Nothing says the end-of-the-year holidays like the traditions of family gatherings, big meals and the alcoholic beverages that accompany them.
The Post and Courier Food section is checking in weekly with four downtown Charleston restaurants coping with the coronavirus pandemic and recovering from restrictions designed to contain it. Here's the latest installment.
The Post and Courier Food section is checking in weekly with four downtown Charleston restaurants coping with the coronavirus pandemic and recovering from restrictions designed to contain it. Here's the latest installment.
I can’t shake the critic’s instinct that it’s silly to endorse a dish which might not be available tomorrow. I kind of miss taking chances, though. In other words: No promises. But here are my greatest hits from the first week of the dining ban.
Euro Foods is new to Old Towne Road, but not to West Ashley. It previously had a 13-year run on Ashley River Road, where it operated exclusively as a grocery store. Now the space bearing the Euro Foods name is split almost exactly in half, with a brightly lit retail section to the right and a counter-service café to the left.
Since launching the South Carolina Chef Ambassador program, the state has put approximately $360,000 into the culinary initiative. Less clear, at least according to data provided by sponsors S.C. Department of Agriculture and S.C. Department of Parks, Recreation & Tourism, is what eaters here and elsewhere have gotten out of it.
Community Table is decidedly not fine dining: The servers are dressed in blue jeans, and James Taylor keeps cropping up on the background music mix.
Prior to 2020, each restaurant was theoretically eligible for 15 stars, since it was graded in three separate categories: Food, service and atmosphere. But no longer.
What really characterizes the food in this alluringly gold-walled lounge is not the ingredients which the Wangs puts into it, but the feeling you get out of it.
Malagon is making exceptional food, but its owners don’t want you or me to know it.
For the most part, the food at Tradd's in downtown Charleston is just mildly bad.
It’s a critic’s job to accurately describe a restaurant so potential patrons can knowledgeably decide if they want to go there. Readers can do as they choose with the accompanying opinions.
The massive Folly Beach restaurant, which measures three dining rooms and 6,500 square feet in all, has good intentions that spawn nothing but disappointment.
Melfi’s is the third restaurant that Brooks Reitz and Tim Mink have opened on the short strand of Upper King Street bounded by Congress and Sumter streets
I can’t shake the critic’s instinct that it’s silly to endorse a dish which might not be available tomorrow. I kind of miss taking chances, though. In other words: No promises. But here are my greatest hits from the first week of the dining ban.
Answering readers' food questions
My guess is you’re more concerned by reports that restaurant workers are facing record levels of food insecurity, as well as an uncertain financial forecast (and thank you for heeding that concern at a time when the need for all charitable giving is so great.) Fortunately, several organizations share your priorities.
Q: It is my understanding that in calculating the tip, the amount to be used is based on the pre-tax total. Staff does not need to be tipped for taxes collected, especially in high tax areas (New York, Charleston, San Francisco). What, in your opinion, is correct?
Q: Where can I find authentic Peking duck in Charleston area? I asked Red Orchid if they could do special order and was told, “No, too time consuming to be profitable.”
Charleston's newest restaurants
The mainstays of Daddy’s Girl’s all-sweets menu are cupcakes, cookies and cheesecake, offered in varieties including peach cobbler, red velvet and pineapple-right-side-up.
Bodega Todo, a retail market and food counter in what was once Semilla’s dining room, offers foods from Semilla, Street Bird and Charleston Burger Co.
Cudaco, which recently opened on James Island, is dealing in surf but selling it like turf. The name is a reference to barracudas, which are typically dismissed as trash fish.
The Table at Storey Farms is selling prepared lunch items, such as sandwiches, as well as produce and other goods.
Bussin’ School
A monthly reader recipe contest
He’s the housekeeper’s favorite Mike. He’ll plan the meal with you, cook the gourmet meal, allow you to socialize with friends and family and cleans up after himself -- sometimes leaving it cleaner than it was before. That’s Mike Macri, owner of #mymikecooks, of Murrells Inlet.
When these beans were served in Linda Page’s childhood home, it meant her parents were trying to save money. Now the dish signals one kind of special occasion: Page says she always makes it when she finds hambones on sale at The Honeybaked Ham Company store.
Frederick Goulding’s crab cake recipe is one of four competing in The Post and Courier Food section’s contest for a category crown. Over the course of a year, the newspaper will publish four reader-supplied recipes for each of 12 iconic Lowcountry dishes.
Bob Payne’s crab cake recipe is one of four competing in The Post and Courier Food section’s contest for a category crown. Over the course of a year, the newspaper will publish four reader-supplied recipes for each of 12 iconic Lowcountry dishes.
R. Alex Hild’s crab cake recipe is one of four competing in The Post and Courier Food section’s contest for a category crown. Over the course of a year, the newspaper will publish four reader-supplied recipes for each of 12 iconic Lowcountry dishes.
You’ve been served
Who’s right in this situation? Should restaurant owners be held responsible for mitigating natural phenomena beyond their control? Or should restaurant patrons accept that sunlight, heat and insects sometimes figure into dining out in South Carolina?
Should restaurants restrict kids' menus to elementary-school aged children? Or does any minor dining with his or her mother have the right to order the chicken nuggets?
The Post and Courier Food section weekly features a complaint that first surfaced online, along with testimonies from the patron and restaurateur. You, the readers, are the jury. Join us in our Facebook group to weigh in on whether the customer is indeed right, or if the case should be resolved in the restaurant’s favor.
The Post and Courier Food section weekly features a complaint that first surfaced online, along with testimonies from the patron and restaurateur. You, the readers, are the jury. Join us in our Facebook group to weigh in on whether the customer is indeed right, or if the case should be resolved in the restaurant’s favor. Let’s enter the courtroom.
Exploring what locals eat throughout a day
"There really is no greater satisfaction than a delicious home-cooked meal."
"My go-to meal is Honey Nut Cheerios mixed with vanilla yogurt instead of milk. It tastes better than it sounds and is always best in vintage Pyrex."
This is part of The Post and Courier’s Daily Digest series, in which one of our food reporters asks a local to describe a day of eating in detail.
More Food
Cudaco, which recently opened on James Island, is dealing in surf but selling it like turf. The name is a reference to barracudas, which are typically dismissed as trash fish.
As the coronavirus surges across South Carolina, a pair of downtown Charleston restaurateurs are launching a COVID-19 testing program to slow the disease’s spread through the local food-and-beverage community.
The Table at Storey Farms is selling prepared lunch items, such as sandwiches, as well as produce and other goods.