Just 45 minutes from Austin is Bastrop, an old-timey town charmed with a thriving tourist economy: museums, boutiques, a pretty little riverwalk, and a few restaurants, some of them pretty good.

But Maxine’s is the best of them all, one of our great finds in Texas. The dining room’s kitsch is uncontained, with drinks (like exceedingly sweet lemonade) served in Mason jars, miscellaneous junk lining the walls, and waitresses still calling you “Hon.” While chain restaurants make ineffective attempts to recreate this sort of Americana, however, this is the real thing.

This utterly unpretentious kitchen turns out skillful Southern fried dishes. Fried catfish exemplifies the contrast between melting tenderness and crunch. Although the bacon in a fried-green-tomato BLT is too brittle, its grease flavors the toast, and the flaky batter conceals a whisper of tart goodness. Fried chicken livers are expertly, delicately coated. And then there’s the great regional specialty, chicken-fried steak: Maxine’s is tender, thick, and hand-breaded, a rare gem among the rampant pre-frozen examples out there.

Sides vary from good to great; macaroni and cheese has a crisp cheesy crust, and baked sweet potato gets a Christmas-flavored praline sauce that integrates brown sugar, corn syrup, and cinnamon. Ice box pies are hit or miss—avoid the aerosol-variety whipped cream.