Sure, and Godiva just makes candy pellets -
Magnolias puts the Bam! in everything Dixie
By Valerie Lemke
02/23/06

The popularity of the fried chicken at Magnolias is evident when you enter the airy dining room with the decidedly New Orleans feel. At least one patron at each table is enjoying a plate piled high with proprietor Bessie Johnson’s famous fowl.

The crispy yet succulent chicken is rubbed with a spice mix that Johnson developed and uses in many of her recipes. It’s a secret formula, of course, and one that keeps folks coming back.

“Emeril has his ‘Bam!’ and I have mine,” Johnson said.

Now firmly established in the recently built Market Creek Plaza in southeast San Diego, Magnolias is the third family-run restaurant Johnson and her husband, Charles, have operated since moving to San Diego from Louisiana in the late 1960s. (Previously, they owned Bessie’s Garret in Encanto and La Jolla.) In that time, Bessie Johnson has attracted a devoted following for what she called “just Southern food.”

The dishes on the combination lunch and dinner menu focus on Southern viands relished by transplants from Dixie and Northerners alike -- smothered pork chops in onion and garlic gravy, old-fashioned meatloaf and fried catfish.

“I have been followed a long time for my catfish with cornmeal batter,” Johnson said. And liver and onion devotees have sought her out for 15 years.

There are also dishes with a definite Louisiana flair. More-than-generous jambalayas and tradition red beans and rice with sausage, shrimp or chicken have their aficionados. Crawfish enchiladas, topped with crawfish sauce and cheddar cheese, are another favorite.

Seafood offerings, deep-fried to a golden brown, include catfish, shrimp, oysters, snapper and the hard-to-find, deliciously delicate soft-shell crab.

Cajun-style stews are huge hits, too. They include a slightly spicy gumbo of chicken, sausage and whole crab legs in a brown sauce, and okra gumbo chock-full of scallops and shrimp. A savory bisque of crawfish in a velvety seafood stock also rates patron raves.

Many entrees are accompanied by your choice of two “lagniappes” (side dishes).

A lagniappe sampler featuring four sides for $8 is a good introduction to some indigenous Southern food. Perfectly cooked, exquisitely seasoned servings of collard greens, black-eyed peas, red beans, and macaroni and cheese are among the options.

Whatever your sides, don’t fail to include hush puppies. Magnolias’ slightly sweet Southern fritters -- crisp on the outside, tender within -- are sublime.

Po’ Boys on baguettes eschew mundane fillings. Instead, take your pick of catfish, oysters, soft-shell crab or grilled portobello mushroom for a memorable sandwich.

Appetizers feature a wildly popular barbecued pool-and-eat shrimp. Desserts are true to the South, with sweet potato pie, bread pudding and peach cobbler.

A full bar and nice wine list are offered at dining tables and in a cozy cocktail lounge where live jazz is featured Friday evenings. A harpist entertains in the dining room on Sunday afternoons.