What I don’t know about Macon would fill a book. I read this week that the state’s considering cutting funding to the Music and Sports Halls of Fame, which would be very sad. Macon, located in central Georgia, has really been hit by the recession. It’s never struck me as a particularly carefree or thriving town, and even though neither museum is the most thrilling of tourist attractions, every body it attracts is providing some critically needed dollars to the local economy. I visited the Georgia Music Hall with a friend down there several years ago and enjoyed it a good deal. Maybe you should take a trip through there and learn a little something about the great music in this state. Before it closes.
While you’re there, you’ll need something to eat. As yet, I’m not really qualified to tell you much about the food to find. Perhaps in time I’ll find the chance to revisit Nu-Way Wieners or, if it’s still around, that very respectable pizza place downtown, run by a retired Alabaman banker, but for now I can only share The Bear’s Den, which Marie and the daughter-child and I visited on a trip to South Georgia last week.
I read about this restaurant at roadfood.com, which provides reviews of hundreds of locally-owned places. I don’t know whether I’ll get to every Georgia place on their list, never mind all the ones in other states, but knowing we would be in Macon around lunchtime last Thursday, I needed a place for us to visit, and the site did a very good job with its recommendation.
I don’t know anything about the Bear’s Den’s history or backstory, and when we were there, the place was a little too busy to stop and ask anybody. As I’m learning that the story of a good restaurant is almost as important as its food, this is certainly a deficiency of this particular entry. All that I can add is that the food was really good. It’s served cafeteria-style, and there’s a different menu for each day.
We each had a different meal. Marie’s fried chicken is pictured above. Our daughter had lasagna and I had chicken strips, which were wonderful. The creamed corn was fantastic and the mac-n-cheese was very good, if not at Weaver D’s level. I also had fried pickles which pleased me greatly, and I especially liked that the batter didn’t just fall right off the long dill spears as usually happens when people try to do those.
We also each got a separate dessert cup, which will add a buck and a half to your total. Our daughter kept it simple with chocolate pudding, and I had some tremendously tasty banana pudding, but I think Marie won out with the peach cobbler. Between that and the creamed corn, she definitely picked the best added attractions to her meal. I was, once again, left with a case of menu envy. This is a long-running problem with me, where I find that one or more of my dining partners picked something better than I did. Marie’s awful sweet to let me have a spoonful or two of her creamed corn, but a fellow in my shoes can’t help but wish he’d have ordered that instead of the mac-n-cheese, no matter how good it was.
There wasn’t a lot of time to linger and so we didn’t. We had another three and a half hours driving to do and lots more good eating to be had down on the coast. More about that another time.
Marie, Let's Eat! 