Stylish Charleston Eateries

By Haskell Harris | April 28, 2010 | Design

Charleston is defined by its food, its architecture, and its design. And while I love Lowcountry favorites like shrimp and grits and I'm partial to the traditional design of the Peninsula Grill (chic gray velvet walls, antebellum portraits, and all), I'm also drawn to the innovative food and design in some of Charleston's more modern eateries.

Here are a few fun venues:  

1) Closed For Business, the newest of many hip restaurants Tim Mink and Karalee Nielsen have opened in town.  It's a craft beer joint on King Street with major style. I love the blond wood walls, the eclectic furniture, the big comfy leather banquettes in the back, and the salon wall of art in the front. It's a wonderful, welcoming mish-mash that works. If you go, you must order a giant beer and the fried green beens (or the pork slap sandwich if you're really hungry).

2) Sugar Bakeshop. A wonderful bakery on Cannon Street. I love the facade and how light and airy both the interior and the sweet treats themselves are.

3) Bin 152 wine bar. A new addition on lower King Street, this modern-meets-traditional spot is owned by Patrick and Fanny Panella. The duo partnered with Thompson Young Design to create the nostalgic, European vibe. Try to score a window seat, order the cheese plate, and don't leave without taking a gander at the art  (if you like it, you can buy it right off the wall).

What other stylish, laid-back eateries in the South do ya'll love? Bottega in Birmingham? Cochon in New Orleans? Bottletree Bakery in Oxford?

 Photo credits: revfood.com; thompsonyoung.com; deidrezahldesign.blogspot.com; leighwebber.com

Get Toasted

By John Currence | July 17, 2009 | Food

John T. Edge, as most know, is an almost bottomless vessel of food knowledge, so when he collared me, painfully hungover, on a hot summer morning several years back to share a culinary secret, I didn't bat an eye.

He told me that deep in the Lower East side of Manhattan, beyond the hidden and trendy über cocktail bars of the post-midnight hipster crowds, is an even better secret. A secrets that happen to be open at more civilized hours and offer its finest for more palatable price.

From a décor standpoint, The Dumpling House (118 Eldridge Street) is not particularly inviting, but it serves one of the finest and affordable snacks on the island: the sesame pancake—a pizza-sized pancake covered in perfectly toasted sesame seed; cut into wedges; filleted; and filled with shredded beef, pork, or duck, carrot/cilantro relish, and a thick soy glaze. And practically given away for about $1.50.

  My pal Joe York digging the sesame pancake, too

I love you John T. for sharing this with me. It has saved my life on more than one occasion. It can save you too, people.

Chew on This

By John Currence | July 6, 2009 | Food

I feel a little cheated, but don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. One of the things I have always felt supremely confident was entirely ours and enough so that no one else would even mess with it (think pork rinds and chitterlings) was beef jerky. I mean, I thought it was just understood that it belonged to us. Well, we have been bested.

I discovered the New Beef King three or four years ago, and I love it so much I have kept it to myself like a silly little schoolgirl. It is situated exactly on the edges of Chinatown and Little Italy (89 Bayard Street) in New York City, and it offers nothing but jerky and, dammit, it's so outstanding I can't stand it.

The choices are limited to beef and pork in different degrees of heat and wetness...yes, I wrote, "wetness." The texture is perfect: dried to the perfect point where it is chewy, but not like leather. My recommendation is Wet-Spicy Pork. It is bundled in plastic sandwich bags and tied with a twist, perfect for wandering around and snacking. Go there. Get it. Tell me I'm wrong. I dare you.

For the Squeamish

By John Currence | May 14, 2009 | Food

Here's a must try for the squeamish and the adventurous. The Big Apple Inn on Farish Street in Jackson, Mississippi, has been serving up a pig ear sandwich for decades (depending who you talk to, between four and seven decades). I had my first about twenty-five years ago and my most recent a few weeks back and they are still as amazing as the first time they crossed these lips.

Nothing changes at the Big Apple. It is exactly the way I remember in 1984, a patina of fryer grease covering every surface in the place and a griddle so permanent that God himself might have trouble extracting it.

 Other than the pig ear sandwiches (sliders, if you will, on tiny two-bite buns) the Big Apple serves outstanding tamales and both orange and grape sodas are available to wash it all down.

So head on down and order a pig ear sandwich (I recommend hot sauce and they come with slaw). Who knows, you might just fall in love. I know I did.

Fried Chicken Update

By John Currence | May 4, 2009 | Food

In an effort to flaunt the fact that I still have not broken my New Year's resolution, I report to you from Prince's Hot Chicken Shack in Nashville, Tennessee. Prince's is hardly a secret to foodies, so I am always amazed at the number of folks I run into from Nashville who don't know that this culinary landmark even exists. Everyone, listen up.

Photo by Caroline Allison

The Hot Chicken at Prince's is simply amazing, if not from a shock standpoint alone. The treatment of the chicken itself is extremely well executed. It is crispy and juicy every time I eat it (which I can't say for most fried chicken), but they make it truly their own when they slather it in a Scoville-ian nightmare of your choosing. The evilness of the sauces' heat choices range from "mild" to "extra hot."  I tried "medium" on my first trip, which was enough to make me realize the potential danger, and though I have braved the "hot" (which left me with the feeling briefly like I was bleeding from my eye sockets), I can't say that I have had the nerve—or enough to drink—to try the extra hot, but legend has it that the endorphin rush unleashed by it has inspired ferocious torrents of carnal activity right in the parking lot.

Whether you want to risk permanent damage to your esophagus, teeth, gums, nasal cavities, stomach lining, and lower intestines just to reintroduce some passion to your love life is up to you. For now I'm sticking to more traditional methods, but I don't think I'll be complete until I've tried it.

Resolute

By John Currence | March 4, 2009 | Food

Two months into the new year and I have once again watched everyone I know slough off the "resolution" they made December 31…except me. I rule. With that said, with that monstrously arrogant sentence said, I feel I should qualify: I hate New Year’s resolutions. They are designed to fail, and they make people look weak—unless, of course, you are me. I got smart this year and made my very first resolution. I made one I felt I could adhere to: I resolved to eat more fried chicken in 2009 than I did last year.

I have already met my goal handily, and I am still on it. I don't remember anywhere in the rules suggesting that a resolution had to be a painful or unpleasant thing…and I have combed through the small print. I always got the impression that the unwritten was that the resolution was supposed to be good for you, and with my increased fried chicken intake, I am most definitely happier. What could be better than that? Next on the 2009 agenda: Determine why my clothes are shrinking. (Global warming?)
 

Finally Finding the Real

By John Currence | March 3, 2009 | Food

The combination of cab drivers’ kickbacks and my wife’s sometimes grossly misconceived naïveté (and fascination with “lighting”) frequently conspires to drop me on the doorsteps of some of the worst restaurants. I don’t know what it is. I try to make it perfectly clear everywhere I go. I get in a cab or begin a conversation with a bartender: “I do this for a living.” “Seriously, I want somewhere Americans would never think to go.” “I’m not screwing around. I don’t want to go to Hard Rock.” “I don’t care if all the local specialty involves boiled lung; send me someplace local.”  I have decided that I must just have the universal mug of a chump because, more often than not, I find myself at Joe’s Crab Shack or, worse, a local version of Joe’s Crab Shack…because American crap versions of our favorite foods must be better than third-world crap versions of third-world favorites.

It was during a recent trip to Playa del Carmen in Mexico that I found the local. After a fried cheese and banana cat-vomit thingy we had tried our first night (if you see tri-fusion Mexicanized kushiage on a menu, run—fast), my wife and I vowed that the rest of the trip would be spent without exception looking for great local food. And for once I managed to hit tortilla-laced and guacamole-slathered pay dirt thanks to a tequila-savvy bartender at a joint on 5th Avenue.

The place you want to go in Playa is Doña Mary. You will need one person who speaks decent restaurant Spanish (or who has an agile pointy finger) to help with menu selection and about the equivalent of what a hot dog costs at the ballpark to eat and drink yourself into a coma at Doña Mary. There are about seven things on the menu, and I can tell you from experience: all outstanding.

There is no sign on the restaurant (corner of 30th Avenue and 28th Street), so it can be a little tricky to find, and it’s in a part of town that sees few, if any, turistas. The people could not have been more friendly or welcoming, and the place has the feel of a family reunion where everyone actually seems to like one another. D.M. is as authentic as it gets and provides an interesting glimpse of where Americanized Mexican food originates. I recommend the salbutes and panuchos. The tamale is the best I have ever had—and to look at me now, I might have eaten three the size of Volkswagens.

So, there it is. If you suffer the same “wifely” or cabby afflictions, the secret of Playa is now out of the bag.

Underrated

By John Currence | January 7, 2009 | Food

New Orleans, LA
Commander's Palace
I will get beaten up on this, I know, but here's the deal. Tory McPhail inherited the job that nobody should want—executive chef. On top of that, Commander's is the spot every New Orleans' food critic loves to take aim at. Enter Tory, age thirty-five, excellent young talent and a guy everyone enjoys working and drinking with. Tory gets lots of credit in my book. His food is deft and interesting, plus he gets bonus points for reinventing the food of South Louisiana without bastardizing it. (Tory is a native of the Pacific Northwest—not Bayou Lafourche.)

Commander's continues to shine in the wake of Katrina (reopening after almost two years of renovation) and in spite of citywide labor trials, manages to do an impressive job with dining-room service. Dinner or Sunday brunch at Commander's is a quintessential New Orleans experience though the food rarely gets the lauding it deserves.

Memphis, TN
The Beauty Shop
Nobody but nobody does funky like Karen Carrier and the Beauty Shop is testament. She spent years overseeing the operation of Automatic Slims, her original stab at a Clinton-esque mecca (that's George Clinton, not Bill), which captured the feeling of a Sergio Leone set–cum–opium den and served the greatest crispy duck you have ever eaten. At the same time, she was building a small empire of operations. She has sold Slims and now devotes most of her time to the Beauty Shop kitchen. Like the John Waters–style decor, the food and service are equally fun and interesting. There is absolutely no way to nail down the cuisine with a label or a category. It's simply solid, playful, and devoid of any pretense whatsoever… And if you can find anyone more fun to run around with in the wee hours, I'll kiss your bouffant.

Jackson, MS
Walker's Drive-In
If you find yourself  yourself in Jackson, just go here. The menu could not be more representative of the man at the helm than it is—simple, well executed, and as solid as the August day is long. Jackson is not a town that jumps to mind when one thinks of fine dining, but Derek Emmerson is dragging that into line. In a town that is a little fickle in its support of independent eateries, Walker's thrives nonetheless. My recommendation is to go during soft-shell season. I am convinced Derek has made a deal with Legba and pure crustacean bliss is the result.

Clarksdale, MS
Ramon's
My friend Wright Thompson is a man of giant appetites and he knows how to sniff out a joint like few others. About a year ago when he suggested that a group of us load up and ride the fat hour that the drive is from Oxford down into the Delta for "the best fried shrimp in the world," I thought, momentarily, that he was an idiot. I went merely to ride around in his truck, drink whiskey, and ultimately dis the "best fried shrimp in the world." Turns out I was the idiot. I'd walk through broken glass on my knees to eat those shrimp. There's a little Italian on the menu as well that includes equally well-fried chicken livers and red sauce over pasta. Load the car with whiskey and Tums and go now.

My Void

By John Currence | December 29, 2008 | Food

For our most recent restaurant project (a breakfast concept), I decided we should make our own bacon. This plan, like so many other things in our kitchens over the past twenty years, was born of the “let’s-take-it-apart-and-see-how-it-works” school of thought. That is exactly how we started making our own Worcestershire sauce, cheese, and vinegars, and growing vegetables, etc. Making bacon didn’t seem like it would be that much harder. I just didn’t realize what it would require, ultimately.

My dear friend and personal porcine hero Allan Benton makes some of the finest bacon and the finest country ham there is. I have visited his smokehouse and storefront in East Tennessee on a number of occasions. What he does is remarkable, and though he must know it, he’ll never admit it. It’s infuriating. And, though the product is singular, the process and the equipment are extraordinarily simple. Other than a cooler to salt-cure the bellies in, a cinder-block smokehouse about twice as wide as an outhouse is all that Allan uses. With that in mind, we set to our bacon-making experiments.

Big Bad Breakfast would be a fifty-seat affair when it was finished, and my first thought was that if we were going to make our own bacon, we could do it at home. We could modify the backyard whole-hog pit for bacon and shuttle it back and forth to the restaurant. The three-month process that was the experimentation phase quickly suggested that the hog pit would not nearly accommodate the volume of bacon we would need, so it seemed a smokehouse was in order.

I immediately began to draw sketches on napkins and scraps of paper, and even did a touch of research, but most of our plan was to be based on memories of Allan’s smokehouse setup. As we began to put up the cinder blocks and I second-guessed my initial thoughts, I called Allan for guidance. I got little more than “Don’t worry about it” and “You’ll be fine,” so we built away, plugged in the wood-burning stove, and the minute we were finished with construction, we began making bacon.

It was then I realized that there had always been a hole in my life. I had somehow lived my entire professional career without the understanding that there was a lack of fulfillment. Suddenly, a light–a smoky light, yes, but a light nonetheless, shone. If that wasn’t quite enough, our smokehouse was yet another toy to play with, the best kind: one that ingests something unfinished and spits it back out complete and divine hours later.

Dear friends, meet the Big Bad Smokehouse…

The Lobster Roll: or Admitting My Ethnocentricity

By John Currence | December 16, 2008 | Food

My wife and I took a house this past summer in Maine with two other couples. Both of the husbands of the other two couples and one of the wives write for ESPN, like to drink more whiskey than a doctor may prescribe as "good for you," and love to eat. It could not have been, for me, a more perfect enclave¬–nights filled with card games, good wine and bourbon, great food, and stories of Jack Nicklaus's jet, Tiger's temper, and the Manning brothers' twisted sense of humor.

My culinary task for the trip was to come to terms with the Maine Lobster Roll. The Roll was something I was somewhat familiar with, though I had never wrestled with it on its native soil. My initial thoughts when I hear "roll" are of rice paper or wonton skins and a deep fryer. For those of you who are in the same boat as me (or as I was), the Lobster Roll is little more than lobster, or, at certain locations, light, mayo-dressed lobster on the equivalent of a hot dog bun, though the bun is much more interesting–picture a hinged Texas Toast bun (it's a real thing of beauty).

The recipe for the lobster filling varies from location to location, but the intent is the same: a load of fresh steamed lobster meat to the gullet delivered by the simplest vehicle possible. Our stops for Roll sampling progressed in a perfectly linear way, as, quite unintentionally, we navigated a path from Roll-subtle to Roll-sublime. Our first stop: Red's Eats in Wiscasset, a great place to begin. Red's Roll was, simply, perfectly steamed lobster on a butter-toasted roll with no flourish or embellishment. Red will, as I understand it, provide (begrudgingly) a side of mayo or drawn butter, but the man is a purist and his Roll speaks to exactly that. Lunts Lobster Pound in Ellsworth offered a formidable Roll: our first to involve mayonnaise in the equation, which I appreciated from a heart-stopping standpoint.

From left: Allison and Seth Wikersham, Wright Thompson, and Bess and John Currence outside Red's in Wiscasset

We proceeded through a number of increasingly complex combinations over the next week (including an experiment or two of our own) but ended our quest at the elysian fields of the Lobster Roll, Bagaduce Lunch in Brooksville, perhaps the finest walk-up I have ever eaten at. Their roll was an artful combination of lobster, a creamy, light mayo, and exquisite subtle spices that blew the doors off anything else we had tried–including our own experiments. It is a magnificently natural exercise for them, it seems: They were recently awarded an America's Classics award by the James Beard Foundation, which is just another adornment for Bagaduce. Their medal hangs unceremoniously from a nail, with a "who-gives-a-crap" wink, right inside the ordering window.

Our tray at Bagaduce. Clockwise from top right: Bacon Cheese Fries, Fish Sandwich Burger, Lobster Roll and Scallop Sandwich

Bottom line is, the Lobster Roll rocks. Hats off to the Arkansas of New England for a perfectly indulgent addition to the American sandwich menu. I mean, what's not to like...fresh lobster, mayonnaise (or butter), and white bread–proof positive that simple is better.