Nixa, Mo: Sucker Day Soiree Supper & The Best French Mediterranean Restaurant in Town

There is really no way to adequately describe Nixa’s Sucker Day.

Think of it as Mardi Gras in southwest Missouri. Only in May. And without the bad booze, frenzied crowds, and public vulgarity. Now, Bert, over the in Fire Protection District booth might tell an off-color joke. But mostly Sucker Day is one of those little town celebrations that rejuvenate one’s faith in America, highlights the joy of small town life, and demonstrates to dramatic effect the influences of funnel cakes on the average Midwestern posterior.

Suckers, by the way, at least in this context, are fish: catostomus commersonii, called, throughout the Ozarks, “white suckers.” Suckers thrive in the clear, fast-running, gravel-bottomed streams in the region. In the spring, when the love urges of the sucker start energizing the, uh, little suckers, fishermen from all over southwest Missouri start hauling the fish in. Suckers are immune to the temptations of bait. They have to be gigged, with a long, forked spear. Traditional methods call for a stepladder erected in the middle of a shallow stream. The gigger climbs up and from his perch, he, again, forgive the expression, nails those suckers. Nixa’s Sucker Day started as a big, riverside bash, held every spring when the suckers began to run. In 1957, they moved the party up into town.

Sucker Day lasts most of the weekend, turning the main street through Nixa, in Christian County, into a veritable New Year’s Eve on Times Square scene. (Well, less a few hundred thousand people. But with more pickup trucks.) There is a parade, a dance at the Nixa Senior Center, a talent show in the old high school gym, a beauty pageant that crowns the Sucker Queen, cake walks, carnival rides, (is that toilet toss for real?), booths peddling homemade root beer and lemonade—and there are 55 gallon-sized vats of smoking oil in which slabs of sucker sputter and turn, assuming a perfect, golden brown crust.

Which is all a lot of fun and revives one’s faith in the wonderfulness of middle America. But, man. By the end of the day, you’re thinking, “Loved the homemade sarsaparilla, scored a double layer chocolate marvel at the cake walk, and found the fried sucker so tasty we can’t even come up with any good plays on the word, true. But doesn’t a plate of scallops à la Parisienne sound tasty?”

That’s when you leave the festivities of Sucker Day behind and go just a couple of blocks over, to a strip mall—which seems an even less likely theatre for fine dining than the street fair you just left—to Kassim Al Roubaie’s French Mediterranean Café.  

If the name sounds familiar, it’s because Al Roubaie once ran Sophia’s Cafe at 13441 Olive (now Addie’s Thai House) here in St. Louis. He opened another place, in Kansas City, that Esquire named as one of the best 100 restaurants in the country. Al Roubaie is one of those guys who can take a sauté pan, carrots, a can of cranberry sauce, and some octopus and turn out a dish that gives fits to restaurant critics trying to describe just how deliciously lovely it is.

Walk into this café, and you’d better have reservations when you do, and you’ll get your first clue. This isn’t what you’re expecting in a little Ozarkian town that was, according to his creator, Robert Ludlum, the birthplace of super-spy Jason Bourne. Or in a strip mall where it shares space with a dry cleaner and a frozen yogurt stand. The interior is upscale, with smooth concrete floors, low-key pastel walls, black linen; lots of cozy, secluded corners.

The menu’s a second clue. It’s simple. No folderol of the sort that’s often associated with eateries of this caliber. No notes detailing in how many fathoms of water the squid was swimming when it was caught or the astrological sign of the lamb they’re serving that night. But when you see that squid is stuffed with a crawfish pâté, the lamb served with mushrooms and fresh herbs in a garlic sauce, you should be able to figure this isn’t a typical small town American diner you’ve entered.

That squid comes in big marbles of its fleshy meat wrapped around a luscious ball of pink crawfish ground to a fragrant paste, in a smoky cream sauce. Lamb, more roughly ground and mixed with what tastes like just a whisper of allspice, is stuffed into tightly wrapped grape leaves (below left); but instead of the usual lemon sauce, the thick pillows get a spicy, slightly acidic tomato sauce. It works. Well.

We figured a house salad would be average. It wasn’t, because we took the waitress’s advice and had the “Moroccan orange” dressing. Really tasty, like a drib of Grand Marnier found its way into it. Tastes that way, but when we asked the waitress, she told us she didn’t know either—even though the chef is her step-grandfather and she’d been trying to wheedle the recipe from him since the place opened.

What’s a “French curry?” Beats us. In general, the French colonials stayed out of those corners of the world where curries are popular. But the kitchen does a creditable job with it; the aroma of curry is light, mixed into a silky sauce and poured over slices of chicken and a scatter of sliced vegetables (above right). There are also half a dozen beef offerings, filet mignon in a pepper sauce, a ribeye in a thick Burgundy blanket. And lamb. A duck breast is comparable to one in any starred restaurant anywhere. The breast is roasted, the skin crackly brown and succulent, then sliced and drizzled with a thin sauce of blueberries and pomegranate that complements the meat, adding a piquancy to the rich breast. The anti-oxidants of the blueberries probably cancel out the glorious fat of the duck. We think.  

But the emphasis here is on seafood.

Charcoal-broiled salmon, or the same fish presented with Champagne sauce. Half a dozen shrimp preparations. Frog legs. Ivory, thumb sized scallops, along with sliced mushrooms, are swirled into a creamy golden sauce, sprinkled with parsley, a superb combination that made the most of the small, sweet shellfish. Seafood wrapped in pastry can be the culinary equivalent of a Joaquin Phoenix comeback. Embarrassing. Soggy and tasteless. Under the direction of a maestro like La Roubaie, it becomes extraordinary (below left). The pastry is airy, puffed into delicate flakes. Inside shrimp, chunks of lobster, shrimp, and fish, in a honey-colored syrupy broth.

And of course, we had to try the paella (below right).

Paella is Serious Food. (See our moving tribute to the lobster roll for more on the concept of Serious Food.) It is not to be monkeyed with. The kitchen here does, it was immediately obvious, monkey. Mostly, they monkey around with the rice. It’s basmati. Long, fluffy; and dry. This is unacceptable monkeying, even though, given Al Roubaie’s Middle Eastern roots, we can understand why he’d do it. But paella is made with short or medium grain rice and for a reason. Shorter grained rice, like Valencia, soaks up the broth and is sticky enough to be easily spooned. Also monkeying was the adding big chunks of chicken and beef to this paella. These are boneless; that’s why this version of paella is sometimes called arròs sense entrebancs: “rice without impediments.” If you like paella traditional, you’ll find this a bit distracting, but not excessively off-putting. And there’s one part of this paella without any monkey business: the seafood. Rings of tender, meaty squid. Delightfully tender baby octopus. Shrimp, big curled ones, along with tiny little ones. Firm slices of fish. Mussels. And half a lobster tail. There isn’t a presentation of paella in St. Louis that presents a more luxurious array of ocean edibles than this version.

There is the matter of desserts. You could just go over to our mother’s place; she lives only a couple of miles away. She’ll have at least a pie or two. But interrupt Ice Road Truckers or a football game on TV and you’ll get a frosty reception. Or, speaking of frozen, there’s an Andy’s Frozen Custard just down the road. Andy’s is the Ted Drewes of the Ozarks; their James Brown Funky Jackhammer is a local legend. We’re partial to the Key Lime Concrete. But if you just want to hang out at the French Mediterranean Café, they have baklava, chocolate mousse, and something called Strawberry Romanoff. Frankly, we were too full for dessert. Then too, the talent show at back at Sucker Day was getting ready to start. And we didn’t want to miss the clogging.

French Mediterranean Café: 701 McCroskey St., Nixa, MO. 417-724-8216. (Google it; it’s in a maze right off I-65 and you will need exact directions.)

Sucker Day 2012 this year commences with the parade on Friday night, May 18. For details, go here.

Andy’s Frozen Custard does give Ted Drewe’s a run for its money, custardly speaking. The closest one to Nixa is a few miles away, at 2726 South Campbell, in nearby Springfield.