Aboud FOOD in SOUTHERN style

I'm so happy so have awesome friends here! I told him, that I don't want to celebrate my Birthday, so this is what happened:
He took us to Twin Tops Fish Camp in south-Gastonia close to Belmont where he lives. This restaurant has been there for ages (they've just built a new house if needed).

Of course we needed to wait a while 'cause the best places are the most popular and it was Saturday night. This is truly American way to  enjoy fish and sea food. Looks like someone dropped me to the '60s.

So, not a fancy place with table clothes, but the way to eat and enjoy with your families. (I saw at least 3 babies under 3 months.) Everybody is drinking either Coke (could have been Pepsi?) or like us, sweet or unsweet tea. They even have candy shop where you can shop while waiting, but I did'nt dare to take a picture (there were so may people waiting that it'd have seemed that I'd take pictures of them).

Nobody leaves this (or actually any place here) hungry. This is so called "Mamas and Papas-place" which means privately, usually family owned restaurant. No coupons or marketing in newspapers; local people know best places and if you don't know any locals, bad for you!

For me, this picture is something from the James Dean movies... You can't see this in south Charlotte, but in many places just 30-45 minutes drive from city. I also like to drop by and buy some local products (usually they are sold in Farmers Markets or in gas stations). This farmer lives and works probably in Gastonia which is about 30 minutes from us.

Here's a picture of ONE of the appetizers! I DID eat one, but left the rest to those who truly like oysters!

I mean, I could never eat the one who was protecting this little crap inside...

Second appetizer was fried pickles, yammy! (Siis uppopaistettuja suolakurkkuja!)

Third appetizer is (of course) onions in vinegar. Tastes good, but you better be careful with this much raw onions!

And the last appetizer was shrimps but that's pretty normal. Even I buy those in Harris Teeter sometimes, but you certainly want to eat them fresh and this is great place for that, if you're unable to travel to Charleston or some other city close to Atlantic. By the way, we were only FOUR people there...

Here is the picture on the first half of my portion. It's Flounder with (cole)slow. Yammy!

This is special with deviled crab.

There you can see the REST of my flounder and some other fish I had never tasted. BOTH are in our fridge right now, so everyone is welcome to taste. Delicious!

That's my hub's portion. He did eat maybe on third of it and I guess no one of us even touched the fries or oven baked potatoes that are included. So, this is southern way to fry everything! Not the healthiest way to make it.

Here's Mike's portion with crabs that were delicious! (He made me eat half of them!)

That's it folks! Just a little desert in the next picture... we tasted it a bit in a middle of the night after drinks at Friends Sport Bar and Grill in Belmont. Now we just have to figure out who's going to eat all of it!?

 

 

 

And since I wasn't celebrating anything, here's a video on my B-day card. I'm pretty sure that I'll not celebrate my B-day with Mike also next year!!

 

 

Thanks! You are special!