Valentine’s Day is a perfect excuse to go out and stuff your face. Wait?! It’s not? Surly it is…right? I think so, and that’s exactly what I did! My husband and I went to The Pearl for dinner, along with another couple. I will skip the bit about all of the cocktails, wine, scrumptious food, desserts…mmm! I’m drooling, just thinking about it. The tastiest item of the night, was the first thing we ate; the Jalapeno Corn Spoon Bread.
Presentation – 1 crumb
Serving the bread in the pan it was cooked in, always gives the dish a rustic touch and truly makes the dish feel more homemade. The butter and honey?! Most restaurants would give you side dishes of bread and honey seperately and call it a day. The Pearl made a volcano of butter, with honey lava on top. You know, like when you have mash potatos and gravy and you dig out the cener of the mash and plop the gravy on top? Genius! Towards the end of the dish, we ended up mixing both the honey and the butter for a sweet concoction. The bread is to be eaten with a spoon, hence it’s name, so one spoon was placed on the cutting board, completing the rustic look.
Bread Variety – 1 Crumb
I’ve said this before, corn bread doesn’t need additional bread to accompany it. No need for another bread and really if there was one, I would be suspicious.
Quality of Bread – 1 Cumb
If I could give this jalapeno corn bread an extra crumb, it would go here! There was so much moisture in this bread, it almost felt like a dessert. As the name indicates, the bread was cooked with chopped up pieces of jalapeno inside which you could taste, but didn’t overpower the corn bread and sweetness of the butter on top. The outside of the corn bread had a crust which I love. My husband tends to avoid that part, but had no issue eating the outside of this bread. The middle of the bread was spongey, moist and delicious! Typical corn bread flavor mixed with a hint of spice.
Quality and Quantity of Spreads – 1 Cumb
To go along with this phenominal corn bread, was whipped butter and local honey. I mentioned earlier about the volcano of butter and honey, man was that a good call. Although the corn bread can be eaten without anything, the sweetness of the butter and honey go a long way. The whipped butter was creamy and fluffy, and the local honey tasted so fresh. Even though the honey is on top of the butter, I was able to grab either a knife full of honey or butter, or mix them together like we ended up doing and I highly recommend it. There were two people sharing the bread (yes, both couples ordered their own) and plenty of butter and honey to go around. We even had a bit of mixed honey butter left over.
Cost – 1 Cumb
The jalapeno corn spoon bread is $11. A steal when you’re at a Cameron Mitchell’s Restaurant. For how huge this hunk of bread is, and that it’s locally sourced there is no doubt that this deserves a full crumb. An average entree here is $30 or so, and the other appetizers range from $11-$19, so this is one of their cheapest apps.
Overall Cumb Score – 5 Cumbs
Perfect score for the Jalapeno Corn Spoon Bread, which, by the way, I nearly looked over on their menu. The Pearl’s Menu lists the bread as “Jalapeno corn spoon bread”, well I thought this was a corn dish and almost passed up this delicious opportunity. Thank goodness my husband knows that I’m always on the hunt for bread and suggested it. I highly highly highly recommend going to The Pearl to try their corn bread. You will absolutely not be disappointed!
