Willow Pond Southern Catfish

There is no Willow Pond in Princeton, KY. I think the reviewer is talking about the one in Eddyville. I'll see if I can add the real one and write a review. But if you're passing through Princeton and want to try it, good luck. It ain't there, sport.

If I had to rate this place based on their hush puppies, I'd give 'em 5 stars. If I had to rate them on everything else, I'd give them -1 stars. So I averaged the two together to get 2 stars. I'm not exactly a mathematician, so I'm not sure how accurate that is...

Anyhow, here's the problem. In the middle of summer, I order a cheeseburger. It arrives with a tomato so pale and mealy, it could have come from North Dakota in February. The cheese on my burger never melted, or considered melting, in spite of the heat of the burger itself. That worried me, and made me wonder about its molecular structure. Lastly, it was topped with the heel leaf of an iceberg lettuce head, shock white and probably an inch thick. Oh, yummy!

Also, they don't serve butter to slather on their delicious hush puppies, or on their baked potato, or on their corn. They serve a basket full of mini tubs of hydrogenated non-dairy spread.  The baked potato comes with a tube of goo that is supposedly sour cream.

My husband got the catfish po-boy, which turned out to be a split hoagie bun with a piece of unseasoned catfish. I am not a po-boy expert, but I think it involves more than bread and protein.

I'm not trying to be a jerk. I love country cooking. I love little hole in the wall restaurants. I don't need it to be fancy, I don't need it to be high brow. I just want to eat actual food.

They place was totally packed, which gave me a lot of insight into what people in the middle of nowhere are willing to settle for on a Sunday afternoon when they don't want to cook.

Now, our waitress was awesome. She was kind and sweet and attentive and a total peach.  One million stars for service!