If you are cooking �Southern country,� it helps to have
a grandma in the kitchen. At County Seat Restaurant in Powhatan, Va., you
often have two � the mother-and-daughter team of Mattie Clayton and Janie
Dean. At 90-plus years of age, Mattie brings a wealth of experience to the
table. �My mom and grandma have always been great cooks,� says Tracy Cifers,
restaurant manager and the third generation behind County Seat. �Mom wants a
gathering place where everybody knows your name and you can enjoy down-home
country cooking.� Janie shares, �Even when I�m in the kitchen, I can tell if
my diners are happy by the sounds I hear. I want to hear happy sounds!�
Janie recalls that when she was 56 years young, her
mother hinted that she should get a job. That was 20 years ago. �Cooking was
what I did the best, so it was natural for me to open a restaurant. We
thought this would be a good location since it�s close to the courthouse. We
don�t want to be fancy. We just want to be good. Mom makes the cakes and
pies,� explains Janie. In fact, today, her blackberry cobblers and
fruitcakes are legendary. �Grandma will make hundreds of fruitcakes during
the holiday season, which are often reserved weeks before the holidays,�
says Tracy.
The menu is full of tempting country favorites such as
fried chicken, meat loaf, catfish, and a variety of daily specials. On the
night I visited County Seat, I tried a daily special of tilapia, which was
lightly seasoned and topped with a Caribbean shrimp sauce.
My vegetable was mashed potatoes with cheddar cheese. While tilapia
isn�t your typical country dish, it was full of down-home flavor. This does
raise a question: Is Southern country cooking limited to just traditional
dishes? Janie feels it�s the flavor that makes it �country.� Other
dishes that carried me back to my Southern roots were the smothered chicken
saut�ed in onions and mushrooms and the meat loaf topped with a tangy sauce.
Often there�s a particular dish that be�comes the
trademark for a restaurant, and judging from the many, many plates coming
from the kitchen laden with fried chicken, I would have to say it must be
County Seat�s most requested entree. With this observation, I felt I just
had to sample it along with my other entrees. It was, without question, a
remarkable piece of fried chicken � golden brown, tender and juicy. Janie
says she believes one of the reasons people like the taste of her chicken is
that each piece is hand-floured. And one can�t fail to notice the divine
fragrance of homemade bread that wafts throughout the restaurant.
A country meal just isn�t complete without dessert, so
Tracy brought me two of her patrons� favorites. First � the chocolate chess
pie. I can certainly understand why it�s so popular � it�s delicious ... oh,
so chocolatey! The second confection was buttermilk pie. I hadn�t had
buttermilk pie since my grandmother prepared it for our family Christmas
dinners during my childhood years, so this was more than just a dessert � it
was a heavenly stroll down memory lane. If you�ve never tried buttermilk
pie, the County Seat is a great place to indulge your taste buds for the
first time. Other signature desserts crafted by Mattie include a caramel
cake, an apple cake, and both a coconut cake and pie. At some restaurants,
dessert can be an afterthought, but at the County Seat, it would be tempting
to make them the main course.
This was not my first visit to County Seat.
I had actually enjoyed a tasty breakfast there before deciding to
write about the restaurant. I ordered the �Courthouse Breakfast,� with eggs
over medium, sausage, and grits with a short stack. While some people say,
�It�s hard to mess up breakfast,� I say, �County Seat gets breakfast right!�
At both breakfast and dinner, I observed an abundance
of �good cheer,� with people just having a good time visiting from table to
table. Tracy sums up the
quality of their restaurant with the following remark, �We have some diners
that eat with us at every meal we are open.� The restaurant is open for
three meals each day except Sunday, when only breakfast and lunch buffets
are served.
On many Saturday nights the restaurant hosts live
music, so the County Seat is not just a place for delightful home cooking,
but a comfortable gathering spot for fun with friends and family as well.
Do you have a favorite restaurant? Please
email your suggestions to: [email protected]
3883 Old Buckingham Road, Powhatan, VA
23139 �
804-598-5000 �
www.thecountyseat.com
