We were greeted & seated very quickly, and they had no problem accommodating the little guy. They start everyone off with a basket of fried apple fritters and apple butter, as well as their housemade Apple Julep. If you're thinking of donuts on the fritters, you're a bit off base. They're more like a sweet hush puppy, and they're great. The apple butter, which my southern mother approved of, was delicious. The Apple Julep was sans booze - a mix of a few different juices, and not memorable.
The entrees, on the other hand - were very memorable. Pictured below, from top to bottom are the Mister's Fried Catfish, Nana's Chicken Sampler (fried chicken, pot pie, and chicken & dumplings), and my Chicken Florentine. I sampled everyone's food, and it was all rich without feeling shamefully heavy or greasy. Pa FvF had the meatloaf, but he was into it faster than I could snap a photo. It was very tender and tasty with a nice baste, even though I don't care for meatloaf that's not my own. The fish was wonderfully batter-fried and and super tender and flaky. According to Mr. FvF, some of the best fried fish he's ever had.
My Chicken Florentine was a massive, pounded-thin chicken breast, stuffed with fresh spinach, Swiss cheese and sugar cured ham, topped with an alfredo cream sauce. As rich as the dish was, it still tasted amazingly fresh. Kudos to using grilled chicken and not breaded or fried - it would just be too much in this dish.
We were all quite hungry from a day on the road, but the portions were so huge that we were all lucky to even make a dent in our plates. Everyone left with half of their meal (plus extra fritters) to eat for lunch the next day.
They had quite a few sides to choose from, but I was disappointed that a side salad was almost $4 extra. Green beans, corn, warm cinnamon apples, fried okra - the usual Southern suspects. My main dish was so good that I'm not even sure I touched my side items, so I don't have much to say about those. Other than the $4 side salad, prices were somewhere between reasonable and slightly steep, considering you're in a tourist town and being served enough food for two full meals. The bill for four people ended up around $80 or so. I think most of the entrees were around $13-15. As for ambiance, it's neatly decorated in a country fashion with old woodwork and a glass-enclosed aviary in one room, which is awesome for little peeps. Dining out on vacation with a baby can turn into a disaster quickly, and there wasn't a single thing amiss about our visit to Applewood farms.
An easy 5 out of 5 sporks!
