Fred's Southern Kitchen in Bartow, FL

Fred's Southern Kitchen is a chain of southern buffets in west Florida. I heard that were really good from a couple of people. I probably wouldn't have gone without the recommendation, but I stopped into a Fred's in Bartow for lunch during some of my travels.

On my first trip to their buffet, I tried their sausage & onions, various types of beans, rice, fish, and cornbread. The black beans and rice was the best of the plate, but I found everything had an overly salty taste.

I was getting kind of full from the first plate of food, but I figured I should get my moneys worth like the large number of scarily obese people eating at Fred's. On the second plate, I tried grits with tomato gravy, macaroni & cheese, fried green tomatoes (labeled as fried zucchini), fried catfish, and mashed potatoes. Again, everything was very salty. I did like the tomato gravy on the grits. I've never seen that combination before, but it was tasty.

I was going to get dessert and be done, but then I spotted some collard greens. I had to try the leafy greens made unhealthy with lots of salt and pork fat. My final plate consisted of some sort of coconut dessert and collards...

Fred's Southern Kitchen was okay for what it was. It was mostly unhealthy southern food with way too much salt, but I've had worse elsewhere. It was definitely a few steps above the big buffet chains like Golden Corral, but nowhere as good as those BBQ buffets found along I-95 in the Carolinas...