Chew on This: "The Jamaican" at The Other Store in Columbia, SC

Tucked away in the back of an old gas station in Forest Acres are some of the best sandwiches in the city, including this sweet and spicy shrimp and chicken sandwich. Piled high on The Other Store's wonderfully soft and chewy sub, it's a surprisingly damn good bite you'll want to check out for lunch while admiring the unusual location. The chicken is tender and well seasoned, and the shrimp is nice and fresh, a great marriage with all the spices packed in. If you can grab the potato salad, do it, but their pasta salad is just as good along with their fruit cup with homemade yogurt drizzled on top.

Odds and Ends: Brunch at Tipsy Teapot in Greenville, NC

Brunch, I hear among chefs is one of the most disliked things a line cook could possibly ever want to do. After a busy day of orders on Saturday night, the last thing that most would want to do with their time is make hollandaise sauce for Benedict eggs or send out fifty omelets early on a Sunday morning. Though the food can be great, even spectacular some places, brunch in reality is generally just a fancy offshoot of what most restaurants do flat out better at any other time of the week.

With that in mind, it is awfully nice to have a place like Tipsy Teapot, who is not really known for being a restaurant location as much as it is a tea shop, and get a really lovingly crafted brunch from scratch, buffet style at that. The fact that on most occasions it is only on the second Sunday of the month makes it an even more sought out meal during the East Carolina school year, a genuinely pleasant event to look forward to and enjoy in a town where few food events tend to go down.

The brunch buffet at Tipsy is somewhat modest, but genuine. Ham, bacon, sausage, eggs scrambled and in a quiche are there along with a few variations on potatoes and a roasted vegetable dish or two. Best of all in the hot section may be the shrimp and grits, a cheesy, creamy, slightly tangy and spicy pile of love that magically brings everything together and makes it all wonderful. Shrimp and grits is hard to find made well and for an affordable price in Greenville, so to have all you can handle for brunch once a month is quite a lovely thing. If one is lucky, they may also find some of Tipsy's special oatmeal, a sweet and cinnamon-y blend that is too die for.

On the pastry side of the counter on the opposite end you can find some real gems including the lightest, fluffiest little muffins you'll ever see and some seriously addicting sweet treats that you'll find yourself quickly piling onto your plate at first sight. Make sure you save room for their trifle though, a sweet and succulent tray of strawberries, cream and cake that is worth going back for second and thirds. Round that out with Tipsy's assortment of tea (usually black current and jasmine) or coffee and you'll find yourself spending a very nice early Sunday afternoon filling up on arguably Greenville's best brunch. If you find yourself free in the Greenville area during the second Sunday of the month, I couldn't think of a better way to spend it then eating yourself silly at Tipsy Teapot.

Greenville (NC) Eats: Coffee Shack

Tucked away in its
own parallel universe
between Greenville and Winterville, the Coffee Shack is a charming and spacious getaway from the East Carolina University life.
Featuring a small array of sandwiches and deserts, it isn't by any means a giant culinary monster worth jumping into, but as a coffee and desert shop it has it's redeeming qualities that keep it in competition with the much-talked about Scullery in the heart of Greenville.

So... I don't like the sandwiches at Coffee Shack. I hate to be so forward, but it's the honest truth. The sandwiches in principle, like the spicy slider or various panini's, sound enticing, but none of them have been a memorable experience to my knowledge. The slider was kind of this thin, chewy flatbread thing with some overly cooked cheese. The panini's fair slightly better, but usually don't do much for this eater. Their sides are better and more flavorful, but Coffee Shack has other more important offerings to digest for those looking for a small bite, namely the oh-so-sinister line of rotating deserts.

Packed into the cabinet next to the register and the counter in front of the coffee are Coffee Shack's creations. You'll regularly find cupcakes, muffins, and danishes in the glass cabinet, all of which are fine and reliable for a mid-paper break, but on the counter is exciting stuff where their pies and cakes tend to be. With the holiday season recently, they've had a long line of pecan and pumpkin pies, sometimes even both as seen on the left with the "why did I never think of this creation" known as the pumpkin pie with pecan crumble. Topped with a cool dollop of whip cream, it's a lovely way to spend a part of the day. Other pies featured recently include an espresso chocolate pecan pie and deep dish chocolate pecan pie, and more recently a host of cinnamon rolls such as the "chocolate, chocolate cinnamon roll" has made its way to their counter.

Compared to the Scullery, I would say that Coffee Shack trails a bit behind in terms of food and even coffee itself, which doesn't have the kick and quality you'd expect from a coffee shop. The latte's are a bit of a savior though, make sure you are on the lookout for their twisted holiday twists for some devilish drinks. Overall, there's much more refinement in Greenville's Scullery and a host of more exciting eats offered there daily, but for students or anyone looking for a place to work and enjoy some desert in Greenville, I would put the Shack just a notch above the Scullery who just doesn't measure up in terms of baked goods. The Coffee Shack space itself is larger and contains a variety of areas suited to a variety of needs, including a private room often used for small parties and events. And they have a drive-through. How awesome is that?

If you are looking for a fast and quality meal, this is not a recommended location in either Greenville or Winterville, but if you are in search of something sweet to eat and a place to kick back your feet, the Coffee Shack is a tough place to beat.

Free Times Lists Their '11 edition of Best Bites in Columbia, SC

A couple of weeks ago, the Charleston Magazine took a ride around town and toured it's now established food truck scene. This week Cola takes a second to say hello to Columbia's number one food truck, Bone-In Artisan Barbecue in the Free Time's annual best bites article. Not only can you find Bone-In's devastatingly good Brisket-Stuffed Mac and Blue cheese, but also other new and exciting bites in the Capital City like the duck quesadillas at Cellar on Greene or creamy chocolate gelato at Peace, Love and Rocky Roast. Click here to check out the article and start making your list of places to stop in Cola.

A special shoutout also goes to the whole food truck community in Columbia, SC, which won the battle against city council's diabolic plans to shut them down. Here's to more great food on wheels!

Columbia's Food Truck Scene Under Fire

It's no secret to anyone in South Carolina that Columbia's food truck scene has been in an intense battle with city council and local restaurant owners who wish to heavily restrict and ultimately push the mobile food industry out of town. The emergence of food trucks in the past year have been an incredible asset to the community, bringing a host of fresh, culinary ideas to the city and making Columbia's food scene expand in ways never seen before. This whole wave of success, however, may be in for a downward spiral soon as proposed amendments by the city council are currently in the process of being deliberated. Fellow Columbia blogger The Hungry Lady recently posted an excellent summary of the situation at hand. Click here to check out the situation and find out what you can do help save Columbia's food truck scene.

Also check out Bone-in Artisan Barbecue and Columbia's Food Truck Rodeo facebook page to get the latest word on the ongoing battle in Columbia. Good luck to the Food Trucks!

Charleston Magazine Talks Food Trucks

The Charleston Magazine has a great feature out today on their budding Food Truck scene! Learn how these entrepreneurs came into being and find out some fun facts like what inspired Diggity Donuts fiendish, yet somehow healthy creations or how a camper off craigslist became a mound of frozen gold known as Happy Camper Snoballs.

You can find out about all that and more by clicking here.

Also, make sure you check out my Charleston food truck adventures afterwards and taste the good life in part one and part two of my Charleston Food Truck adventures.

Image courtesy of Charleston Magazine.

Greenville (NC) Eats: aTavola!

aTavola! is for many local Greenvillians the ideal hideaway from the manic college crowd any night of the week. Tucked behind the new Wycked Grill on Red Banks next to Food Lion, most people probably wouldn't figure out that aTavola! was a restaurant from the unassuming looks of it outside, but a step inside reveals a clean, trendy restaurant churning out Italian American eats.

aTavola! is split into two sides: a darker bar side with sports entertainment and the bright restaurant side where artwork is hung on the walls. An open kitchen sits inbetween the two sides, churning out dish after dish from their large and varied menu. Jampacked with choices in the pizza, pasta, and sandwich variety, most of the traditional things you'd expect to find in an Italian menu are there, like spaghetti and Alfredo, various pizzas including pizza margherita and classic sandwiches like the Reuben or Italian Grinder. Some more varied choices may include the tomato, basil tortellini or seafood adventures like crab carbonara. There's really nothing too surprising on the menu at aTavola!, but there's nothing to whine about either.

The appetizer list is perhaps a bit more sophisticated then your normal Italian restaurant, with options such as a refreshing Caprese (cheese and tomato slices with fresh bread), garlic shrimp, a thing called Funky Refried Ravioli, and what our dining group for the night eventually settled for, the dip of the day, this one being a sun-dried tomato, bacon, crap dip. I've had dips at aTavola! before that were pretty dynamite, but for me this one was a bit less appealing due to the sharpness of the sun-dried in contrast to everything else there. The dip was packed in a bread bowl, however, which earned big points.

For the main course I opted for their current special, a meatball ricotta pizza. Packed with huge slices of meatball and dollops of rich ricotta cheese, it was a good pie that was crispy the whole way through and a sight to behold on its own. The only complaint I had was that I wished the meatballs had a bit more meatiness to them to really take the pie to the next level.

Past experiences at aTavola! have been equally as good. The turkey prosciutto sandwich my last outing which was satisfying with the light cuts of turkey, delicate saltiness of the prosciutto and crispy, rich bread. aTavola! offers a variety of sides with their sandwiches, the sweet potato chips perhaps being the standout. Not the thin cut soggy things that you might expect from a sweet potato chip, these were crispy, sweet thick cut potatoes fried to perfection. Less appealing was the Carolina slaw, a lightly vinegar and somewhat un-alive side that I could have done without. That slight misstep aside, dishes coming in and out of the kitchen all look well cared for and attractive to the eye, always a great thing when it comes to Italian food which can easily be turned into an unappealing mess in the wrong hands.

No Reservations, the Final Word on aTavola!
Atmosphere: Clean and contemporary, but still casual.
Mixed crowd, mostly older.
Costs: Reasonable for entrees, ranging from $9-12,
but for appetizers and drinks a bit on the high end.
Try: Sandwiches and traditional pizzas.
Don't: The Naked Greek Pizza. A bit of a salty monstrosity waiting to happen.

The positives of aTavola! definitely come in food and atmosphere. For Italian American in Greenville it definitely ranks as one of the best, if not the best that the city has to offer in this genre. Dinner can get pricey though, especially if you order drinks which are five dollars or more per pop, and lunch does not offer much more of a saving, so if $8-10 is above your range then you'll have to look elsewhere I'm afraid. That being said, aTavola! is one of the better places to dine in the Greenville area, especially if you are looking for a more upscale place to eat and socialize with friends.