Coast Cuisine - March 2017

Dunk's Southern Style Buffet
Address: 228 Coleman Ave., Waveland
Phone: (228) 231-1157

Sleek modern building and stellar old-fashioned home cooking: this buffet-style restaurant is gaining a reputation for some of the best soul food on the Mississippi coast. 
- by Lisa Monti, photos by Ellis Anderson 

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​Dunk’s Southern Style Buffet & Catering is all about being Southern. The Waveland restaurant promises “good ole down-home soul Southern cooking. Southern Food. Southern Style. The Southern Way.”
 
Owner Lisa Dunklin keeps that promise at lunch with classics like fried chicken, homemade mac and cheese, green beans, red beans and rice, fried okra, fried chicken gizzards, chicken and dumplings, cornbread, you get the idea.
 
The restaurant has been open for a year in the post-Katrina building that was originally a business incubator. The restaurant space is airy and bright and comfortable for enjoying a quick bite or a leisurely lunch.

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At lunch recently, the fried chicken and smothered pork chops were front and center on the buffet line and both were first rate.

The chicken, billed as Dunk's Famous Fried Chicken, was crispy, well seasoned and moist, the pork chops were fork-tender in a dark gravy and the mac and cheese was hearty. A fellow diner raved about the sweet potato casserole topped with tiny marshmallows.
 
Dunklin, who cooks all the food at Dunk’s, said the fried chicken is by far the most popular dish, followed by her red beans. “The fried chicken is our no. 1 seller,” she said. Her secret: the mix of seasonings. Like a lot of good cooks, she wouldn’t reveal much else about the process or ingredients.

​Dunklin said that the Sunday buffett has developed a following. Little wonder. Consider a recent “Super Sunday Menu”: marinated BBQ’d baby back ribs, Italian marinated baked chicken, Southern-style seasoned greens, chicken and seafood gumbo (that gets shout outs on the website) and lima beans with smoked neck bone. Plus that famous fried chicken and homemade sweet cornbread.
 
And, yes, there are assorted cakes, pies and cobblers for dessert for those who pace themselves.
 
Prices for the buffet are $10.69 Monday through Thursday and $12.69 Friday through Sunday for adults. Children can eat for $6.99 weekdays and $7.99 on weekends. Carry out boxes start at $8.99.