TLO Restaurant Review: Cornish Smokehouse

9:06 AM EST on February 26, 2019

I have had the famed combo of chicken and waffles just about everywhere, from the pounding shores of the west coast to the pulsating metropoli of the east coast, with just about every podunk burg in-between tossed in; and as utterly memorable as those edible exploits were, if I’m at my most truthful, they’re a little played out, holmes.

But Jamaican jerk fried chicken and French toast?

About the only place in town to get this fantastic foodstuff is from the Cornish Smokehouse, 801 S.W. 119th Street. Open just a scant few months, this former food-truck has built a ready-steady-go following, thanks to their down-home cooking and uptown smiles, offering up the usual barbeque goods right next to an array of jerk chicken—smoked, fried and deep-fried—with the inventive duo of Jamaican jerk fried chicken and French toast right on the top of my must-list.

As a disturbingly sexy anthropomorphic pig-woman welcomed me in, Mike Morgan was on the television as thunder rumbled overhead, the rain beating down harder than before. Chris, the meat-man behind the counter, however, was in good spirits, and, you know, it put me in good spirits too. Shaking off the downpour that drenched me and my hoodie, I ordered the Jamaican jerk fried chicken and French toast ($9.25)—even though they were fresh out of fried chicken, substituting a dozen jerk wings instead.

Hey, I’ll take it.

Delivered to my table, nice and neat on a silver platter that seems to be le plat du jour as of late, were six golden wings—with another six wings the way—as well as four triangular pieces of French toast, a dusting of powdered sugar blessing the beatified bread, with a pat of butter and plenty of syrup at the ready. The nouveau aroma of this dangerously spicy and addictively sweet concoction easily bled out any congestion the strange Oklahoma weather was causing.

The Jamaican jerk wings were exactly as I hoped and prayed they would be—a sweetly crisp skin with a deeply tangy taste; this is the only way wings should be served and now I was eager for a return visit when the fried chicken was back in stock. Either way, by the time I was done, Chris brought me my next helping of wings, but I had him box them up—the very definition of the phrase “too much of a good thing.”

But it was the French toast that was an absolute faire la fête for all, that near-sinful mixture of toast and eggs, a gluttonous delight that was sweet enough without even adding the butter and syrup. Even though I have honestly had nary a single slice of this Parisian delicacy in a Bastille’s age, how each bite made those reincarnated memories of overthrowing la monarchie return to my mind’s eye, every misérable fighting to the death for this unlikely trope.

Before venturing back into the very real, very cold Oklahoma rain, however, I stopped by the restroom to clean myself up; wiping the powdered sugar from my beard with my jerk seasoning-splattered hands, I gave myself a long, hard look in the mirror, those lustful thoughts I try so hard to fight returning back to that disturbingly sexy anthropomorphic pig-woman on the wall. Cómpralo ya!