Cajun Kountry Cafe delivers the lexicon of cultural cuisine one plate at a time

Cravin' Cajun?

Our readers operate as our culinary GPS systems. They calculate for us a 2 D position of the edible kind — cuisine and worth a trip. And that is how we happened to have dinner at the Cajun Kountry Cafe (a restaurant that displays two spellings of country — with a "C" and with a "K").

It is located in a small strip center across from the Bi-Lo and Dollar General on Remount Road. The Cafe is an homage to the foods of South Louisiana by a chef who is neither Cajun nor Louisianan.

It was in the '80s that Chef Paul Prudhomme put Cajun food on the map. Blackened redfish was his signature dish and it became associated with a regional cuisine of South Louisiana of which it is neither.

Chef Paul developed this dish while cooking at Commander's Palace and it had little to do with his ancestral diet. But it caught the nation's attention and to this day you will find "blackened fish" on many a menu.

The influence of Prudhomme is evidenced in the plates coming from the "piano" of Chef Frisco of Cajun Country Kitchen. The bronzed and burnished roux of fat and flour, the trinity of simmered peppers, onions and celery, the presence of cayenne, Tabasco, and "hot stuff" from Bulliard's declare you are in Cajun country albeit with a South Carolina zip code.

And don't confuse Cajun cooking with hot and spicy. That it could be, but the kitchen Chef Frisco delivers food with gentle seasonings much like the personable chef who runs this house.

Look for walls the color of Creole mustard and cayenne pepper. Enjoy the tank of crawfish, the ceramic frogs climbing the walls and fried legs ($7.49) on the menu. Admire the beads synonymous with party-time, the elaborate Mardi Gras masks, and the iron silhouettes of jazz musicians. Listen to zydecco, jazz, Cajun, Dixieland and gospel music — CDs custom mixed by Chef. Try to stop tapping your feet and smiling.

Say yes to boudin (sausage) balls ($2.50) or crispy fried pickle ($2.50) coins with Cajun remoulade. Or quail and rabbit sticks ($2.50) impaled on skewers and served with jalapeno tartar sauce. Or maybe some pork and gator sausage while Chef cooks your meal. This is a restaurant where everything is cooked to order and tastes mighty fine.

CKC is a great place to explore the landscape of this rustic Louisiana cooking style. For $15, the Cajun combo platter dishes up a cup of crawfish boil, shrimp and sausage jambalaya, crawfish Etoufee, chicken and sausage gumbo and red beans and rice.

The ingredients are the iconic charcuterie of Louisiana — andouille and tasso; the roux is toasted to a nutty brown and live crawfish went into the pot (the curled tails are your sign of that).

Tender red beans cloak the rice and nubbins of tasso season the mix with heat and meat. The sausage is seared in the jambalaya adding crisped edges of texture and the smoky flavor of pork.

The crawfish boil takes some time for the kitchen to prepare and the corn on the cob was over-cooked. But you can't beat the price for this tasting of the citadels of Cajun cookery.

Here is your destination for Cajun "chittlings" ($7.49), Louisiana smoked gator ribs ($9.95), Cajun gator cheese steaks ($9.95), liver and onions ($7.49), and fried gizzards ($7.49) — all the things you do not want to cook at home but are mouth-happy to eat out.

The blackened redfish ($8.49) does master Prudhomme proud. Tender, succulent redfish, crusted with seasonings — neither tarted up nor dumbed down — just the finest rendition of this dish that I have tasted in Charleston. It had the zing but not the sting.

Sides were uneven. The water-logged corn, dry mac and cheese; but, the collards were well-executed and the Cajun slaw was crisp.

The servers are attentive; young and eager. The carry-out trade is brisk and steady.

The restaurant is small. Miles from swamps and bayous but close to rivers and marshes, Chef Frisco delivers the lexicon of Cajun cuisine.