Local publicist serves up fine Southern flavor

There are few things I find as cringe-worthy as hearing someone I know saying, “I’d love to open a restaurant.”

It’s not that I don’t wish them well or that I don’t want them to pursue their heart’s passion and ambition, but in my position it can be a little uncomfortable to go from friend or acquaintance to public critic. It’s one thing to be the toast of your friends and family when it comes to putting food on the dinner table, but another when it comes to feeding a general public with hundreds of options daily.

So there was a mutual twitchy moment when I walked into Kiss My Grits at Puck’s Alley and saw Kristin Jackson behind the counter. Twitchy on her end because she knew I was there likely to review the new eatery. Twitchy on my end because I’ve known her for a long time, not as a food industry denizen, but as an entertainment and celebrity publicist. I had no idea she had restaurant ambitions nor what she could do in the kitchen. I was about to find out.

Luckily, it turns out she has some real culinary cred from another life back in North Carolina. For her a career in public relations was the fluke.

KISS MY GRITS Puck’s Alley, 1035 University Ave. » 348-0626 Food Service Ambience <img alt=" Value Hours: 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesdays and Wednesdays, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Thursdays to Saturdays and 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sundays Cost: $25 to $30 for two Ratings compare similar restaurants: – excellent – very good; exceeds expectations – average – below average.

“I cooked all through college, worked in restaurants and did baking and catering over the years,” she said.

When she moved to Hawaii 17 years ago, she assumed she would resume her kitchen pursuits, but her life took a detour.

“I fell into a PR job with (the artist) Wyland and then from there moved on to ‘Baywatch,’ and I kept getting jobs in entertainment PR,” she said.

But opening a restaurant remained in the back of her mind, and, she said, “It was something my brother, family and I have been talking about for 10 years. Finally I decided six months ago — I must have had a bored moment — to go for it.”

Mom and Dad flew over to help her open, brother Rob remains in the kitchen and Uncle Don Stutts just arrived to manage the restaurant, opened in partnership with Kenji Stevens.

THE RECIPES at the family-run Kiss My Grits turn out to be a mash-up of family and church recipes they’ve collected over the years. It’s North Carolina-style Southern cuisine that hasn’t had much of a presence here, so vinegary flavors will be new to those accustomed to tomato-based barbecue. Some flavors and textures have also been modified to suit their palate, so Southern sweet tea is about a quarter as sweet as the South I know best, which is the Florida Panhandle/Alabama corner, and breading on fried green tomatoes is pure cornmeal to suit the gluten-intolerant.

Such adaptations are welcome by this diner, though not being from the South, I’m probably more open to the changes than someone from there, just as I would be more finicky about laulau than someone who didn’t grow up with certain expectations. But I don’t need more sugar than necessary for a modicum of flavor, and the cornmeal crust has a wonderful texture that, without flour, stays true to its gritty, crunchy self even when it starts to cool. You’ll need a lot of willpower to stop eating them, even when you’re beyond full.

They’re accompanied by pimiento cheese, a textured blend of pimientos, mayo and sharp and regular cheddar, goat and cream cheese, that doesn’t taste as heavy as one might assume from cheese presence. It fills the Southern staple of pimiento grilled cheese sandwich ($7.95), served here with North Carolina-style, vinegar-tinged cole slaw, cornmeal-crusted and finger-size hush puppies served with honey butter, and a deviled egg.

The popular sauce also accompanies an oyster po’ boy ($9.95) big enough for two. I’ve longed to find a decent oyster po’ boy locally, and this one hits the spot, built on a toasted baguette heaped with lettuce, tomatoes and red onion, with about a dozen cornmeal-battered, deep-fried oysters.

Of course, Kiss My Grits wouldn’t be a Southern restaurant without the presence of barbecue, and Carolina chopped barbecue is a ringer for our own kalua pork when presented without its sauce. Of course there’s tangy Northern-style vinegar and red pepper to accompany your sandwich ($9.95) or plate ($10.95). But conceding that not everyone likes the taste of vinegar, also offered is a South Carolina option of sweetened mustard sauce, which has been more popular with diners, including this one, thus far.

Shrimp & Grits ($14.95) is like no other grits I’ve had, destined to be popular with the risotto crowd in all its creamy, cheesy splendor and shot through with bell peppers, mushroom slices, tomatoes, onion, bacon and tender shrimp.

And for those who complain that most crab cakes here have very little crab, this is the place for two hot-cake-size specimens on the Cape Fear Crab Cake Plate, made with very little binder — and there’s that pimiento cheese again!

Fried chicken plates come with two-, three- and eight-piece options, at $7.95, $8.95 and $15.95, respectively. Two pieces are plenty.

With all these dishes to try, it may take a while to get to the biscuits and gravy ($7.95), two cat’s-head biscuits — a reference to their size — layered with homemade pork-sausage gravy.

Fans of deep-fried food will find varying sizes of Calabash Seafood Baskets with fries, shrimp and fish ($12.95); shrimp, fish and oysters ($15.95); or $18.95 when you add a crab cake. These were fairly rote, so I preferred the chalkboard special of cornmeal-battered, deep-fried branzino, a mild whitefish.

The only thing I didn’t try was the Brunswick stew, of shredded beef, chicken and pork with tomatoes. In past times, the menu reads, the stew “was traditionally made with squirrel and rabbit meat,” so maybe that was the aversion.

At any rate, I had to get to desserts, chief of which is a wondrous bread pudding ($3.50) that starts with a base of the house pound cake and buttermilk biscuits, layered with cinnamon, raisins and sugar, and finished with Jack Daniel’s. All the desserts are so rich that even the most avid sweets lover will find themselves happy with a bite or two.

There’s a lot to applaud here.