Chomp!
August 16, 2013
By Ron Aiken
August 16, 2013
Let’s Love-Up on The Gourmet Shop!!!
It’s hard to pick a nicer place to eat outside, whether for lunch or brunch, than The Gourmet Shop in Five Points. In fact, I’m going to go ahead and say there’s none, and I hear you over there yelling, Saluda’s. Pipe down. It’s OK. Your balcony is superb, but you don’t get the up close people-watching you do at street level, and I can’t eat there for under $15 like I can at The Gourmet Shop.
I also can’t get the Spinach Salad ($8.50), which for me is the single-best salad in Columbia, a town that, believe it or not, is blessed with some great salads. And I hear you over there, Za’s, with your superb Cali Salad ($14.95). It’s terrific, and I get it every time, but it’s just not this:
A healthy salad does not get any better than this. How could it? It could not!
From the dijon mustard vinaigrette to the crispiest bacon it’s possible to make to thick chunks of fresh mushrooms to a huge slab of beautiful avocado to the moist, flavorful grilled chicken on top to the sesame seeds and fresh cucumber and tomatoes, there is nothing more I could ask for in a salad (except maybe blueberries…but hey, everyone thinks they can top something, right?).
And here’s another thing I enjoy about The Gourmet Shop: great service.
It’s important here to understand that great customer service comes in a lot of guises.
Sometimes, it’s as simple as a friendly personality when you’ve had a rough day. Others, it’s a cool professionalism you appreciate when you’re not in the mood for bubbles and chit chat. So much depends on what the customer needs, and so much of the quality of service depends on the waiter/waitress almost intuitively recognizing and responding to that, responding to where the customer is at both emotionally and physically.
Are they happy? Are they sad? What kind of situation is it? Is it a date? A family get-together? A night out with the kids? Or, perhaps better yet (for some, at least), a night out without them?
At a late lunch earlier this week at The Gourmet Shop I had a terrific experience with waitress <b>Kate Chatman</b>, who was thumping busy with several tables and juggling the odd table-cleaning duty as there seemed to be a backlog from that department. And yet, having to stop what she was doing to bus a table or two did not dampen her smile or her mood or her helpfulness to myself and my lunch companion.
Somehow, it was just the opposite, in fact. After ordering the Hummus Plate ($7.95) as an appetizer, I decided, on a whim, that I wanted some fruit. Not just some fruit, I told Kate. I want some fruit in a fun way, OK, so how about seeing to that? Well, Ms. Chatman saw to that and then some, bringing us this beauty:
How delicious does this look? You want it right now, don’t you? I know you do, because so do I!
If you ever need a healthy dessert, I can’t recommend this Stuffed Cantaloupe ($6.50) enough. It’s the perfect size to share and a great way to finish a healthy lunch, brunch or whatever it is you call what you do. It’s a delight, and it’s especially fun to carve away the cantaloupe with the spoon provided. Because I have a serious sweet tooth, I even sprinkled a packet of raw sugar over the whole business; in that way, Chomp! can be a bit of a rascal sometimes. Such craziness may or may not suit your table or guests.
Go see Kate. Tell her hi. Go to the Gourmet Shop. Tell them hi. Just don’t tell them Chomp! Sent you, because honestly, is their any other advertising technique more bound to tick you off and offend your propriety than when some huckster tells you to tell ’em I sent ya! There is not, and Chomp! will not now, nor ever, participate in that jack foolery.
Til next time. Cheers!
Follow Chomp! on Twitter @RonAiken and on Facebook. Email Chomp! at [email protected]. He even answers his phone sometimes: 803-200-8809. Cheers!
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