Co on King

The other day my fiance Matt and I found ourselves out in downtown Charleston for lunch with friends. Being a foursome of adventurous eaters we decided to try out a new restaurant that just opened three months ago.

Co is a restaurant and noodle bar in the Vietnamese style, or at least that is how it presents itself. What it truly is, is a tiny little place, perfectly modern and trendy with a menu that spans the Asian continent offering everything from curry to pad thai, Bahn Mi (the vietnamese answer to a hoagie) to Pho. I would consider it "trendy asian fusion", a title that would make most big city people cringe but for Charleston is surprisingly original. For such a metropolitan city, I find Charleston lacking in ethnic variety.

The restaurant consists of two floors, the first consists of an L-shape bar and one long high-top table in the back. When we went the bar seats were already taken, so we were shown upstairs where the proper dining room is located. Their tables were a bit odd. Long wooden tables meant to seat around ten in a picnic-table style manner. Thankfully there weren't too many people upstairs so we had a table to ourselves.

Our first order of business was of course cocktails!!
Matt and I both ordered their mimosa (which had guava and orange juices). It was delicious, maybe the best mimosa I've ever had.
While selecting our cocktails, we took a good look at their wine list for future reference. I was impressed to see it was short and concise with a fantastic array of imported wines spanning the globe from South Africa, Argentina, Italy, and Portugal. My friend Tess mentioned how refreshing it is to see any menu these days without the token California white or worse, a California red blend. These people obviously know their stuff about vino because they are all fantastic wines at a great price point.

Now, getting back to what really makes or breaks a new place in Charleston, the food. I have to say I was pretty worried about what we were going to get when our waiter mentioned they were still working out the kinks so to speak: getting the staff right, figuring the timing with the kitchen, perfecting the recipes and increasing consistency, all completely legitimate issues that come up with a new restaurant. I can't say that everything went off without a hitch because, well, it didn't.

Our poor friends Tess and Ed made the grave mistake of ordering a dish called Com Ga ($13) which was described on the menu as "Vietnamese fried chicken, rice, pickled vegetables, and ginger dressing. What they ended up with was less than stellar fried chicken, and completely bland rice with no taste whatsoever. There was no ginger dressing to be found and sparse pickled vegetables. In the end, it was pretty much prison food. The saving grace for them however were the Pork Belly Buns ($6). Matt and I also partook in the buns and were pretty satisfied with them. I say pretty satisfied and not super satisfied because they were just not what I was expecting. I was expecting a steamed bun with crispy and fatty slices of pork belly accompanied by pickled vegetables. What these are are fried dough-esque buns with slices of pork belly in them that in all honesty, could and should have been cooked lower and slower before searing. The best part of those buns was the special smokey spicy sauce the waiter brought out to the table. Made in-house this stuff should be sold by the gallon and I would bathe in it all day long, reveling in the smokey, slightly sweet glory of its goodness.

Our other appetizer dish was equally as ho-hum. We ordered the Shrimp and Pork Dumplings ($5) hoping for the best, but getting an average steamed dumpling that came to the table cold inside. Our local Chinese restaurants dumplings blow those out of the water! However, before I make all of you think I didn't enjoy this place, let me tell you our main course was freakin' amazing. We had the Drunken Thai Noodles ($14) and they were everything we had hoped for from CO. They were sweet and spicy (we had the kitchen spice them up a notch) and had a slight smokey flavor that just made my toes tingle. We ordered it with shrimp and I couldn't have loved it more. It was the best drunken noodles I've had since I lived in New York and would order delivery Thai food once a week. Seriously top notch.

Drunken Thai Noodles!

Our Feast, Pork Belly Buns on the left, Drunken Thai Noodles on the right

It was this one dish that gave me extreme hope for the future of this restaurant. They may not have all of their ducks in a row quite yet, but once they've got their stride, I expect they will do quite well here in our lovely city. I will definitely be going back for dinner....................in a couple of months.

Sunday Brunch at The Triangle

Sunday is reserved for one thing. No, not church. Not family. No...Sunday is brunch day!!!

Also commonly referred to as "Sunday Fun-day". No Sunday is complete without a bloody mary or mimosa, a heaping pile of food, and great atmosphere. For me, Sunday brunch is more sacred than anything your local preacher could be offering up. It's the closest thing to a ritual I adhere to (not counting Friday night Shabbat dinner at my folks place). First reason I love brunch so much is that it is socially acceptable to be shit faced by one in the afternoon. I have been a fan of day drinking since college and think it is the truly responsible way to drink; you get your party fix, you are much more alert having just woken up, and you will most likely wake up the next day completely sober.

So the usual brunch spot for my crew is the Triangle Char & Bar in Mount Pleasant. It is known for horrible food, which is true....except for Sundays. I admit that my fiance and I have come up with a fool proof regular brunch order which guarantees us great food, so if you go there for brunch and have a crappy dry omelet...you've been warned.

Triangle is always packed on Sundays, for good reason. $1 mimosas, great spicy bloody mary's, and a fun outside bar area. What I am more interested in talking about however, is their fried chicken livers. These things are spectacular! and the only thing my fiance Matt and I will EVER order from this place. Every Sunday brunch we go there and split the $7 order of chicken livers and a carafe of mimosas and walk away buzzed and so stuffed with food that we waddle lackadaisically back to our vehicle. 

To most people, fried chicken livers sounds disgusting. I understand that. I love third category meats (organ meats to the non culinary crowd), and   chicken liver to me is a special treat. They are also fairly common in the south, where people love the weird stuff (feet, snout, tail etc.) which is fantastic for people like me! you wont find chicken livers on a Manhattan brunch menu that is for sure.




This dish is brunch perfection. The fried chicken livers are accompanied by cheese grits and tasso gravy- a kind of creamy sinfully good pork based sauce that literally makes your tastebuds do high-fives-and all finished off with a fried egg for good measure. It ends up being a creamy, crunchy, salty, sweet slop-bucket of glory. I cannot sing this dishes praises enough. I seriously just want to make out with it, or get it intravenously. And, it is such a filling dish that I could never safely finish one on my own, so it makes the perfect brunch plate for Matt and I....two pigs in shit we are when Sunday rolls around.

As I said....Sunday is for brunch....and of course, friend chicken livers.

Good Morning Vietnam!!!

I can't help but express my excitement to all of you about finding a new girlfriend. Truth be told, good female friends are pretty hard to find and it was by complete chance that me and this chick hit it off. Her name is Chi, she is straight Vietnamese but has lived in DC and then Florida for the past twenty years. She's around 42, skinny and gorgeous, and of course being Asian she also looks like she is about 28-years-old.

Anyways, I had gotten into the topic of food with Chi and she told me she is a huge foodie! So of course I asked all about Vietnamese cuisine, a cuisine I honestly don't know much about. We got to talking about Pho, a traditional Vietnamese dish basically consisting of rare beef cooked in a broth with noodles....from there you can add all sorts of things to it making it unique to you. At least, that was my understanding of it. What I mostly knew about it was that my idol, Anthony Bourdain has on several occasions mentioned that Pho is his favorite dish of all time. I just had to know why!

So Chi invited me to go along with her when she goes up to North Charleston to check out a new Vietnamese restaurant called Pho Bac. It got rave reviews for its Pho and she was anxious to find a place where she could get her home cuisine.

I was beyond excited to go, having never tried Vietnamese food, let alone trying it with a true expert on the stuff.

We got to what looked like a pretty deserted strip mall, not a good sign. The restaurant itself was badly decorated, with deep red walls with black lattis trim accented by sporadic bamboo plants in kitchy potters. Even with all this stacked against this place there were quite a few people getting their Pho fix in this small restaurant, most of them Vietnamese. Always a good sign. If local Vietnamese eat here, its good enough for me.

The menu comes, simple, laminated, in Vietnamese with English translation (also a good sign). When I was in Italy I learned that any menu that had Italian first and English second was usually just okay. Here, facing a menu in all Vietnamese would probably scare me off, so I was thankful for the descriptions of each dish. I mean, who knows what you could end up ordering in a restaurant like that.....dog anyone?

Chi told me to definitely get the Pho, but suggested the all beef one for me while she herself was going to get the House Special that came with meatballs, tendon, tripe, and beef. I guess she thought my delicate white girl stomach wouldn't be interested in what the real Vietnamese eat. She was wrong. We ordered the same thing and she was pretty impressed with my daring.

To start, Chi ordered a jack fruit bubble tea. It was more like a milkshake, sweet and thick and perfect for the hot day outside. I had never had jack fruit before and it was surprisingly mild and sweet with a hint of acidity, sort of like a mango mixed with an orange.

Then the main event arrived. Two huge steaming vats of indistinguishably brown liquid, topped with long strips of rare beef, green onion floating on top like mini life preservers. This thing was huge! I mean, serves two people huge. Put you to bed huge.

Hidden below the depths was a nest of delicate rice noodles, swimming amongst the broth, stomach lining, tendons, and believe it or not, meatballs. Relatively bland at the start, the waitress brought us a plate of goodies: Add-ins to spice up, tang-out, flavor up your dish. Basil, lime wedges, bean sprouts and jalapenos beckoned and Chi and I left no man behind. After we added our flavor boosters, we took to those bowls with generous squirts of Sirriacha, turning the mild-mannered brown liquid into a spicy amber hell-broth. This was like a religious experience. The dish is served naked almost, giving the eater the chance to really pay their respects to it by dousing their broth and noodles in spice, salt, flavor, and more spice. Making this one of the most interactive eating experiences I've had.

Chi wasted no time, digging into her bowl like a pro, teaching me the dance of spoon and chop-stick. Both are needed to attack this beast and I fumbled around with both until I finally got the hang of it. For such a small woman, Chi took down that bowl of goodness like a starving street baby. Finished well before I was.

I finally finished my bowl, almost sad that it was all over. My favorite part of the whole dish had to be those meatballs. So completely different from Italian style meatballs that I am so familiar with. These were denser, like solid hockey puck when frozen kind of dense. I can't pinpoint the flavors in them, but I'm pretty sure they were pork....then again, maybe the greatness of them is that they were so foreign to me. Maybe I don't want to know what's in those magical meatballs.

Some things are just best when left to the experts.

Loren Cordain - Origins and Evolution of the Western Diet: Health Implic...

Juanita Greenbergs Happy Hour Review

There are few things I love more than a cold beer and a good taco. Recently, this budget conscious girl has been on the hunt for the best places for happy hour in the Mount Pleasant area and came across a new favorite, Juanita Greenberg's.I had already been introduced to Juanita’s many times, for a while I referred to it as “that Jewish taco place” due to the ethnically confused name. Situated next to Andolini’s Pizza on Coleman Boulevard, it is hard to miss the bright red building and turquoise shutters. It’s a festive place that like me, doesn’t take itself too seriously and always has a good crowd and friendly staff. 

View from Coleman Blvd

A few weeks ago after a long day at the beach, my fiancé, a friend and I decided to hit up Juanita’s for a happy hour margarita, just the thing to cool us down after a hot day in the sun. That is when we found out about their incredible happy hour: $2 domestics, $3 margaritas, and $1.50 traditional tacos.

Their tacos are out of this world good. We took the bartenders suggestion and got the corn tortillas, two steak and one chicken taco. Her suggestion was spot on as these tacos brought our taste buds right back to our November trip to Mexico. They were perfectly simple, just like authentic street tacos should be. The steak was grilled perfectly and was accompanied by red onion, sprigs of cilantro and melted cheese served with a lime wedge.

Happy Hour Margarita!!

The margaritas were good, fairly standard but perfect on that hot afternoon. The beer selection is superb for a Mexican restaurant, complete with a large array of imported beers including my personal favorite, Sol (similar to a corona but much tastier, served with a lime).The tacos were the true standouts, cheap and delicious. All said and done we all left more than fully satisfied and each of our tabs came out to under $20. So if you are in the mood for great tacos, a fun atmosphere and cold Mexican beers, head to Juanita Greenbergs on Coleman Blvd any day of the week.  

 www.juanitagreenbergs.com/

 410 W Coleman Blvd  Mount Pleasant, SC 29464

(843) 884-0130

Spring in Charleston

Charleston, with all its innate beauty and fun-loving spirit has finally crept into my soul and settled into a permanent place in my heart. I can say for sure that I will be here for the rest of my days, as a home base to return to after many an adventure (god and bank accounts willing).

Growing up in New York had me wanting for more, a strange concept seeing as I grew up within arms reach of arguably the greatest city in the world. However what was missing for me was peace and calm. Charleston and its' surrounding areas has a different energy, a way of life that is in tune with the natural world around it. It is almost as if the people here hum with the same pulsing force as the earth.

The seasons change and the people change with it. For a chef there is no greater gift than seasonality, it allows us to try new things, to constantly change what we keep in our fridges and pantries. A variable that challenges us to be aware of the ground from which we grow our food.

Mexico and Mole

Mexico was every bit the culinary adventure that I had imagined. In the days leading up to the trip I had semi-pornographic mental images of pulled pork tacos dripping in succulent salty fat, zesty fish ceviches, and mind-blowingly complex and spicy nuanced mole sauces.

So different from the Italian food that I know so intimately well, Mexico offered a peek into the wild. Big, bold flavors with no rules or regulations, barely a knife and fork in sight. Was it possible for me to love such a pedestrian cuisine? What I found as I explored the culinary landscape of the Yucatan was that although this is a food "of the people", it is in no way pedestrian. The flavors are well-balanced and layered with the same precision and attention to detail one might expect to find in a high-end city bistro.

The first meal in Mexico was a sign of what was to come, a delicious meal from a hole-in-the wall, made with love and by a family. This little restaurant was located right outside of the bed and breakfast we were staying in Tulum called La Selva Mariposa. The family that ran the place had relocated from Mexico City and brought with them some of their regional favorites. The menu was entirely in Spanish and we had a tough time placing even the simplest of orders, but whatever misgivings we had initially were completely forgotten once our food came out. I ordered the enchiladas mole, my favorite Mexican dish of all time.

Mole is the generic term for sauce, but the mole that I am talking about is red mole. A beautiful symphony of earthy and other-worldly flavors that harken from a tradition much older than all of us gringos. Mole is the delicate balance of two very fundamental Mexican flavors, chilli and chocolate...and about 20 other ingredients. It is very easy to mess up a mole, if it's too sweet, too bitter, too chocolatey, or not chocolatey enough. In culinary circles, the ability to pull off an authentic and properly balanced mole is a technique that takes years of study and a great deal of trial and error, something not often achieved and rarely perfected. Once I tasted the mole at this restaurant I knew that this was a recipe that that family had passed down over generations, something tried and true, done the same way every time. It was incredible. Topped with a little crema and queso fresco, the enchiladas were really only a vessel manifested for the sole purpose to transfer the mole from plate, to mouth.

The first of many culinary adventures on this, my first trip to Mexico, this was a huge success. I was shown, right off the bat, that the food of Mexico is complex, flavorful, and unique. I am now a true lover of Mexican cuisine and will forever be searching for a mole that can rival that from a tiny little restaurant in Tulum.