

Well, I got some good news today. Y'all may recall that a couple of weeks back, I had to go in for an echocardiogram. It was occasioned by my GP noticing on my chest film to diagnose a case of "walking pneumonia" a month or so ago that I had a very slightly enlarged heart. Moreover, while forcing a lot of fluids, I had experienced some pitting edema in my ankles and a suspiciously high amount of fluid in my lungs, even for pneumonia. Anyone with any kind of medical background will immediately recognize those as possible symptoms of CHF (congestive heart failure) as I did. I got the results given to the cardiologist from Shands / Jax, Dr. Chapman, this afternoon. All findings were perfectly normal. Moreover, my heart is actually in remarkably good shape. For those in the know, my ejection percentage is 77 %. Not too shabby for a guy pushing 62 and in a wheelchair for 5 years as of 5 days ago. So, anyway, I got out of the doctors office off of Kings Bay Road around three. Having had nothing but a child-sized lunch at school, I was a little hungry and in the mood for a good meal. So, I thought, "Why not give The Mill Seafood Bar & Grill a try?" If you don't know, that's the new restaurant opened last week by the current owner of Steffens. It is in the old St. Marys Seafood and Steak building in Lillliput. I got there about 3:15. The first thing I noticed was that there was not a single disabled parking space in sight, much less a "van accessible" space (more about that later). But, given the time of day, there were just handful of cars and, as I suspected, most of those belonged to employees. There were four customers when I arrived, which ain't bad for 3:15 on a Tuesday. I just found a space with an adjacent open space on the passenger side and deployed my own traffic cone in that space after I exited my van. The owner, Linda somebody-or-other, was there, "hands on" managing every little detail. The first thing I noticed when I came in the door was that the rumors that they had entirely gutted the place were true - as I had hoped they would be, if only for sanitary reasons, much less aesthetics. However, the second thing you notice is that the whole place is permeated with a peculiar chemical odor. Perhaps it was a new paint smell, but I really could not identify it. Fortunately, you get used to it in 5 to 10 minutes. Service was prompt by a friendly enough young gal. She only lost points for failing to see that I had no silverware when she delivered my food about 12 minutes (good) after I ordered it. While she had disappeared into the kitchen by the time I discovered the omission, the alert bartender fixed me right up. The decor is interesting enough, especially if you ever worked in the actual mill. The soon-to-be unemployed mill hands obviously took all available mementos - nailed down or not. Many have been donated and now adorn the walls. Once again, though, the owner has not thought out the dining area lighting very well. About three feet from the walls, the are small track lights pointed back at the walls to highlight all of the mill artifacts hanging on the walls. They do that well and I would recommend keeping them. However, they are the ONLY light sources in that part of the dining room. The result is that even at 3:30 in the afternoon, the tables themselves are insufficiently lighted. God only knows how much worse the problem is at night when you would surely be sitting in near darkness with the glare of the spots bouncing off the walls into your dilated pupils. The solution is to keep the tracked spots, but also hang the same lights you have in the front dining area over the tables in the back area. Sure, it will kill the dark cocktail lounge ambiance of the small bar at the end of the dining area, but barflys will just have to suffer through it or go to some dive suitably dark for their liking. Food-eating patrons tend to like to see what they are eating. Now, let's get down to the food. Given that they put themselves forward as a "seafood bar and grill," I naturally opted for seafood. I figured I would try a Southern seafood staple - a combination of fried oysters and fried shrimp. My order came with twelve shrimp, twelve oysters, 0ne baked potato with butter and sour cream, 4 hush puppies, cole slaw, tartar sauce, cocktail sauce, and unsweetened iced tea. The entree was $12.95. The tea was $1.85. Let me start with the cole slaw. The cut and texture were excellent - those little cubed chunks of cabbage that are so nice and crunchy. Unfortunately, someone went nuts with sweet pickle cubes, sweet pickle juice, and sugar. The pickle taste completely and utterly overwhelmed the taste of the cabbage. Without the sweet pickles and juice and with maybe only 1/10th of the sugar, it would have been very good. The baked potato was a nice sized baking potato which, unfortunately, came out of the oven maybe 15 minutes too soon. Practice will fix that. The butter was already on the table when I rolled up. It was those tiny little 1/2 cubic inch plastic containers of whipped butter. You have to open about a dozen to get enough butter for your potato. For God's sake, order a baked potato at, say, Sonny's, and take notes. The small and entirely inadequate dollop (maybe a rounded tablespoon) of sour cream had obviously been dipped out of a larger container back in the kitchen and put into a small plastic cup. It should have been served with 2 of those rip and squeeze, portion controlled, waxed paper containers of sour cream- again, like at Sonny's. The cocktail sauce was mousy. It easily needed half-again as much fresh horseradish. The tartar sauce tasted like they had made it themselves. Not a bad try, but see if you can match Aunt B's - the best I've ever had anywhere. The hush puppies were a doughy disaster. They were not only undercooked, but the things (well, "thing" - I only ate part of one) tasted like they were made from a bag of corn meal that was left over form St.Marys Seafood and Steak - way stale. No onions in them. There is a simple solution: tell your supplier that you must have 25 lb bags of "House -Autry" brand buttermilk hush puppy mix with dried Vidalia onion flakes. All you do is add water to the right consistency. Refrigerated, leftover, mixed dough is perfectly good the next day. Trust me on this: I'm a former seafood restaurant manager and as-need-be seafood cook. Now, moving on to the shrimp and oysters. Both had clearly been thawed out raw, then breaded and cooked in the kitchen. The breading, though tolerable and not too thick, was, unfortunately, 100% wheat flour. You will find that most Southerners (and like it or not, we are and will continue to be the bulk of your customers - if you survive) prefer a breading that is a mix of plain (not self rising)wheat flour and finely ground corn meal - preferably white - in roughly equal parts. The solution is, again, quite simple: tell your supplier not to come back without House -Autry seafood breading. It's exactly the way we like it. The shrimp were on the small end of the jumbo spectrum, but still a little too large for my taste. Both the shrimp and oysters were fried just exactly the right amount of time in fresh, good quality oil at the right temperature. In terms of volume, the meal was a good deal at the price. If she will make the changes I'm suggesting., she could give Lang's a real run for their money. A caveat: if you like to eat at a place where you feel like the owner is genuinely friendly, genuinely cares about her customers and welcomes constructive criticism, then neither The Mill nor Steffen's are good choices for you. Now, on the other hand, if you yourself are from New York and are quite used to scowling, disingenuous, unfriendly asses -or even better, you are one, then you will feel right at home. You will recall my mentioning that I did not see any disabled parking spaces upon my arrival. As I was about to leave my table, the owner came over and warily asked me if everything was alright. Based upon my previous encounters with her at Steffens, I knew she was being totally disingenuous and spoiling for a fight. I told her it was "pretty good" ( and to be sure, I've had worse). I then asked, "Have y'all opted not to have disabled parking or have you just not gotten around to it yet?" Well, she flashed her true self on me instantaneously, blurting out, in a tone only wimpy married men are obliged to tolerate, "Why, that was the very first thing we did. It's right there on the corner. How could you have missed it!?" I calmly replied that I obviously had, but would certainly look for it on my way out. Well, it was there alright. Right on the very front right corner of the building, without any effort to go on the Internet for guidance as to ADA compliance, they had painted a dark blue square, about 36" X 36" in the exact middle of the parking space. The little stick man in the wheelchair was probably hand drawn and painted in fire-plug yellow. In ADA compliant spaces, the entire space is painted about this shade of blue, the stick man is white, the sign is high enough to be seen above the roof lines of cars (their's was 6 inches off the ground on one of those old, cut-off pilings and totally obscured from my view by the car parked in the one space they've marked half-assedly), and it has diagonal lines on either side of the parking space to give extra passenger embarkation / disembarkation space. There had apparently been a car parked over it when I drove up. I know, you're saying, "But Moreno, couldn't you see the diagonal white lines on either side of the designated parking place, or the disabled parking sign on top of a pole marking the place?" No on both counts. The diagonal lines do not exist. If you park in that space and you need a little extra side room to deal with a wheelchair or walker, you're just SOL if there is a car in the next space. One wonders what half-assed Lilliput building inspector signed off on that travesty of ADA compliance? It's y'all's decision, but this is the old gal's third strike with me. She's done. I'll stick to Aunt B's where both Jeannie and Cathy know me and like me, and vice -versa , genuinely appreciate my business, AND the food is always top notch, authentic, Southern home-cooking. Addendum: Just in case the owner might like to be ADA compliant, here is a link to the regs: http://www.access-board.gov/adaag/html/adaag.htm#purpose FYI: Title III - Public Accommodations by Private Business A public accommodation is a private entity that owns, operates, leases, or leases to, a place of public accommodation. Places of public accommodations include a wide range of entities, such as restaurants, hotels, theaters, retail stores, museums, libraries, parks, private schools, and day care centers. Title III prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in all of these areas. Title III requires places of public accommodation to remove barriers in existing facilities where it is "readily achievable." Readily achievable means it is "easily accomplished and able to be carried out without much difficulty or expense." Examples include the simple ramping of a few steps, the lowering of telephones, and similar modest adjustments. When barrier removal is not readily achievable, alternative steps are required such as providing in-store assistance for removing articles from inaccessible shelves. Link to info on commercial House-Autry seafood breaders: http://www.house-autry.com/food/breaders.aspx Link to info on commercial House-Autry hush puppy mixes: http://www.house-autry.com/food/mixes.aspx Link to House-Autry retail products for home use: http://www.house-autry.com/retail/index.aspx