The Best I Ever Had: Shrimp and Grits

T and I rode into Marfa, Texas in the late afternoon on a Monday in January 2012.  We came down from Ft Davis, Texas after a walking tour of Fort Davis National Historic Site 

and a ridge line hike in Davis Mountains State Park on the skyline drive trail.

We stopped off at the Marfa Information Center for info on the "Marfa Lights" and headed for the Hotel Paisano where the cast of "Giant" (including James Dean, Elizabeth Taylor, and Rock Hudson) were lodged during the filming.  We toured the gift shops and "Giant" exhibition area and I photographed T with a life size cutout of James Dean but the pic didn't turn out.  

During this time we were rubbing elbows with a young woman who was also shopping for gifts.  We moved on to Jett's Grill in the hotel and sat at the bar and had a very good supper.  The same young woman came up to the bar from where she was dining outside and asked us where we were from, etc.  She was there with Rocky Barnett who is from Asheville, North Carolina.  Rocky is a well schooled chef, and he and a friend had a restaurant in Marfa that closes on Monday and he was enjoying his night off.  We visited about Asheville and the food scene there and he and the lady left on bicycles after inviting us to come to his restaurant the next time we were in Marfa.  We headed back to Alpine for the night and stopped off at the Marfa Lights viewing area but no luck.

The next time we were in Marfa was the next evening and when we walked into The Miniature Rooster, Rocky was not surprised to see us and rolled out the "red carpet".  The culinary background and credentials of Rocky and his business partner Uday Huja, as detailed on the web site, are pretty impressive.  Since arriving in West Texas I had not found any grits, cooked or not, and decided to have the shrimp and grits even though we were several thousand feet above sea level.  T had an Indian Curry dish, Chole Puri Tamarind Chickpea Curry, that she thought was delicious.  The place was full of happy people and the service was superb.  

I spent much of my life in the low country within one or two hours of Charleston, South Carolina, and I thought I had already had the best that Shrimp and Grits could be; but I was "knock down drag out wrong".  The shrimp were arranged on the bed of grits, topped with a soft cooked poached local egg, and garnished with red Rio Grand chiles.  Rocky said that, in West Texas, he had not been able to find the stone ground grits called for in all the recipes, so he used polenta instead (to memorable effect).  I learned from that.  I have not been able to find organic grits but organic yellow polenta (Bob's Red Mill) is easily available and I use that whenever grits is called for (frequently).

Conventional wisdom would tell me not to order shrimp and grits on the high desert of the Big Bend.  Conventional wisdom would have caused me to miss "the best I ever had". 

I am heading back to the Big Bend country next month and I looked up The Miniature Rooster while planning the trip.  I found that it closed in April 2012.  Word on the street had it that the landlord had jacked up the rent to an unsustainable level.  I'll try to look into it while I'm there.