There’s competitiveness among food lovers that’s less about winning and more about one-upping. We’re explorers, eager to be the first to plant our flag at an unexpected find.

If we find good tamales, we find a way to casually drop it in a conversation. Is someone skillet frying okra? Believe me, we won’t keep it a secret; we just can’t. We want to be the first to spread the word. 

I’ve held off on Daisy’s as long as I can. When you find a place – hidden in plain sight – that serves ham hocks, oxtails, turkey wings, chitterlings, pig’s feet, pig ears and neck bones, well, you have to share it.

And I didn’t just happen on this place, as a friend told me about it and I eventually made it over there. So really, even if it was a competition, which it’s not, I didn’t really find it on my own so I can’t take the credit. Or at least not all of it. But I’m telling you about it, so in the way this works, we all win.

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Daisy’s isn’t the only soul food place I’ve found in the past few months, as I’ve been looking for some new places, but right now it’s leading this new pack and I’ll parcel the others out as I pay them more visits. We can talk about which is the best and never get unanimous agreement – home cooking is as personal as food gets – but Daisy’s is legit, qualified to be in the discussion.

Robert Taylor first opened Daisy’s in Southgate Shopping Center around 2010, closed down for about a year, then opened again in the stand-alone building on South Third three years ago.

He’s in the restaurant, named for his wife, every morning, cooking or overseeing. The menu changes daily, with a repeat or two over the week. My days are Monday and Wednesday, when I can get neck bones and oxtails, respectively. And the oxtails, by the way, are $13.99 with two sides, about $5 less than I paid in the last month or two at another restaurant across town.

Pork neck bones are just absolutely one of my favorite things, right there with oxtails and short ribs. All cook down to ridiculously tender bits of meat that we could call fall-off-the- bone except that in the case of oxtails and neck bones, you pick the meat from the crevices in the bones. If this sounds gross to you, well, my late father-in-law said it often and best: De gustibus non est disputandum. There’s your Latin for the day. While not the literal translation, which is closer to “in matters of taste, there is no dispute,” the common phrase is pretty much “there’s no accounting for taste.”

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I get that some people don’t like bones, that they won’t even eat ribs because of the bones. I can’t help but be reminded of the scene in “Bluff City Law” when the vegetarian Emerson tells Sydney that no one even tries to disguise what ribs are. Same with neck bones, but the payoff is big.

At Daisy’s, you’ll be served a pile of three or four, maybe two if they’re large, and you just get in there with your fork and pick out the meat. It comes right out and each bite is savory, rich –just plain meaty. You also can get turkey necks on Mondays, but those I just don’t eat as there’s just no meat, nothing there to make it worth the trouble.

Vegetables on Mondays are yams, which I also don’t eat. I know it costs me some Southern food cred, but I can’t handle a sweet potato, much less one cooked in syrup and spices. The word from folks who have eaten at Daisy’s with me is that these are fine but unexceptional.

The greens are generally good and have once or twice been outstanding. And while I’d like food to be consistently great anywhere I eat – surely you agree – sometimes variations in quality remind us that home cooking is best done by pinches and dashes instead of by rigid recipes.

Chicken comes baked or fried every day, and I’ve had it fried with the same outcome as the greens. It’s always OK, and the last time I had it, it was great. The pieces are on the small side, the batter is crisp and flavorful but with no hint of heat, a temptation many places don’t avoid these days.

Smothered and fried pork chops, well, yes. They are good. If you get them on Tuesday, you can get them with mashed potatoes, as nature intended all smothered meats be served. They’re called creamed potatoes here, but the important thing is they are good with the gravy.

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On Wednesday and Thursday, it’s smothered potatoes. This is a misleading description as the potatoes aren’t covered in anything. They’re not exactly the same but similar to my grandmother’s skillet-fried potatoes, which were sliced before cooking and largely broken by the end of the process. My friend and colleague Chris Herrington tells me what his grandmother calls fried potatoes are about the same as Daisy’s smothered ones. They’re soft, a little chunky, a little bit mashed, and generously seasoned with salt and pepper. My grandmother’s had crisp pieces mixed in; these don’t.

Interestingly, the word smothered is also often used for cabbage and like these potatoes, it seems to be cooked in a skillet in fat, but not covered in anything.

Oxtails, served only on Wednesday, are as good as any you’ll find at better-known soul food restaurants. This is a lumpy and knobby round piece of meat and is, of course, the tail of the cow, cut crosswise. Rich in gelatin, they make great gravy, and the meat is meltingly tender, similar to pork neck but a bit richer and deeper, as beef is.

Black-eyed peas and purple hull peas are both on the menu, but my educated guess is that I’ve eaten purple hull peas every time I’ve ordered them, and that’s fine with me.

Mac and cheese is inconsistent, ranging from creamy to gooey, the stickier version is my preference.

The sweet tea will knock you out, so be warned there.

I’ve eaten the ham hocks a time or two at Daisy’s; I love the silky texture of the meat, though there’s precious little of it trapped between the smoky layer of fatty skin and the bone.

They cook chitterlings on Sunday and Friday, and I haven’t tried them. I’ve also not tried the turkey wings, but I’ll find myself there some Thursday and see what they’re all about. Daisy’s deserves a little love. It’s not perfect, but the food is good – better than some places more widely known, not as good as the best, but good enough to keep me coming back to try more. The employees are friendly and welcoming, it’s clean, and the selection is plentiful.

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