Toutant, Buffalo - Hit and miss, southern grass root/Cajun/Creole soul food dinner

After a delightful luncheon experience at the award winning ' Pearl Morissette ', we found ourselves in close proximity to the US border and with over half a day of free time to spare. Decisions were made to drive across to Buffalo, do some grocery shopping of hard-to-find items at Trader's Joe and then have ourselves an uncommon dinner. The popular soul-food place 'Toutant' was our unanimous choice.

The place was packed due to its downtown location and being a Saturday evening. After sitting down, we found ourselves next to a leaky and drafty window. As such, we requested to be moved to a less drafty table behind us but was bluntly refused by one of the female server! Our first taste of US hospitality in the Trump era?! Anyways, not to make a scene, we decided to keep our spot as well as most of our overcoat on!

When it was time to order our food, thankfully we were assigned another much more friendly lady server!
For sharing, we picked the following from the menu:

- Fried Deviled Eggs
- Nashville Fried Chicken appetizer
- Buttermilk Southern Fried Chicken
- BBQ Brisket
- Special house sausage Gumbo
- Jambalaya
- Cast iron corn bread
- Collard greens
- Roasted Apple dessert

Quality and taste of the food were inconsistent and all over the place!

The deviled eggs, Southern fried chicken were some of the tastiest rendition I have had for a long while! The chicken, was way more delicious and crispier than our Toronto's own, 'Stockyard'! The Gumbo and Jambalaya, especially the latter, was very nicely prepared, flavorful and authentic tasting. Dessert was exceptional and tasty!

Unfortunately, these positives were spoiled and offset by some bad, poorly executed and in some instances, very salty food! In particular, the mysteriously salty corn bread?! The chef must have accidentally used salt instead of sugar in the mix?! The platter of BBQ brisket over roasted yams looked promising until one digs into the overcooked, dried meat. The other part, nothing but inedible fat! Pity! Because the flavor and the BBQ sauce was excellent! Collard greens were overly tart and disappointing. The version offered by our Kitchener/Waterloo Lancaster Smoke House was way more delicious and sweeter!

Trying to look only at the positive, we accepted what were offered with a shrug and a smile. After all, the major thing was not the food but the great company! A chance for a family bonding night-out in a foreign city was a rare occasion indeed!