Chomp!

By Ron Aiken

 

Chomp! goes to Charleston!!!

 

After some recent setbacks on the grill and in need of someone else to do the cooking, Chomp! and his family took to Charleston for a day of fun that included a wrong turn which proved serendipitous from a culinary point of view.

With my fiancee distracted into turning into downtown Charleston off I-26 – and while I’m on this piece of geography, let me say that for as much as I love Charleston is has a SERIOUS front-door problem – we got off an exit earlier than we normally do. While looking for a street to turn around we saw this place, the Rutledge Cab Company.

 

This is the place at night, courtesy of the restaurant website. We were there during the day but I couldn’t find a suitable outdoor shot online, so here you go!

Lured by nothing other than a sign promising “Breakfast served all day,” we were on board. Located in a re-gentrified neighborhood (Wagener Terrace) with boutique bungalos and homes still nestling, uh, less-appreciated pieces of property, the restaurant is in a building that once housed, among other things, a former cab company and a gas station/neighborhood store.

 

 

I LOVE this little old sign out front from earlier incarnations of the location…the patina, the prices, the little bit of history that makes the place unique.

 

 

Here’s the signage they’re going with on the outside wall as you walk in:

 

 

 

Inside, there’s a cool cab and the dining room is spacious as can be. What’s best, however, is the enormous patio, which is where we were able to sit for a late lunch. Here was our view:

 

Though the day was over 100 degrees with the heat index soaring, our spot was cool thanks to the shade and effective, well-placed fans.

 

All that’s well and good, you may be saying to yourself. But what about the food?

 

Speck-tack oo-lar, thanks for asking!

 

Reasonably priced, my fiancée and I got primo salads, the Bronzed Chicken Salad for her ($15), seen here:

 

Gorgeous, right! The chicken was absolutely superb – well-spiced and incredibly moist – and the feta cheese cucumber-cantaloupe pico de gallo was phenomenal. It will be very difficult not to order this again every time we go.

 

 

Being in Charleston, Chomp! wanted shrimp, which is why I ordered the Grilled Shrimp Salad ($16). Here’s my bad boy:

 

Also lovely, right?

 

 

My salad came with pickled red onions, cubed mango, hearts of palm and a honey-poblano vinagrette, and was terrific besides me wanting about twice as many shrimp (especially because, as usual with Chomp!’s crowd, everyone wants a bit of everyone else’s meal, and all they wanted of mine were the skrimps!).

 

Even the kid’s menu item was off-the-charts. Without a doubt, the kid’s pizza was the best I’ve ever tasted – great cheese, wood-fired, perfectly light, crispy crust. Just look how happy our little girl was!

 

That, good people, is happiness!

 

 

From Rutledge we went to the Charleston City Market – that’s what they want you to call it now, though to me and those of my age it’ll always be the old Slave Market. Anyhoo, while there (and did I mention the heat?) we got my favorite thing to get from the market – freshly squeezed lemonade from Lowcountry Lemonade. You’ll  wait in aline to get it, but man, is it ever worth it, especially when you can do like I did and get a specialty lemonade. They usually have things like peaches and mint strawberries and stuff, and when I was there on Saturday I got the Basil Mint Lemonade.

 

It was, hyperbole aside, the best lemonade I’ve ever had in my entire life of drinking and loving lemonade.

 

 

What made this lemonade even tastier was that I got the last of the basil and they no longer offered the drink after me, saddening many people behind me. Oh, how delicious their disappointment tasted!

 

 

From the market, we spent the afternoon at the beach on Sullivan’s Island, making these…

 

 

 

with these good people…

 

 

 

while enjoying this…

 

 

 

Afterward, we did what we always do after a day on Sullivan’s Island – went to Poe’s Tavern, where I had this, finishing my day off with shrimp the same way I began:

 

“The Sleeper” – Roasted garlic bleu cheese topped with Buffalo Fried Shrimp ($11.75). I got it with the hand0cut fries, of which I unashamedly ate EVERY ONE, and a side of bacon-bleu cheese cole slaw. Very tasty, though the wait was long as we got there right at 7 p.m. and it was PACKED.

 

 

If you’ve been putting off a trip to Charleston recently, don’t. There’s so much to do and the city is so ridiculously food-friendly that there’s no chance of not making a memory you’ll savor for a long time. And as a parent and a person, isn’t it YOUR JOB to make memories? So why aren’t you? Get out there, you! Til next week, when I try to exorcise my grilling demons with some serious chicken mastery!

 

 

 

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