Seafood a la Wando at Hank’s Seafood

As I’ve mentioned in several posts, we go to Charleston, SC often. We love the history, shopping, beaches and most important for me, the restaurants. Many of my favorite restaurants are in Charleston. One restaurant you won’t find on my favorites list is Hank’s Seafood. It’s not because I don’t like Hank’s. The food is very good and consistent. The atmosphere is awesome. The seafood is fresh. I’m picky with my favorites list.

The restaurant isn’t on my favorites, BUT they may have my favorite dish in Charleston. Hank’s Seafood a la Wando. This dish is fantastic, maybe a little rich, but amazing. I don’t often order the exact same thing every time I go somewhere, but I love this dish so much, I get it now every time.

The menu describes it such:

“Sautéed Shrimp Scallops and Fish deglazed with Sherry finished with Crabmeat, Button Mushrooms and Scallion in a Shellfish Saffron Cream Sauce Served with Fried Grit Cakes”.

I shouldn’t have to say any more than that. The seafood is fresh and cooked well. The mushrooms are a surprise of supple earthiness and the fresh scallion and a punch of freshness. The fried grit cakes are the perfect starch to balance the rich sauce. Oh and there is the sauce, very heavy sauce with a hint of saffron velvet. The sherry is a nice acid that brightens the whole dish. Ahh…yum! One of the best things I have eaten. As much as I love to try new things, I’ll get this until they take it off the menu.

PS. Hank’s isn’t on my favorites list but that is not because I don’t like the restaurant, we go often. They just aren’t the type of restaurant that I look for when naming favorites. Most restaurants on my fav list, I couldn’t point to a dish like the Seafood a la Wando, because the never have the same menu twice.

I would recommend Hank’s and highly recommend the Seafood a la Wando.

Farm to Table Dinner featuring Stone Brewing at Greenbrier Farms

Very rarely do events like this come to such a happy confluence. I really like Stone Brewery. I love Greenbrier Farms and I love American Grocery. When I was invited to the Farm to Table Dinner that featured all three I was ecstatic. One of my favorite Chefs preparing food from my favorite farm, pared with beer from one of my favorite breweries. Awesome…and it was.

Five courses of exquisite, is how I would define this meal. I have to say that it was A LOT of food and A LOT of heavy food but WOW. My favorite course was the fourth (image above). Basically it was pulled pork, but made into “paddy” then seared so it had a nice crust. The mustard was house made and brilliant. Collard greens and grits are about as southern as you can get and went perfectly with the pork. YUM!

I also I loved the charcuterie and the salad course as well. Actually the whole meal was brilliant and the beers were delicious and bountiful. Below I tried to remember all the courses and beer parings. I might have forgotten something, but that should be pretty close.

Courses

1. Charcuterie with grilled bread. Like pate (terrine or head cheese) with all kinds of goodies (lamb and pork head).
2. Salad with greens, pickled green tomatoes, roasted red and white beets, turnips vinaigrette.
3. Cassoulet deconstructed. White and red bean, kale, chicken confit, pork belly, aioli, green tomato chow chow.
4. Pork roulette (pulled pork, crispy sear), housemade mustard seed mustard, collards, Anson Mills grit cake, pork and lamb demiglaze.
5. Ginger and molasses cake, butterscotch Chantilly, whipped cream quenelle.

Beer Parings

1. Stone IPA
2. Stone Pale Ale
3. Stone Levitation Ale
4. Stone Smoked Porter
5. Stone Imperial Russian Stout

If you are not familiar with Greenbrier Farms, they are a small farm located outside of Greenville, SC and are definitely on my Favorites Products List.

American Grocery is my favorite restaurant in this area. If you’ve been following this blog you undoubtedly know this. I have written about them on several occasions.

Fall for Greenville 2011, downtown Greenville, South Carolina

We are very fortunate in this area to have a lot of great restaurants. We are equally lucky to have many outdoor events. As I have posted before, Fall for Greenville combines the best of both. This outdoor festival is full of music, great local food and eclectic beer and wine selections and proceeds go to local charities. What a phenomenal event! You can read more about this event in my write up from last year or download the Fall for Greenville 2011 Map(pdf). Below is some of the food I sampled. If you are within a few hours of sleepy Greenville, SC and haven’t been, I would highly recommend this event.

Tacos from Fonda Rosalinda’s

Ford’s Red Beans and Rice

Looking South, Main Street, Greenville, SC

Soby’s Lobster Mac and Cheese

Larkin’s Yukon Gold Chips with Bleu Cheese Dip

Looking South, Main Street, Greenville, SC

Vietnamese Bahn Mi Sandwich at The Nose Dive

Restaurants can come and go pretty quickly. One restaurant that opened with great fan fare in downtown Greenville was The Nose Dive. The next in a long growing line of Table 301 Restaurants that include local favorites like Soby’s, The Lazy Goat and Devereaux’s.

The Nose Dive was a long time coming. Opening in the space that used to be the home of Restaurant “O”, an upscale steak house. The space stayed empty for a very long time by Greenville standards. Never the less, when The Nose Dive did finally open, the “Gastropub” menu was refreshingly unique for the area. Upscale bar food. Gourmet technique and recipes applied to food you might normally not associate with a bar. We’ve eaten there MANY times since they opened and have never had a bad meal. We mostly like the sandwiches and “snacks”. The entree menu or “Mains” is good not great. The restaurant has a nice wine list and better than average beer selection.

The whole reason for the post is to talk about my favorite sandwich in downtown Greenville. The Vietnamese Bahn Mi from The Nose Dive is a PERFECT sandwich in my opinion. PERFECT! Light and Crispy French Bun (with a very little mayo). Char Siu Pork brings some sweet and tangy bar-b-que flavor and is perfectly seasoned, not too little not too much. Spicy Pickled Vegetables add the acidity and crunch that anything “perfect” needs. Fresh Jalapenos slices and a lot of them add enough heat to make me sweat, which I love. Add in some cilantro for that fresh, earthiness and you have the perfect sandwich. YUM! I struggle getting anything else on the menu. I could see how some wouldn’t like this sandwich, it is probably not for everyone. Maybe it is too spicy, maybe some don’t like the pickled veg. For me, it is perfect.

2011 Greenville Restaurant Week at Devereaux’s and American Grocery

Every year South Carolina puts on a Restaurant Week celebration. Through-out the state some of the nicer restaurants offer a prix fixe 3 course menu which is generally offered for around $30. Most of these restaurants usually have entrees that cost $30, so this is a really good deal. Restaurant Week in Greenville is a huge success with most of the restaurants staying packed the whole week. I love the idea because I believe it exposes many to restaurants they might not normally go to and cuisine they might not normally try. Brilliant!

So for a raging foodie like me it is heaven. This year we visited two of my favorite restaurants in Greenville; American Grocery and Devereaux’s. I’ve said this before but it is not easy to “shock” my palate with something I wasn’t expecting. Both of these restaurants succeed in doing that more often then not. Below are the sample Restaurant Week menus for each restaurant.

• Devereaux’s Sample Menu (pdf)
• American Grocery – Sample Menu (txt)

We first visited Devereaux’s with a group of friends. It was nice because between us all we had one of every thing. I had Rabbit Risotto (Rabbit Confit, orange zest, chive and asiago), Roasted Duck Breast (pictured below), and the Rosemary Funnel Cake (Pumpkin crisp ice cream, orange and honey, also pictured below) with wine pairings.

First the risotto; what stuck with me was the orange zest. The rabbit was great and the actual risotto was tender and creamy (what I would expect from a great risotto). The orange zest just gave the dish a big, citrus punch that caught me off guard (in a good way). The duck was cooked perfectly (which if you’ve cooked duck, isn’t always the easiest to do), with a sweet, chard crust on the out side and almost rare inside. The rice and vegetables that came with it where very nice and the savory demi-glaze was a perfect balance with the rich duck. My final course was the rosemary funnel cake. I have to say that I didn’t taste a lot of rosemary more ginger, but it was delicious. The ice cream and crisp finished the meal very well.

Our second trip was to American Grocery. Let me start by saying this is my favorite restaurant in Greenville. We go pretty regular. This meal was the best I have had at this restaurant. I had Red Fern Farm Lamb Albondigas (lima bean hummus, parsley salad), Blue Chip Farm Rabbit Loin ‘Pasta’ (swiss chard, carrot – bacon cream) and Buttermilk Panna Cotta (citrus soup, almond tuile) with wine pairings.

The first course was Lamb Albondigas, which are basically Spanish lamb meat balls and they were amazing. They were not overly rich and the lima bean hummus and peppery parsley balanced the dish very well. My main course was one of the best things I have eaten (the photo is at the top of the page). Rabbit Lion cooked confit in duck fat. Ridiculous! The fresh pasta made in house was so tender. The bitterness of the swiss chard. And all tied together with a carrot, bacon cream. I wanted to lick the bowl. Seriously, I wanted to lick the bowl and if it wasn’t so crowded I might have. Perfect! My dessert course was a Buttermilk Panna Cotta. It was very good but nothing that blew me away. Nothing could have lived up to my previous course. The panna cotta was not overly sweet, which works for me. The almond tuile had a fair amount of sweetness and added nice crunch. The citrus soup was great with bits of grapefruit it added a nice acidity.

If you have never been to some of these restaurants, Restaurant Week or Foodie Fest (in Greenville) are great opportunities. I highly suggest giving them a try. You may like them, you may not but for $30 you can’t beat it.

Roasted Duck Breast, Devereaux’s

Rosemary Funnel Cake, Devereaux’s

Braised Beef Tongue, Herbed Gnocchi, Smoked Tomato Sauce at American Grocery

First off, sorry, sorry, sorry for the crappy photo. I hate sitting in restaurants and trying to get that “great shot”. Instead I end up with photos like the above. Oh well, you get the gist. On to the food…

If you know me, you probably know that American Grocery, at the West End in downtown Greenville, SC, is my favorite restaurant in town. As I have mentioned in previous posts, Chef Clarke’s ever changing menu continually shocks and impresses me. On this evening, we were downtown in the middle of the week for a friends art show and on a whim stopped by AGR. I had Braised Beef Tongue, Herbed Gnocchi with a Smoked Tomato Sauce and it was, as usual, YUM!

If the thought of eating beef tongue grosses you out, I am sure you are not alone. In fact, when cooked appropriately, it is extremely flavorful and tender. In this case it WAS cooked properly, braised until tender and full of flavor. The Chef must have seared it before or after the braise because it was nice and crisp on the out side, but melt in your mouth tender inside. The gnocchi I would describe as little pillows of heaven, tender and delicious. I didn’t really taste the “herb” in them, but they were very good. The smoked tomato sauce made the dish, rich yet acidic, it seemed to make the gnocchi lighter and the beef tongue richer. You could definitely taste the smoke and spice, but it wasn’t over done at all. Finally the meal was topped with peppery arugula and shaved Parmesan it give a little lightness and contrast.

As with most meals I have enjoyed at AGR, each component of the meal was great but together amazing. Please see my last post (Duck, Jeweled Couscous and Dandelion Greens at American Grocery) for more information on AGR. If you are a foodie like me, you will love this restaurant.

Suckling Pig Confit, sautéed young greens, roasted beets, mustard jus, smoked bacon at FIG.

One of our favorite vacation spots is Charleston, South Carolina. It is very convenient for us here in Greenville, SC to get to (usually less then a 3.5 hour drive). It has every thing we love, the beach, the history, the shopping and most importantly for me the restaurants. If you are a foodie like me, this is a Mecca. Restaurants like McCrady’s, Fulton Five and FIG all make my favorites and can satisfy any foodie cravings you might have.

On this particular trip our “splurge” meal was FIG, short for Food Is Good. I have NEVER eaten anything at this restaurant that I did not LOVE. The atmosphere has a great vibe and the decor is well done not over done. I know for a fact that most of the staff are the same as my very first visit years ago. That says a lot too.

The menu has never been the same on any two visits and most of the ingredients are sourced locally and sustainable. Better then all that, the food IS good. On this visit we started with the John’s Island Tomato Tarte Tatin with fromage blanc and tapenade. I love tarte tartin anything (some day I will get around to blogging my tomato and goat cheese tarte tartin) and this one does not disappoint. The tomatoes are perfectly tender, the crunch from the tarte, the saltiness from the tapenade and the tartness from the goat cheese cream makes the dish amazing. The tarte is a great way to start.

For my entrée I had the Caw Caw Creek Suckling Pig Confit with sautéed young greens, roasted beets, mustard jus and smoked bacon. Can I just say, well done Chef Lata! The pig confit was like a REALLY high end pulled pork with pork belly. The greens were tender but still crisp and not overly seasoned. The beets were roasted beets, very nicely roasted (nothing special and still delicious). The mustard jus, as you can see in the photo above, has the mustard seeds and was also not over seasoned. The smoked bacon was mostly in the greens which is how a make them as well. Like most dishes I have had at FIG, The Chef really lets the ingredients stand on their own accenting them when needed but never over powering them.

When dining at an establish such as this Jen and I usually split a dessert. On our last two visits we got the same one, Apple Tarte Tartin over a Honey Crisp with Vanilla Rum Syrup and Rum Raisin Ice Cream. Uhhhh….Yum! Again, very well balanced with the apple, the crunch from the tart and the crisp almost tasted like peanut brittle. The ice cream rounds out the dessert with that cool creaminess and when all combined reminds you of apple pie a la mode.

I really love this restaurant. The food is simple but elevated. It is like my Grandmothers might make but with a more refined culinary technique. Like confit instead of roasting or tarte tartin instead of a pie. I highly recommend this restaurant. The price point is a little on the pricey side as are most Charleston restaurants but it is well worth it in my opinion.

Have you ever been to FIG? What did you think?

Turkey Pastrami on a Cheese Bagel Sandwich with Cucumber Salad at Greenfield’s Bagels

I don’t eat a lot of bagels any more. I am not sure why, I just don’t. There are two places I get bagels from, Chick-fil-a (breakfast bagel) and Greenfield’s Bagels and Deli in Greenville, SC.

Greenfield’s bagels are house made and awesome. I like them all, but my favorite are the savory ones. Jalapeño, Cheese and the all time classic Everything. Besides their amazing bagels, Greenfield’s has deli meats and cheese, house made soups and salads and much more. I try and go grab lunch there whenever I am in that area of town (my company moved downtown Greenville and I’m not as close any more).

The sandwich above is my favorite, turkey pastrami with provolone, lettuce, tomato, red onion and spicy mustard (NO MAYO, I can’t stand the stuff…more on that another time). I usually either get the cheese or jalapeño bagel for my sandwich. When you purchase a bagel sandwich you can get your choice of salads which sometimes vary. I love the cucumber salad so much that I have tried unsuccessfully to remake it at home (some day I’ll sack up and ask for the recipe because I’m missing something). At any rate, they also include kosher pickled cucumber, olives and green tomatoes that are a perfect accent to the sandwich and salad. No need for chips here, this is one filling lunch.

Besides the great food the owners and employees are great. Always smiling, always courteous and always quick. Prices are good. If you want blueberry, chocolate, cinnamon or other popular flavors, go early in the morning, by the afternoon they’ll be gone. If you go right around lunch they might have a line near the door. Be patient, the line will move fast and it will be worth it.

Sashimi Lunch at Purple International Bistro

I love seafood and I love sashimi especially when it is done well. You can’t honor the freshness of good fish any more then sashimi. After a social media onslaught of promotion by loyal fans and friends, I decide to check out Chef Jack and the newly opened Purple International Bistro and Sushi. The restaurant is located on Main Street downtown Greenville, SC in the Westend area, walking distance from my office.

I judge most sushi places by their sashimi (thinly sliced raw seafood) plates because you can’t hide behind anything. The fish is either good or bad, no masking it with sauces and seasonings. Chef Jack’s sashimi lunch plate pictured above was the freshest of the freshest, perfect. The lunch plate featured crab, salmon, tuna, octopus and a few others (toro maybe?). We ordered some edamame for the table and that plus my sashimi was the perfect lunch. Light, healthy yet filling.

Another sign of the quality of Purple is that they make their own condiments. Seriously, who makes their own wasbi and soy sauces? Well, they do. That is dedication to the craft.

It seems a new sushi place is opening every week here in Greenville but I will definitely be back to Purple, it was truly some of the best sashimi I have had here. I highly recommend this restaurant. I haven’t been for dinner but if the lunch is as good as dinner, you can’t go wrong.

Serrano Wrapped Halibut at The Lazy Goat

I go to The Lazy Goat in downtown Greenville, SC all the time. It is literally next door to my office. I have already reviewed the Sausage Fennel Pizza, but I am sure, with time, I will have reviewed every thing that is on the menu. On this particular lunch visit I had the Serrano Wrapped Halibut with Haricot Vert. Oh, almost forgot that I always order their Truffled Pommes Frites with Asiago Cheese (which by the way, might be the best “French fries” ever!

On this day, the fish of the day was halibut. I love halibut; it is one of my favorite fish. Wrapping it in salty Serrano ham then grilling it is almost unfair. I will say that my fish was just a bit dry for me, but still very good. The haricot verts or French green beans were the surprise of the meal. Chef Vicki must have fire roasted the tomatoes dropped them in the beans, added some crushed red pepper and vinegar. That process made like vinaigrette that covered the beans and tomatoes. I remember thinking this is awesome but for me I would have liked a little more heat.

The pommes frites are just ridiculous. I kid you not, they may be the best fries I have ever eaten. Fried in duck fat (that is enough to put them on a short list), truffled and then grated asiago cheese takes these off the chart. Then, as if that all wasn’t enough, they add homemade ketchup. I don’t even like ketchup, but I eat this stuff. It’s not as sweet as most ketchups and has A LOT of horse radish in it so it has a kick. This causes me much conflict. The fries are amazing all on their own, they don’t need condiments. But, the ketchup is SO good I can’t resist it. If I was at home I would be tempted to get a spoon for the ketchup.

I am a fan of The Lazy Goat and highly recommend their food. Lunch is very affordable at around $10-15 depending on if you order appetizers. Dinner is a little pricier but I have never been disappointed with their food. The ambiance is amazing, located right on the river in downtown Greenville. These days the outdoor sitting is great if you get there early enough for the shade or late enough for the sun to be down, otherwise best to sit indoors.