Uncle Mort's, Jasper, Alabama *****

NOTICE: This review was originally written before Uncle Mort's mets its untimely demise. Alas, Uncle Mort's no longer exists -- except in Edna Earl's fond memories.

Okay, Edna Earl's ol' man and her children think she's absolutely CRAZY for lovin' Uncle Mort's so much, and EE herself can't figure out exactly why she does, but she does. It's one of those mysteries of the universe, EE guesses. Okay, Edna Earl will try to explain. First, she loves the downright funkiness of the place. Uncle Mort's is located in an ol' barnlike building with an "antiques shoppe" attached. The inside of the restaurant has wood paneled walls with a locally painted (EE assumes.) mural and with autographed photographs of various Alabama celebrities (members of the band Alabama, others whose names escapes EE right now). Uncle Mort's specializes in smoked meats, which makes it even weirder that EE likes the place, since she's not much of a meat eater. But again, EE loves the sheer funkiness of the place. Oh, EE forgot to tell you that the expansive grounds feature some abandoned animal effigies that appear to have been part of some previous incarnation of the place -- concrete pigs, a carousel pony, that sort of thing. And there's a big house up the hill, still on what appears to be the grounds of the place, and EE has always assumed that that's where Uncle Mort himself lives. Therein lies part of the mystery, too.

Now for the food: Uncle Mort's serves very good ol' Southern breakfasts -- eggs and grits and biscuits and the works, and also pancakes. Edna Earl is usually there at lunch, for a roadstop, so she doesn't usually do the breakfast thing, though she certainly has and found it fine. EE's favorite lunch order is: cold sliced turkey, baked potato, salad with bleu cheese dressing, bread. Now, this doesn't sound very adventurous, but it's a great taste combination. They have really good bleu cheese dressing, something EE don't regularly order because the lame imitations at most places so turn me off. Not Uncle Mort's, though -- His bleu cheese dressing has big ol' chunks of real bleu cheese in it. Also, EE likes the simplicity of the plate. So often when you order a "plate lunch" at a Southern restaurant you get a whole bunch of soggy, overcooked, under-seasoned vegetables. Not so at Uncle Mort's. EE doesn't know that they have a single vegetable on the menu! (Again, this is a real reversal for me; Edna Earl is a vegetable lover. But there's something about Uncle Mort's ...) And, oh, the "dinner salad" is a little unusual. No limp iceberg and chopped tomatoes for Uncle Mort -- no, no. Uncle Mort's salads do have iceberg lettuce, but said lettuce is crisp and cool, and it's imaginatively accompanied by a piece of watermelon rind pickle, a piece of spiced, pickled crabapple, and several black olives. Yum -- and definitely NOT same-old, same-old.

Uncle Mort's clientele is comprised largely of older folks, with an occasional family in for Sunday dinner. EE can't recall ever having seen a teenager or twenty-something or thirty-something in there, and she's visited Uncle Mort's many a time.

Long live Uncle Mort's, if only for folks like Edna Earl!