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I’d been wanting to check this place out for a while now and it took a lot of convincing, coaxing and manipulating before I was able to get my way to eat here. The Serving Spoon is famous for its chicken and waffles and on a 4th of July, Sunday morning, it was packed! I was starving and I knew there would be a wait, but the gal at the podium was very sweet and informed me that it would be about 20 minutes. I decided to look through the menu so I’d be ready as soon as we were seated. Even with that many people, the wait wasn’t too bad and soon, it was our turn.
We quickly ordered with the help from our server. I couldn’t really see a combo that I liked (of course I wasn’t looking hard enough) and decided to order a la carte. Our really pretty server suggested that I get the combo which included what I wanted plus eggs…. which turned out to be slightly cheaper had I ordered the two items I wanted — grits and chicken wings (plus eggs which weren’t what I was craving but I had anyway) — a la carte.
While we waited, we people watched and at first, a lady (I presume the owner’s wife) walked through the restaurant making sure everyone was happy with their meals and that everyone had everything they needed. A little later, the owner himself — who we found out later was named JC — took his turn on the floor, stopping at every single table, talking to his customers and when he got to our table, he paused and smiled and chatted a little before moving on again. I have a special fondness for this sort of hospitality when I’m at a restaurant. It gives me the warm sense that a lot of love and pride has been put into it which is reflected back to the customers.
Our food arrived and boy was there a lot of food. I should’ve counted how many wings were on my plate but after I took photos like I usually did, I wasted no time in gnawing into my first wing and then my second and then my third….. and after I finished them I wish I had a couple more. These were some gooooooood wings! I am a huge fan of grits too and the ones here come with a huge dollop of butter melting in the pile of gooey goodness. I thought about my cholesterol briefly before mixing the butter into my grits, but only for a split second because the thought of the rich grits hitting my mouth was too much to bear — I’ll do an extra 15 minutes on the elipical this week and eat salads for the next two weeks if I have to because I’m not going to compromise these buttery grits for anything. I’m glad I didn’t because it was well worth those extra calories! I’m too lazy to make real grits at home and sometimes, I resort to the instant kind which is an abomination — yes I know — but it takes a good 20-30 minutes to make good grits from scratch and I don’t have the patience to do that for myself.
We also got pancakes which were very good. I thought the sweetness of the syrup together with the saltiness of the butter melded well together and the texture of the pancakes were also very palatable to me. I generally do not like pancakes and these tasted good to me. The ham was very salty and perhaps we should’ve gotten the turkey sausage like our server suggested, but for me, I was craving salt so the ham was welcoming even though, ham is not usually a breakfast meat I ordinarily choose.
I loved my breakfast. I know I should’ve ordered the waffles but I’m not a sweet breakfast fan and what I really wanted were the wings and grits so I was very happy. On our way out, the owner JC stopped us and chatted for a while asking us if we liked the food. Again I felt so welcomed knowing that he cared about his customers’ opinions and he genuinely wanted to know that his customers are happy when they leave his place. I highly recommend The Serving Spoon! They not only serve breakfast, there are other specials such as fried catfish, chittlins on weekends and a whole host of other things. I know I certainly enjoyed it and hope to return again in the very near future!
The Serving Spoon, 1403 Centinela Ave, Inglewood, CA 90302. Tel: 310-412-3927
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