 M-M-M-M....
GOOD!
Don’t
let the façade fool you – located in a not-so-gentrified
neighborhood bordering the downtown area, M&M Soul Food serves
excellent dishes with very reasonable prices, to boot. I’m
no connoisseur of Southern-style, down-home cooking, preferring
instead to lump all things deep-fried and coated in batter or slathered
with butter, in this category; and I may very well be wrong or one-dimensional,
but in this instance, it defines this restaurant, to-a-tee.
Let’s
face it, there are days that call for fine dining – white
linen, silver, china, the works; but more often than not, most days,
we hanker for what we like to call “comfort food.” For
me, that means fried chicken with mashed potatoes and gravy; or
meatloaf; or beef stew. Basically anything belonging to what I consider
my four key food groups - deep-fried, butter, batter and gravy.
The
food at M&M is not a grease-fest, mind you, I’m a little
more discriminate than that. What it is though, is perfectly-fried
and seasoned chicken or pork chops or catfish or whatever else is
on the menu.
Looking
like a ‘60’s diner that’s seen better days, and
situated in a mall that looks like it’s in a time warp, the
only evidence of this restaurant’s popularity is the row of
cars that fills the parking lot. You get all sorts dining here –
from ladies in their Sunday best, to those who look like they’ve
just gotten up, and sometimes, even tourists, easily identifiable
by their fanny-packs and cameras.
 Inside,
the décor is modest, at best. Booths, seating four, line
the entire length of one wall. Large windows complement the booths,
though the view is partly marred by text of promos and menu items
painted on the glass panes – “Wings and Waffles - $5!”
and the like. It is what it is though, and amen to that! This is
not a themed-restaurant that involves a design team and executive
chef. The servers are efficient, friendly, polite and not at all
officious. And the place gives off a genuinely homely vibe.
It’s our usual routine to come here for breakfast on the weekends,
especially since it runs till 1 p.m., making it more of a brunch
than anything else.
Breakfast
is a full-plate of your choice of meat, two eggs, toast or biscuits,
or what they like to call a ‘side order’ of wings and
waffles, which is deceptive, for it’s a heaping plate of two
large waffles served with a couple of deep-fried chicken wings.
Although
we like to think we’re adventurous when it comes to trying
out new dishes, we’ve latched on to our favorites (after only
a few visits) and haven’t ordered anything different since
then. Our “usual” comprises the pork sausage, chicken
wings and pork chop breakfasts. The only variation is what ‘sides’
we choose – namely, Mississippi-style potatoes, rice, fried
or scrambled eggs, and always, but always, biscuits over toast.
 The
sausage patties are at once savory and sweet, with the right amount
of spices, enough to make it interesting and world’s away
from the standard sausage served in generic breakfast joints everywhere.
The chicken wings and pork chops are both perfectly seasoned, with
a light coat of flour, resulting in a crunchy, and yet tender and
juicy meat. The biscuits are another matter – fluffy, buttery
and yet somehow dense with the richness of butter. They come served
piping hot, as if straight from the oven.
The
gravy is another matter. You can request a side order of this liquid
gold, though it’s really not necessary, and well, as they
say, “Everything else is gravy.”
Other
breakfast items include liver and onions, ham steak, corned beef
hash, catfish and more. Also on offer are omelets, pancakes, french
toast and grits. Diners can opt to order a la carte meats and side
dishes such as collard greens, macaroni and cheese, yams, black-eyed
peas, red beans and rice, potato salad, fried okra and rice and
gravy. During lunch and dinner, full orders come with three sides,
and half-orders with two.
Wash
this all down with some muddy water – which is lemonade and
iced tea. For some unexplainable reason, we’ve never ordered
dessert here, though we’re certain they’re going to
be fantastic too. Diners have a choice of the classics - sweet potato
pie, peach cobbler or banana pudding.
Here,
nowhere is the pairing of ‘soul’ and ‘food’
more evident. It’s like “bacon and eggs,” “Yin
and Yang,” or more to the point, “biscuits and gravy.”
-Rachel
M. Sugay
M&M
Soul Food
3923 W. Charleston Boulevard (Westgate Shopping Center, corner Valley
View). Tel: 702-453-7685. Open daily, 7 a.m.-8 p.m. Price range:
Breakfast, $6-$8.50. Appetizers, from $4. Entrees, $11.99-$18.99.
A la carte meats, $6-$26.
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