Whoever first said "Fish are friends, not food" lied. Fish are totally (good) food.

I think I mentioned it before, but last week, I was on vacation with some friends.  What I don't think I mentioned was where I was vacationing.  We were in Gulf Shores, Alabama.  Aside from the obvious benefits of being right on the Gulf of Mexico - white sand, warm water, lots of sun - my favorite benefit was the plethora of restaurants serving fresh fish. And by fresh, I mean "caught that morning." Unfortunately, we were pretty busy for the four days we were there, and so didn't get to try any of these hole-in-the-wall type places.  It wasn't until we were headed back to Columbia, that we had time to stop and sample the local fare.  Indulging our slight Parrothead tendencies, we headed to LuLu's, a spot owned by Lucy Buffett, sister to one Jimmy Buffett.

Street Vendors make my Heart Happy.

If you're anything like me, you adore street food.  Anything you can get from a vendor on the street, whether it's a food truck, a fair, or a large outdoor event, just seems to taste better.  Maybe it's because I'm hungrier, or maybe it's the fresh air.  Whatever the cause, I'm always excited when I get the chance for street food.


Some friends and I were out of town last weekend for a music festival.  It was all music, all the time, from about 11 a.m. until 11 p.m.  Since there were about a zillion different bands I wanted to see, there wasn't much time for food.  I also tend not to eat much (or anything at all) when I'm out in the sun for awhile.  At that point, all I want is water.  By about 7 p.m. each day though, the sun had started to set, there was a little bit of time before the headlining acts took the stage, and I was getting hungry.  While I could have made the three block trek back to our condo and grabbed a sandwich, on Saturday and Sunday, I opted to hit the street vendors for food.  Sorry, y'all...no pictures, as my camera was pretty well covered in sand (did I mention this festival was on the beach?), and I didn't want sand in my dinner.


After surveying our options, and trust me, there were a ton - everything from crawfish etouffee to Asian cuisine to funnel cakes - we decided to hit the stand serving Greek food.  I have a huge affinity for street gyros, and Saturday's was not a disappointment.  The marvelous combination of lamb, beef, tzatziki sauce, lettuce, tomatoes, and onions is one of my favorites.  It's hard to screw up, but these were particularly good.  L & E decided to get the Chicken pita, which looked to me like a chicken version of the traditional gyro.  They seemed to enjoy it.  We all loved what we ordered, although I'm not quite sure how much food tasting was actually going on, since we all pretty much inhaled our pitas.  Add in a couple cold beers and some fantastic music, and we were set.


Sunday found us in much the same situation.  After aimlessly wandering down food row, M & I decided to go with a good southern staple - pulled pork BBQ sandwiches.  Superb choice.  The bbq sauce was somehow sweet and spicy all at the same time, the pork was tender, and the french fries that accompanied it were crunchy and salty.  I'm super happy that I grabbed a fork though, because the bun was saturated with bbq sauce by the time I was halfway finished, and it started to fall apart.  Truly it didn't matter, because like on Saturday, I was wolfing down this sandwich.  It was absolutely delightful, and a firm confirmation of my love for street food.


Plus, the cold beers and dancing on the beach for three days definitely didn't hurt.

Hooray for Happy Hour!

I've been sitting on some random eating experiences for awhile, just because I didn't feel like I had enough information to make a meaningful post.  So here you go.  Three places for the price of one.

Supporting sustainable, local foods = Deliciousness

I've been dying to go to Solstice Kitchen for quite some time.  Solstice is a product of the same masterminds behind Columbia favorite, Mr. Friendly's and Hungry Lady favorite, Cellar on Greene.  Because of this, I had high expectations going in.  I was most definitely not disappointed, and was even pleasantly surprised at some points.


As usual, I roped R into going to dinner with me.  He took care of making our reservation, which we almost weren't able to get.  I forgot that it was both graduation weekend and Mother's Day weekend, add that to the fact that it was Saturday, and there wasn't anything available that night.  We were able to get in after a someone cancelled on Thursday.  To whomever cancelled your reservation, allowing me and R to get into Solstice, you have my eternal thanks and gratitude.

The Lunch Rush

Probably more frequently than I care to admit, I don't have food in my house.  Inevitably, I forget that I'm about to run out of bread or lunch meat or peanut butter, and I'm left with nothing to take for lunch.  It would be nice if I could remember these things and hit the store on my way home from work, but that rarely, if ever, happens.  Thankfully for my stomach, if not necessarily for my wallet, I know that I can always run across the street from my office and grab a pretty satisfying lunch for not a huge price at College Grounds Cafe.


For those of you in Columbia, College Grounds replaced Nice N Natural when Nice N Natural closed it's doors  in October 2010.  The upstairs of the building is home to Cool Beans (another of my favorite Columbia spots), and the owners decided to expand to the first floor when Nice N Natural closed.  Thus was College Grounds created.

Wastin' Away Again: An Ode to Tacos and Margaritas

You can argue that you'll never get "real" Mexican food unless you go to the American Southwest, Southern California, or you know, Mexico.  Having never been to the Southwest or Mexico, and never having eaten Mexican food in SoCal, I can't offer an opinion either way (shocking, right?  This might be the first time in my life  that I've been unopinionated).  So while I'm unable to extol the virtues of "real" Mexican food, I can certainly speak to Mexican food with a southern twist (and I'm not talking about southern Mexico).

There is nothing quite as satisfying as a good burger.

On Sunday, L and I found ourselves with a few hours to kill before we had to get to our respective evening plans.  We did a little shopping (supporting small local businesses...hooray!), and then decided to grab dinner.  It was a beautiful day, so we were looking for three things: good food, cold beer, and outdoor seating.  We were also trying to avoid falling into our normal "let's grab dinner and a beer at our usual place" routine.  We finally settled on Pawleys Front Porch. L had never been there, and I had only been there once, so it was a pretty novel experience.  Plus, Pawleys has a huge outdoor deck, good burgers, and we assumed the beer would be cold. Not to mention the fact that Pawleys has the Guy Fieri seal of approval.  No really...Pawleys was featured on an episode of Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives in 2010.  You can see the clip here.

Happy hour is so much better when there is good food to accompany it.

Friday Happy Hour.  It's a very important tradition in the working world.  I particularly enjoy when happy hour is followed by baseball.  On a beautiful Friday evening, L & I upheld this time-honored tradition by snagging an outside table at Columbia's local brew pub, The Hunter Gatherer.

I've become a fan of the small plate.

If you're like me, and decided to take five years of French in middle school and high school rather than taking the much more practical Spanish, you probably would have had to look up tapas as well.  Thanks to Wikipedia, I now consider myself an expert in all things tapas - from the word origins to the evolution from Spanish cuisine to occasionally behind-the-times Columbia, SC.  Now, I'm sure you're reading this and wondering why in the world anyone would care about the history of tapas.  But see, this is a food blog, and while most of the time I'm pretty good at pretending to know more than I do, this was not one of those cases.  Plus some of the origins were kind of interesting.  For example (thanks Wikipedia!):

Another popular explanation says that the king Alfonso XIII stopped by a famous tavern in Cádiz (Andalusian city) where he ordered a cup of wine. The waiter covered the glass with a slice of cured ham before offering it to the king, to protect the wine from the beach sand, as Cádiz is a windy place. The king, after drinking the wine and eating the tapa, ordered another wine "with the cover."^[2]

Sounds to me like King Alfonso XIII just discovered that bar food is an excellent balance to wine.  To that, I have to say, "duh."  Bar food also goes well with beer.  Or $3 martinis.  Especially at Virtu Restaurant & Bar in Columbia.

Jazz and brunch go hand-in-hand.

I indulged in a couple of my favorite things this weekend: live music and good food.  The live music was totally fabulous.  And then there was brunch (with more live music!) the next morning.  Equally fabulous.

I made the trek up to Charlotte for the weekend.  My dear friend K was a wonderful hostess, and was very excited to take A, S, and me out for brunch on Sunday morning.  We went to one of K's favorite brunch spots in the NoDa district: Boudreaux's.  As you might have guessed from the name, Boudreux's had us traveling to Bourbon Street, without actually having to drive to New Orleans.