Southern Comfort

Day or night, the highlight of any all-you-can eat buffet is dessert. There's not much of a selection at the Cornbread Café; I suggest ignoring the rubbery sugar-free Jell-O and the canned chocolate pudding and heading instead straight for the hot stuff. Bread pudding here is soft and creamy under a crackly baked-sugar crust; and peach cobbler cooks under a slightly chewy shortbread crust, with peaches jazzed up by punchy spices. A big scoop of ice cream costs extra.

Other soul-food buffets around town might have better food or more variety (the Peachtree Buffet or Three Friends come to mind), but there's something so appealing about the Cornbread Café. Maybe it's the youthful servers, who are attentive and sweet -- even the teenaged girl who watched me eat three portions of bread pudding and gasped, "I guess they don't feed you at home."

I guess they don't! I also don't get the kind of musical selections played at this restaurant at home or anywhere. One night it was faux classical (including the "William Tell Overture"), another night it was Ray Charles and, during Sunday brunch, a brassy gospel choir. That morning's musical message was as comforting and filling as the restaurant's food. The fare may not be as miraculous as manna, but if you're on a budget and want a meal that will see you through an entire day (or, depending on how much you eat, several), the Cornbread Café may be the answer to a prayer.