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Justix: A novel approach to fast food

By Howard M. Snyder HSNYDER@HERALD-LEADER.COM

GEORGETOWN -- To begin my first restaurant review of 2008, let me explain a couple of things. I used to review restaurants for the Herald-Leader for 10 years or so. I've been off the position, due to some personal reasons, for about six years. But now I'm back, and my first review is -- surprise, surprise -- a good one, and it's a chain.

I was told of Justix -- which has only one other location, in Atlanta -- by a colleague who lives in Georgetown. She laughingly said everything is served on a stick. And so it is. Meat, fish, fowl and vegetables are grilled on sticks or skewers, much like satay or kabobs. It's healthy food served sort of fast.

Justix opened in late August in a small strip of retail spaces just east of Wal-Mart. The Google map on Justix's Web site is wrong. From Osborne Drive, turn right on Lawson Drive. It's not far beyond Gold Star Chili on the left. Its exterior and spacious interior are decorated in vivid colors of grape, cantaloupe, lime and chartreuse. Tables and chairs were well spaced. You have to go to the counter in the back of the restaurant to place your orders. Someone from the kitchen will bring your food to your table.

Healthy and low-fat was the order of the day. Where else can you find brown rice on a fast-food menu? The main courses are the skewered meats and vegetables -- beef, pork, chicken, salmon, tofu and portabella mushrooms. A sauce bar featuring 13 interesting sauces was just waiting for the sampling. I tried the "sampler stix," one grilled piece each of salmon, chicken and tofu. The salmon was great on its own, nicely charred; the chicken was improved with the lime-peanut-cilantro sauce; and the tofu -- by itself tasting as if it had some added garlic -- benefited from "Annabelle's mint and orange sauce," a wonderful mix I could have eaten by the spoonful.

I came back a few days later and tried the Southwestern chicken salad ($7.50), a great mix of chicory, radicchio, field greens, corn and onion, topped with three skewers of grilled chicken. It came with a lime-cumin vinaigrette, but I tried their bodacious blue cheese dressing from the sauce bar, too. It was intense. A side of mac and cheese (pasta shells in a creamy Parmesan sauce) and a side of roasted veggies (mostly zucchini mixed with slices of portabella mushrooms and slices of sweet red pepper) made a more than filling lunch.

The only thing I didn't like was the dessert. I had the choice of cheesecake on a stick ($1.95) or a brownie on a stick ($2.50). I sampled the cheesecake, and it wasn't much. If you can imagine dry ice cream, that's what it was like.

Two lunches added up to about $24, and it was worth it.