Chomp!
July 13, 2013
By Ron Aiken
July 11, 2013
Let’s All Go to LaBrasca’s!
People have strong feelings about LaBrasca’s Pizza, Chomp! has discovered.
Chomp!’s mom, in fact, is one of them. When informed about lunch plans at the venerable Columbia pizzeria icon, she made a crinkly face and shook her head as if I’d asked whether she wanted to eat a rotten pickle.
I’ve encountered that before with people talking about LaBrasca’s (4365 Fort Jackson Blvd., 782-1098, www.facebook.com/Labrascas). Most people love it, few are ambiguous, others, well, people have their faults we forgive, right? Even our dear mothers.
I suspect whenever you’ve been around as long as has LaBrasca’s – it opened in 1966 – there will always be some people whose taste just can’t be accounted for, which, in a sense, is what I think has been so key to LaBrasca’s longevity – consistency. I’ve been getting their pizzas off and on for years. Not often, not even on occasion, but about one or two a year (it used to be more in the 1990s when I lived close by). And I can tell you they all have tasted the same, they all have tasted terrific, and they all have tasted like no other pizza in Columbia.
On Tuesday, while lunching with some lovely ladies, Chomp! again split a pizza (mushroom, feta and black olives) – though one of the ladies, being an Italian, got her own personal, or midget, cheese pizza (Italians don’t put toppings on pizza, she stated matter-of-factly.).
In fact, coupling the midget pizza (I won’t call it a mini even though that it what the menu now calls it, because I side with our waitress who has been working there for 37 years, Johnnie Roseborough, on this issue. She and her sister, Jo Mims, have both been working there for that long, and they are FANTASTIC!) with the small cheese salad is maybe one of the top 10 lunches in Columbia and has been for decades. I also had the small cheese salad, by the way, and any salad with as much cheese as lettuce – maybe more – is a helluva salad in my book.
When it comes to pizza, I am anti-crust. It’s like loading up on rice at a buffet – it’s not why you came, it’s the cheapest part of the dish and it offers very little by way of either flavor or nutrition. It just fills you up. You also, you smart cookie you, rightly assume I am anti-bread sticks, which are an abomination unto our Lord and I imagine are served in Hell instead of pizza. I’m not 100 percent, but in my mind’s Hell, there are breadsticks.
So…LaBrasca’s crust is perfect. It’s thin, no big useless rolls of dough around the edges to weigh you down, and the best part is that the entire bottom is crispy. The importance of this fact cannot be under-emphasized. How strongly does Chomp! Feel about this? Enough to say it again, in bold, in all caps: THE ENTIRE BOTTOM IS CRISPY.
Behold the glory of Heaven!
Beware the treachery of Hell!
As we sat in the near pitch-dark restaurant (which, of course, makes everyone look fabulous) at a booth with decades of candle-smoke stains on the wall (sadly, the Chianti-bottle candles I imagine were there are no more) and much of the original décor on the wall, you can’t help but appreciate the value of a place that’s been serving locals so well, so inexpensively and for so long, especially when it’s nestled in an area right next to the foodie-culture catering, pricey-item importing, mass-marketing and cross-country phenomenon that is Whole Foods.
Our lunch was wonderful, the booth was comfy and our waitress was as awesome and friendly as it is possible for anyone to be. One final note…when I brought my mom a leftover slice and some salad, she gobbled it up and changed her tune. The funny part is that she had forgotten I’d gone to LaBrasca’s and asked where the delicious pizza had come from. I don’t know what exactly that proves about people’s perceptions and self-fulfilling prophecies about foods and places they convince themselves they don’t like, but I know it proves something important, not the least of which is that LaBrasca’s, as it has for about 47 years now, rocks.
Upscale Beef Jerky?
My reaction to the notion of gourmet beef jerky is simple: Yes, please, more please, keep it coming until I say say when, please.
My reaction to commercially available gourmet beef jerky being made in Columbia by – in part – none other than Motor Supply Co. Bistro, is even more emphatic, full of happy expletives and thoroughly unprintable.
Such is the wonder of Two Brothers Beef Jerky, which is made from 100-percent Angus beef. The story of how this product came to be is amazing, and rather than re-tell it, I’ll borrow from the handy-dandy release produced by my pals Tracie Broom and Debi Schadel of Flock and Rally:
Separated at birth, brothers Eddie Wales and Paul Brock reconnected in 2010, only to discover that their lives had taken extremely similar paths: both are successful restaurateurs in Southeastern cities who grow their own heirloom vegetables. After wowing their newly united families at holiday gatherings with his killer handmade beef jerky recipe, Paul got to talking with Eddie, and Two Brothers Jerky was born.
- Eddie Wales – Owner of Motor Supply Company Bistro in Columbia, S.C., Eddie Wales was raised in Spartanburg, S.C. Having served as a waiter, general manager, and owner of multiple restaurants, Wales brings 28 years of food and beverage industry experience to Two Brothers Jerky.
- Paul Brock – Co-owner of The Broad Street Café in Durham, N.C., Paul Brock is a practicing attorney and restaurant owner, bringing 22 years of experience to Two Brothers Jerky.
The Flavors
1. Bull City Original captures the vibrancy and smoky flavor of Durham, N.C.
2. Famously Hot gives the kick of a spicy summer right in Columbia, S.C.
3. Ninja Teriyaki is a sweet flavor that hails from faraway shores.
The Locations
- Motor Supply Company Bistro – 920 Gervais Street, Columbia, SC, 29201 – Located in the heart of the Congaree Vista, Motor Supply serves up New World, made-from-scratch cuisine sourced from local, sustainable farms.
- The Broad Street Café – 1116 Broad Street, Durham, N.C. 27705 – A community restaurant that hosts live music six nights a week, Broad Street plays home to a full bar, dinner and late night menu with wood-fired pizza.
PRICE – $9 per bag, made in-house at Motor Supply Co. Bistro
GET CONNECTED
Facebook: http://facebook.com/TwoBrothersJerky
Twitter: http://twitter.com/2BrothersJerky
Web: http://www.twobrothersjerky.com
There you have it. Thanks to Debi and Tracie, I was able to get a bag of each to sample, being a bit of a beef jerky afficianado.
The Bull City Original is basically soy-sauce flavored with a bit of smokiness. The Ninja Teriyaki’s sweetness is extremely subtle and pleasant. Both are what I’d consider mild. My favorite, by far, was the Famously Hot variety. It still had a strong soy-sauce base, but the heat bites through that with fervor and gets you to a terific balance between the hot, the salty and the natural flavors of the quality meat.
As for texture, it’s sliced extremely thin and is on the crispy side. It’s definitely not soft and chewy, like many national brands. It’s also a clean eat, by which I mean your hands aren’t greased-up by the time you’re done. I had some local-to-the-area beef jerky from a gas station in Tennessee a few weeks ago, and it was so overly seasoned that it was difficult to finish the bag (though I managed) and left my fingers and lap covered in a powdery orange dust, which I’m sure also went on to coat my intestinal walls quite thoroughly. It may still be in there for all I know.
To Two Brothers’ credit, you will have neither dirty hands nor intestines (at least not from their jerky; after all, I don’t know what all else you get into). As it stands, it’s a dang fine product, a solid two thumbs up with a pinky finger raised to the super-awesome story behind the jerky itself. Enjoy!
NOTE: Where are the pictures, you ask??? Chomp! took some. They looked horrible. Chomp! learned that the limits of his skill with a camera stop cold at making beef jerky, no matter the quality or taste, look appetizing. You want a round mound of wrinkled brown beef? Chomp! can do that. You want a picture that in any way reflects the quality and character of Two Brothers Beef Jerky? Take one yourself, send it to Chomp!, and I will run it and sing your praises!
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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