FIG

On the same day we visited the Glass Onion for lunch, we headed to FIG for dinner. I didn't know it before, but the chefs at Glass Onion worked at FIG before setting out on their own.

FIG ("Food is Good") lives up to its name in terms of food. The chef, Mike Lata, stresses local, sustainable food generally prepared in a modern Southern fashion. Lata knows what he is doing. The food is good. My only problem, see below, was the service.

I ordered the chicken liver pate as an appetizer.

This stuff is amazing! Flat out delicious. It is so rich and creamy, almost like meaty air. I know it sounds like an oxymoron. It seems like such a deep, rich, meaty taste could not come from something so light and airy. It leaves your tastebuds in a perplexed, happy stupor. Salty, rich, and smooth. While it would probably result in a rapid heart attack, I could eat this morning, noon, and night. It is that good.

The beef tartare appetizer was also excellent.

The tartare had smooth, tender bits of raw beef with a little spice and a little sour and a little sweet from the meat. Beef tartare is both such a sophisticated dish and such a primal dish. The raw beef recalls our hunter-gatherer days. But it also has a delicate taste. There is nothing like tender, raw beef. It is so good that one of my friends ordered a double beef tartare appetizer as his entree. It was a little over-the-top but that is how he does things.

Others ordered a stone crab claw appetizer. Local stone crab claws served with a sriracha mayo dipping sauce.

The crab was sweet and delicious. The sriracha mayo was delicious on the bread we were served but on the crab it almost overpowered the crab taste. Too little on the crab and you didn't taste the mayo, too much and it overpowered the crab.

Several people ordered the Wagyu steak as an entree.

The steak was super tender and flavorful, literally melt in your mouth tender. The jus/sauce served over top was the perfect accompaniment to the steak. Served with the steak were sweet potatoes and mushrooms. Both the sweetness of the potatoes and the meatiness and umami of the mushrooms went well with the steak.

I ordered the sweetbread entree.

The sweetbreads were excellent. I have never had such a large portion of sweetbreads in one large piece before. Sweetbreads are the thymus or pancreas of a cow. While the part of the cow may be unusual, the taste is, in my opinion, a rare treat. They were pan fried with a nice crusty exterior. The interior was smooth and creamy with a milky, meaty taste. They were served over cauliflower and, I believe, an herb sauce and spinach. The sauce and spinach had a sourness that nicely complimented the creaminess of the sweetbreads.

We ordered two side dishes for the table: roasted artichokes and brussel sprouts, and mashed potatoes.

Both were good but unnecessary due to the portion size of our entrees. The potatoes were probably about one part potato to one part cream and butter. They were super creamy and rich.

Our waitress started out friendly and helpful. As the night wore on the service declined. By the end of the night we were irritated. To top it all off there were six of us so we were slapped with an automatic 18% gratuity. She started out giving us advice about the menu and our wine choices. Our appetizers came out without delay and our wine was only a little slow. But then the appetizer plates sat finished on the table for more than ten minutes before she came to clean them off. Our entree came out and the cycle of empty plates repeated with a longer interim. We refilled our own wine glasses. She rarely came by to see how we were doing or to refill our water. She cleared our entree plates away and neglected to ask about dessert. At least ten minutes went by before she came back to ask about dessert. Then ten minutes more went by before we ordered dessert. We told her we would like to order dessert to go and the check because our dogs had been locked inside at home for quite a while and we had a long drive to get back. She brought us dessert and not the check. By the time she brought the check we had eaten all of the dessert and were bored waiting. I know we are young and young people may be light on tipping. But I enjoy fine food and a fine dining experience and I am willing to pay for it. I am more than happy to reward good service. Don't let your server coast on her guaranteed 18% tip and ignore her customers. When we pay FIG prices for dinner and spend well over two hours at the table we deserve more.

FIG serves delicious food. FIG pushes Southern cooking to new boundaries and admirably emphasizes the use of local, sustainable ingredients. FIG is a great place to stop in for a meal in Charleston. Just hope you get good service.

FIG
232 Meeting Street
Charleston, SC 29401
843-805-5900
http://www.eatatfig.com/

Social

Taking a break from shopping downtown and prior to dinner, friends and my wife and I headed to Social for a glass of wine.

Unlike my usual posts, we did not consume any food. Although Social does serve food, I think of it more as a wine bar. On this particular afternoon we couldn't have ordered much if we wanted to. Apparently there was a fire in the kitchen the day before which left the kitchen unable to prepare anything but pizza.

Several friends had a glass of wine. My wife and I decided to do a wine flight. The menu has several different glasses of wine available in different categories. You can order a glass of any of the wines or a flight of all of the wines in that category. I ordered a flight of the three Italian reds. My wife ordered a flight of the three Spanish reds. All of the wines were excellent. It was a lot of fun to start with the lighter reds and work up to the full bodied reds. Even better, we essentially had three half glasses of excellent wine for $12 per flight.

Our server was friendly, helpful, and very knowledgeable about the featured wines. The decor inside is dark woods and steel. It has a modern but warm feeling. The space is intimate without being too close for comfort.

I am short on details, but I highly recommend Social for a fun place to enjoy a glass, or a flight, of tasty wine.

Social
188 East Bay Street
Charleston, SC 29401
843-577-5665
http://www.socialwinebar.com/

Glass Onion

While in Charleston with friends from Atlanta we visited Glass Onion for lunch. Glass Onion has received great reviews as a hip spot for fresh, local, innovative cuisine. It deserves this reputation, but it seems to always miss that final touch that would leave me enamored with the place. That said, the food is good. As I conclude below, I love what they are trying to do, but they just don't totally pull it off.
The menu changes daily based on what is available locally and what the chef decides to whip up. I ordered the blood pudding plate. It came with blood pudding of course. The blood pudding was topped with a fried egg and on the side were pickled cucumber and greenbeans.

The blood pudding consisted of blood, various pork bits, onion, and spices. It was a lot like a moist, fluffy sausage. It worked well with the egg, especially once I broke the yolk over top. The pickles were great.

A friend ordered a salad and the mussel soup. The mussel soup was excellent.

The waitress informed us that the base of the soup was broccoli which I never would have guessed. It had an onion and garlic note to it. Once I learned of the broccoli, I tasted it as well. Super creamy with tasty mussels and the complexity of the brocolli, onions, and garlic.

Another friend had the striped bass special. It was also very good. The fish was cooked perfectly with moist flesh and a charred skin.



Another friend ordered a chicken salad po' boy. The proprietors of the Glass Onion all met in New Orleans and the New Orleans influence is visible on the menu, especially in the plethora of po' boys.

I did not get a chance to try the chicken salad, but it looked good.

Another friend ordered the jambalaya, which I also did not get to try and also looked good.

The jambalaya, like my blood pudding, was topped with an egg. Apparently they have a thing for topping food with an egg. I'm not necessarily complaining because eggs make a nice addition to many Southern dishes. But you can't just throw an egg on top of everything. It went well with the blood pudding and it would work well with jambalaya, but they may be pushing the line of overdoing it.

My wife ordered the pimento cheese sandwich. The pimento cheese was fantastic. It was creamy, spicy and the perfect balance between liquid and solid.

Last, but not least, we had an order of french fries which came with bearnaise.

The bearnaise was a little over-the-top. Trust me, your doctor will never recommend that you dip deep-fried potatoes covered in salt in a sauce consisting mostly of butter. Despite being over-the-top, it was rather tasty.

Overall, the food was good to great. The prices are a little high for a regular work day lunch. Of course, the food is local, innovative, and tasty. My one complaint might be that the portions should be a little larger for the prices. I am more than happy to pay for quality food prepared with love. But, as I have said before (see my Antico Napoletana post: http://hominyhomily.blogspot.com/2010/12/antico-pizza-napoletana.html), the dining experience is a total experience consisting of the food, the prices, and the service.

The restaurant itself is pretty simple. You walk up to the counter, read the blackboard and place your order. The staff brings your food out to you. You eat and then walk to the second counter to pay.

As I said before, I want to love the Glass Onion. I love what they are trying to do. Their emphasis on innovative, fresh, local food should be emulated by restaurants everywhere. Their love for traditional Southern food and their desire to honor the tradition, reinvigorate it, and bring it into the twenty-first century is awesome. Perhaps the small portions and high prices leave me wanting a little more when I leave. I'm not exactly sure what it is that leaves me feeling like the last element is missing. Go try the Glass Onion for yourself. At the least it is worth supporting what they are trying to do. I just don't think the Glass Onion will fall into my regular rotation and I suspect it may be the same way for you.

Below is the menu on the day we visited.

Glass Onion

1219 Savannah Highway

Charleston, SC 29407

843-225-1717

http://www.ilovetheglassonion.com/

 

Hank's Seafood

Over Christmas Break we visited one of my favorite restaurants in Charleston, SC. Hank's is the place to go for seafood in Charleston. It isn't the nicest restaurant in Charleston, but it does, in my opinion, have the best seafood. The billboards on the way into the city want you to think that Hyman's is the best seafood place and is where all of the locals go. Don't be fooled. While other restaurants have great seafood options, if seafood is your number one interest, then go to Hank's.

I started off my meal with a dozen oysters on the half shell. I love oysters on the half shell. They are one of the most delicate, sensual, and tasty foods in the world.

The dozen oysters were  a sample of four different oysters from three different locations. One group of four were from Apalachicola, Florida. These were your typical Gulf oysters. They are good, but nothing special. The other two groups of four were from the Pacific coast. While all of the oysters were delicious and I would recommend the oyster sampler, I did have a couple of complaints. First, I had to ask the waiter where the oysters are from. I would appreciate it if the waiter, as has happened at other restaurants, informed me of their source upon giving me the plate. Second, I asked if the pacific oysters were pacifics or kumamotos. I recently read a fantastic book on oysters, The Geography of Oysters by Rowan Jacobsen. It turns out that there are four different types of oysters grown in the United States: eastern, pacific, European flats, and kumamotos. The pacifics and easterns are native to the United States. The European flats are native to Europe but are apparently quite rare in the US today. The kumamotos were imported from Japan and account for a huge share of the oysters grown on the west coast. When I asked the question, the waiter was clearly befuddled. Perhaps this was not a fair question of my waiter because as an oyster nerd I am not a typical customer and perhaps I should have further explained myself. Thus, perhaps my complaint is not a fair complaint. However, I feel that the proper response would have been to go back to the raw bar and ask for clarification. My third complaint is that my oysters had an unusually large amount of shell bits in them. Despite having just claimed that I am an oyster nerd, I'm not sure if this is preventable with skill and care or just a random and unavoidable occurrence.

My wife had she-crab soup for her appetizer.

For all of you not from Charleston, she-crab soup is a delicacy often imitated and rarely perfected. She-crab soup requires crab roe and a good she-crab soup should have a generous helping of crab roe, sherry, and portions of crab meat. As you can see from the picture, she-crab soup is a creamy soup. It has a sweetness from the crab and a slightly sweet kick from the sherry. Hank's she-crab soup was above par. Both my wife and I gave it our seal of approval. It was not the best we have ever had but it was worth ordering. It had roe, sherry, and nice large pieces of crab meat.

For an entree, both my wife and I had the tuna. We have ordered the rare seared tuna almost every time we have visited Hank's.

As seen above, the tuna has several pieces of tuna with a nice rare/raw center. It is accompanied by caramelized onions, goat cheese, black olives, basil, sweet reduced tomatoes, and a puff pastry. It seems like it wouldn't work. I always imagine, and most chefs seem to think, that rare seared tuna is a dish to be created in an Asian style. But the sweetness of the caramelized onions, the creaminess of the goat cheese, the spice of the basil, and the salt of the olives all combine to create one of my favorite dishes. The puff pastry has never really done anything for me, although it can be useful to mop up whatever is left at the end. The rare seared tuna entree runs around twenty-eight dollars.

My in-laws and the rest of those with us all ordered a fried seafood platter.

I love fried seafood, but with the other options I couldn't bring myself to order fried seafood. Fried seafood, to me, is more of a meal to be ordered at your local hole in the wall. I don't want to get dressed up (see below) and pass up on the tuna in favor of fried seafood. I will say that Hank's does have excellent fried seafood, as it well should for the twenty dollar plus price tag on the fried seafood platters. The platters offer excellent fried oysters, shrimp, scallops, fish, and deviled crab. In addition, Hank's has excellent fried sweet potato chips that come with the platters.

As I indicated above, I like to dress up to go to Hank's. I consider it to be one of Charleston's nicer establishments. It is no Cypress or Peninsula Grill, but it is still a nice restaurant. As for all of Charleston's nicer establishments, it really grinds my gears when tourists and others lacking sufficient class visit such places while donning their most comfortable t-shirt or jeans. Do yourself and all of those around you a favor and at least put on a collared shirt of some type and some type of pants nicer than jeans. Or at the very least, wear your best designer jeans.

Conclusion: if you find yourself in the Holy City with a hankering for seafood, stroll on over to Hank's. You won't be disappointed.

Hank's Seafood
10 Hayne Street
Charleston, SC 29401
843-723-3474
http://www.hanksseafoodrestaurant.com/