Dining a la Carteret
Kountry
Kitchen
by
Sandy Craft
OK, people, here’s some good news for
you loyal customers of the Broad Creek Family Restaurant.
Joann and J.R. Marion have opened the doors of their new place, Kountry
Kitchen, in 
Joann explained that when they sold the
Broad Creek eatery after 12 years, the thought was they would downsize, maybe
just serve breakfast and lunch.
So they have this big, brand spanking
new establishment and they are serving three meals a day, six days a week, and
two on Sunday. Yikes!
What is it they say about the best laid plans?
As we were talking to Joann, customers
would come up and say how good the corned beef was today or how much they
enjoyed the trout. Obviously,
these comments come from repeat customers who feel they would be remiss if
they did not voice their appreciation for J.R.’s work in the kitchen.
Joann says sometimes they’ll even ask when they’re going to serve a
favorite special again.
What could be better this time of year
than a bowl of homemade soup or a bowl of chili?
J.R. makes the soups daily, and we were lucky enough to try the chicken
noodle in addition to the chili. Joann brought us crackers, but why eat those
when you can get some crisp, hot hush puppies?
In addition to soup specials, there are
several daily sandwich and plate specials. Sometimes they have beef tips, or
spaghetti, or lasagna, or corned beef and cabbage. You can usually get trout
and mullet.
For those who might be interested, and
you know who you are, the specials also include dessert.
In other words, this is good, hearty home cooking with no cleanup!
I love that.
Some of the menu mainstays include the
fried catfish, charbroiled ribeye steak, homemade meatloaf, country fried
steak, and shrimp, scallops and oysters. These
are available at lunch as well as dinner, and come with a choice of two
vegetables and bread.
Now
if you want to go a little lighter, you could stick with their freshly
prepared vegetables. They have
lots of options from fried okra to cabbage, rutabaga, fresh squash, turnip
greens and real honest to goodness mashed potatoes.
The list goes on, and it varies somewhat from day to day.
Any of you breakfast fans will be
delighted to know that not only can you get a great breakfast here, but you
can get it for lunch or dinner, if you like.
You can enjoy those eggs with the usual accompaniments, or you can
branch out a bit with some corned beef hash, or ribeye steak, or country fried
steak. Now that’s a big boy
breakfast. One that was new to me
was the pork tenderloin, right off the griddle.
It looked great!
The sandwich lineup is good old
familiar favorites, as well. You
won’t find bean sprouts, baby greens, or strange sounding breads.
But, you can get a grilled cheese, a
cheeseburger, or a tuna or chicken salad, just to name a few.

Forget those New Year’s resolutions
and get some fries or onion rings, too. Sounds
pretty tempting, don’t you think?
Now if all this isn’t enough, you could add a homemade dessert. J.R.’s
specialties are the banana pudding and rice pudding.
But, you can also usually get chocolate
pudding or if you’re being very, very good, a sugar free jello.
Frankly, I don’t expect you to be
that good.
This is not your fancy-smancy cuisine,
but this is good home style cooking, at an incredibly reasonable price,
prepared by good folks who want you as a regular customer.
So join those who have already gotten
the word, stop by Kountry Kitchen and let Joann and J.R. take good care of you
for breakfast, lunch, or dinner.
Quick Bites
Kountry
Kitchen 
Address:
Phone:
(252) 240-0046
Hours:
Payment:
Cash, local checks, debit cards, no credit cards
Smoking: There is smoking on one side of the restaurant. The menu and staff are very kid friendly. No ABC permits.

Sandy
Craft owned and operated a catering company in Atlanta
for 17 years.
She is one of the few people who actually still cooks, but she finds
following
a recipe goes against her nature. When traveling she likes to visit local
grocery
stores and farm stands, and she thoroughly enjoys good food.
See the previously reviewed restaurants on the Restaurant Archive page
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