Starland Yard's Nixtate and Uncle June’s offering niche noshes in new permanent shops

Ever since he first fired up Vittoria’s brick oven, Kyle Jacovino and Co. have consistently produced the city’s best pizzas, and the Neapolitan pizzeria’s steel-and-brick-and-mortar space has been the constant calling card of Starland Yard.

In a brilliant and ambitious bit of internal expansion, Savannah’s singular food-and-drink agora recently tricked out two more shipping containers, giving SY three permanent eateries when Uncle June’s opened in February and Nixtate joined the fiesta in March.

The former is the creation of Baltimore-born Reid Henninger, whose single-wide serves up signature sandwiches, salads and sides, a cleverly curated carte of huge and healthy mouthfuls, a “greatest hits menu of casual fare,” per Henninger.

A portmanteau of nixtamal, cooked corn, and metate, the traditional Mesoamerican mealing quern, Nixtate is the play-on-words and spin-on-cuisine conceived by Ken and Seana Corona, longtime Californians whose aim was to bring longed-for flavors to their new hometown.

Without question, both new outlets have already made their marks in Starland Yard, filling discrete voids in the greater neighborhood’s restaurant rota. One of the most creative contrivances is that both establishments are equipped with service bays that open into SY proper as well as windows that open onto DeSoto Avenue, allowing Henninger and the Coronas to be open for business even when SY is not.

What had been a dour and rainy Maundy Thursday gave way to a lovely late afternoon and evening. My wife and I decided to beat the long-holiday-weekend crowd and were in Starland Yard just after five, sitting at one of the little wooden round-tops for two.

Some might say that bona fide flautas and an overstuffed deli sandwich do not mix for one meal. Please.

Now that's a wrap

At Nixtate, the Coronas are doing everything in-container, if you will, and the main attraction is undoubtedly the corn tortillas for which the corn is cooked, ground and pressed on the premises.

Starring in the flautas, the longer-and-skinnier relative of taquitos, and as fresh-fried chips with any of three scratch-made salsas, these corn concoctions are exceptional.

Available as a you-pick, mix-and-match, the three-flauta order ($15) comes with a golf-ball scoop of creamy smooth guacamole, shredduce, crema, and a choice of salsa. The proffered plastic spork is a rather feckless utensil because you are going to use your hands.

The menu always features a beef, chicken, pork, and veg version, but because the Coronas handcraft each complementary component, the next time we return, the headliners’ palatable partners will probably have changed.

We went with a medley: one chicken, one beef, and one vegetarian. The first featured Bootleg Farm (Springfield, GA) bird, roasted parsnips, coriander, and cumin, each ingredient present and pleasant. The Hunter Cattle beef was mixed with savory potato mash and chile poblano that provided some smoky heat, and the filling for the veg flauta du jour was palmetto purple sweet potato, quinoa, chile pasilla, and roasted garlic.

The shells of all three were just slightly crispy, fried but not at all greasy, while each eight-inch long ‘cigarro’ deserved a little more filling. The roasted tomatillo salsa was bright and lightly piquant.

The paper serving boat carrying the flautas are loaded, as advertised, and these antojitos are excellent, even if I wish that the order of three was $12. Understandably, part of the price is the artisanal provenance of Nixtate’s house-made, hand-rolled start-to-finish fare, not to mention what the modern market will bear.

Plant one on me

When Henninger first opened up shop, we split four of Uncle June’s seven sammies with our nextdoor neighbors, all of them equally prodigious and delicious though the standout was the Powerhouse ($13). My wife and I figured that this could be an apt salad course for our container-shops combo meal.

This vegtastic sandwich, which Henninger credits to his brother’s memory of a similar Dagwood served at a Baltimore diner, is inches high and will test even the mightiest maw on the first bite. Once you have picked up your half, you are all in. Grab four napkins with your weak hand.

The innards listed on the menu tell only a portion of this multideckers’s story, pun intended. Atop ripe slices of avocado are a layer of just-as-tender dill pickles and slivers of crisp red onion. Heading up the mountain, tomato is topped with dill havarti that adds even more creaminess to the sandwich, and then a mattress of sprouts and greens. A slather of honey mustard dressing makes this the consummate salad-sandwich, your servings of veggies for about three days.

We all know that the bread often makes or breaks a sandwich, and Natasha Gaskill’s Pullman rye, lightly butter-grilled, elevates Henninger’s distinctive Powerhouse from delicious to heavenly.

My wife and I celebrate our 30th in August, and we have been together for three-dozen years. That means we can share these gloriously sloppy finger foods with glee.

Our only menu mistakes were not ordering a side of chips from Nixtate and a side of steakhouse potatoes from Uncle June’s.

Next time.

Nixtate (2418 DeSoto Avenue) is open Thursday through Sunday (4:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.); Uncle June’s (2411 DeSoto Avenue) is open Tuesday (5 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.), Wednesday through Saturday (noon to 8:30 p.m.), and Sunday (noon to 6:00 p.m.)

This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Nixtate and Uncle June's open in Savannah's Starland Yard