Collards, Black-Eye Peas, and Bourbon Soup @ Angeline
I'm always a little leery when I encounter a country-style dish, full of rustic ingredients, on the menu of an ambitious, expensive restaurant. The adaptations the recipe must undergo often removes the soul from the dish, an there it is, with the worst features of both high- and low-end cooking. And then I'm very pleased when a restaurant manages to pull off the concept. Alex Harrell, the chef-owner of Angeline, has done that. Here's a very homely bowl of collard greens, black-eye peas, pork stock and bacon. And it's delicious. The shot of bourbon whiskey at the end gives it that special something, both in terms of flavor and uniqueness. (We must have something to think about, not merely to eat.) It's the house soup at Angeline, the successor to the space where Stella! used to be.
