Birmingham Restaurants featured on ‘State Plate’

While at the Irondale Cafe for lunch today grabbing some fried chicken, I chatted with owner Jim Dolan.  Jim told me that The Irondale Cafe would be featured on the Taylor Hicks show ‘State Plate’.   Incidentally, this is the 90th year of operation for the Irondale Cafe.  Not familiar with the show, I decided to find out more.

The premise of the show is to take a food tour of the USA and discover some of each states’ most symbolic and popular foods.  Taylor has appetizer, main course and dessert, meeting the people who take pride in their state’s foods.

State Plate – Alabama

The episode on Alabama will air tonight – August 11, 2017 at 7 pm Central on INSP TV.  Two of my local favorites are featured: The Irondale Cafe and Saw’s BBQ.  Another local business featured is The Cakerie Wedding Cakes.

The episode starts off with Seafood Dip from the Flora-Bama in Orange Beach.  Sweet Tea fried chicken with white sauce from Saw’s Juke Joint is the main course with sides of fried okra and fried green tomatoes.   Of course, the fried green tomatoes are from The Irondale Cafe.

Smoking Chickens. Courtesy of Saw’s BBQ

The episode finishes up with the Vintage Lane Cake from Birmingham’s Cakerie.  While I haven’t had the Lane Cake, it sounds like something I need to try – Bourbon infused vanilla cake, coconut pecan bourbon filling with vanilla buttercream.  It turns out that this is the Official State Cake of Alabama.

More information about tonight’s episode is here.  Check it out.  Yet another example of the food destination that Birmingham has become.