Southern(most) fried

Onelia's lunch counter fed several generations of conchs at Dennis Pharmacy, down on United Street, so there was great lamentation when the place closed (soon to be a fancy bank).

I always thought it was brilliant for the food -- hearty breakfasts and lunches -- to be so close to a wide, deep array of antacids. Delicious, yes, but the sort of stuff to make a nutrition nanny faint.

So mouths started watering all around when they announced the lunch counter would reopen just down Petronia from our house, in the Village, inside Henrietta's the Art of Baking.

Henrietta, you see, has baking down pat (especially coconut strips and coconut cake) but has had trouble with the Art of Breakfasting, Souping and Sandwiching, which Onelia can do blindfolded.

So we stopped in at the reborn Dennis for cholesterol's sake and I had to order a mollete (mo-yay-tay). Imagine: Slice a piece of Cuban bread lengthwise; fill with picadillo (spiced ground beef); close up and roll in egg and crumbs; deep-fry till crisp; serve with hot sauce.

Robert had trouble with the idea of fried bread, but I reminded him it's in the solid tradition of things like Cornish pasties that can be cooked, wrapped up in newspaper, pocketed and pulled out for joyous sustenance during a busy workday.

You could take it out on a boat while fishing -- but it was just as good to eat it with a group of Creole ladies at the next formica table, Cubans just beyond them, cops getting bag after bag of carryout and an old guy in a guayabera in the back of the dining room, patiently using a hammer and table-mounted vise to bust open an endless pile of coconuts for their sweet milk and meat. Todo sabroso.