MARY MAC'S TEA ROOM

By: Amanda Bruder

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I have never been a fan of Southern cooking. Growing up in suburban Chicago was as far from down home cooking as it gets. My eyes never even saw the likes of fried okra until my family moved to Georgia when I was ten years old. To this day, the thought of Southern food makes me cringe. The grease and the mushy vegetables (don’t even get me started on creamed corn) shut off all appetite sensors in my brain.

All of my past experiences have brought me to the realization that I need to give Georgia’s heritage a fair chance. Even foods deserve a second chance, right?

Mary Mac’s Tea Room, an Atlanta landmark since 1945, prides itself on its true southern cuisine. Catering to everyone from Richard Gere to the Dalai Lama, the restaurant is a well-known stop in the city. But would it win me over?

Upon arrival, the staff was overwhelmingly friendly. They made me, along with my party of six, feel welcome from the minute we stepped foot in the large, misshapen restaurant. It has expanded several times over the years and has been left with odd turns, rooms, and hallways. The restaurant’s walls are covered with pictures of visitors from all over and are an interesting attraction that guests flock to.

As we were seated at our table, I was taken by surprise when the waitress handed me a piece of paper to write down my order on. This was the beginning of my extremely informal dining experience at Mary Mac’s.

Shortly after sitting down, our table was greeted by a cheery and talkative woman named Jo. Given the title “goodwill ambassador,” she was there to make us feel right at home. Her warm demeanor helped me to relax and begin enjoying the restaurant’s southern hospitality (something I have never been comfortable with as an uptight yankee).

Before the main dish came out, the table was given a basket of corn bread, yeast rolls and cinnamon rolls to choose from. The corn bread and yeast rolls were forgettable, but the cinnamon rolls were amazing. The concept of cinnamon rolls as an appetizer seemed strange, but I went with it. The melt in your mouth taste of cinnamon and butter could only be topped by the sugary sweetness of it all.

After washing down my assortment of breads with extremely watery sweet tea, I was introduced to their complimentary treat for newcomers, potlikker. Unlike anything I have ever tasted, potlikker is a mix of broth and cooked collard greens in a bowl with a cornbread muffin on the side. The idea is to crumble the muffin into the bowl of broth and enjoy the mix of sweet and salty. I, however, could not bring myself to eat more than one bite. The broth was so salty it overpowered the other tastes.

Next on table was the appetizer basket of deep fried crawfish. These looked just like popcorn shrimp from Red Lobster. They were crunchy and included very little crawfish, just a whole lot of deep fried batter.

By this point I was beginning to think our food was never going to come. The atmosphere was so great that I almost hadn’t noticed we had been waiting for almost an hour for our food. At last it came and I was ready to eat.

I began with chicken and dumplings. I had only ever seen fluffy dumplings, but these were flat pieces of dough that had almost no flavor. I wouldn’t have minded so much, but with only two bite size pieces of chicken to be found, I was left with a bowl of flat, half-cooked, dough pieces. I then tried the green beans, which were surprisingly flavorful for boiled green beans, but I could tell they had a great deal of salt in them. Finally, I ended my meal with a sweet potato soufflé. Considered a side, the potato was loaded with marshmallows and cinnamon and felt much more like a dessert.

Mary Mac’s is very much a true Southern restaurant. My fellow dinner companions (all Southerners) were enthralled with every part of their meals. I, however, remain unchanged. I enjoyed the bread and the green beans, but the rest of my meal was forgettable. I may go back and give it another try, but my opinion remains that Southern food is for southern folk and I just don’t fit in.