Big Mama's Kitchen

3223 North 45th Street (just north of Maple)
Turning Point Campus, Building A (look for the restaurant signs)
Omaha, NE 68104
(402) 455-MAMA
Open for breakfast and lunch, plus Friday and Saturday dinner, closed Mondays
www.bigmamaskitchen.com

Woo boy. Big Mama's Kitchen not only feels like a school cafeteria, it is actually an old school cafeteria. ("If my school served this food for lunch I might have gone to class more...") Odd location aside, this place is pretty good. I'm not really a soul food connoisseur, but here we have an Omaha institution. We opted for a medley of appetizers: fried okra, macaroni and cheese, beans and cornbread, and featherbones. The okra was crunchy outside, gooey and green on the inside. The beans were excellent, but the cornbread was disappointing and dry. Bummer. Mac and cheese was very creamy and not the baked kind we were hoping for. It might have been Velveeta I was tasting. The featherbones, though, were awesome. I had never had this dish before and it was kinda fun peeling the meat off the little sheets of bone. The sauce--a delicious spicy BBQ--was served on the side, making the meat a lot easier and neater to eat than your average rib-like food. Looking forward to going back for breakfast sometime; the plastic leopard print tablecloths are a joy to eat off of. Try a cranberry sun tea if they've got it.

Featherbones

Beans and Cornbread

Macaroni and Cheese, Fried Okra

Cranberry Sun Tea