GRITS and GROCERIES

I'm sure there's some local restaurant that can please me without having to drive into the middle of "who knows where". As most of you know from reading this blog, Carolina Cafe in Gaffney, which was formerly Carolina Cafe in Chesnee is my favorite restaurant in Upstate SC. My second favorite is now Grits and Groceries at Saylors Crossroads (this is somewhere between Belton and Anderson). Once again, I have found a great place to eat....but it's over an hour drive to get there!! The restaurant is owned and operated by Heidi and Joe Trull. Heidi previously owned and operated the popular New Orleans restaurant Elizabeth's and Joe was the pastry chef for ten years at Emeril Lagasse's New Orleans Restaurant NOLA.


All four of us started with the tomato pie appetizer which also came with maque choux. This is one dish that must really be experienced, there is no way I could faithfully describe how good it was. Above are two photos, one as the pie is served and one with a look inside the pie.



For entrees, two of us chose the catfish po boy, one chose the shrimp po boy and one had the daily special - Greek meatloaf. While all were cooked to perfection, they paled in comparison after the tomato pies. We all agreed, if we could back up time, we would have just ordered two tomato pies each or one tomato pie and an additional different appetizer. Even though, we were all pretty well stuffed by this time, we had to try the desserts....believe me...DON'T miss dessert!! The only problem is that they have such a wide range of desserts, including homemade ice cream, that it's hard to decide. Below are the desserts we chose:



Two of us had the fried sweet potato pie.



One of us chose the carrot cake and in case anyone thinks they don't like carrot cake, they haven't had carrot cake from Grits and Groceries



And saving the best for last, the fig bread pudding with white chocolate caramel sauce. This is an "out of this world" dessert.

Besides the food all being great, the service was beyond reproach, some of the best I've had in a while, especially considering the meal was being served in an old country store. One last thing, they DON'T take credit cards....cash or checks only. For hours (breakfast and lunch only) and directions, check out their web site: Grits and Groceries

THE DOLLIES

Does anyone remember anything about this singing trio from Greenville South Carolina? I know that they were called The Dollies. This photo, dated 1964, was made at Greenville Junior High School. The only other information I have been able to glean is that one of them was seen backstage at a Beach Boys concert at Greenville Memorial Auditorium.

STAR ISLAND by CARL HIAASEN

As far as Florida comic novelists go, I always considered Carl Hiaasen to be the best of the bunch, with Tim Dorsey coming in second place. It's been four years since Hiaasen has written an adult novel and I was excited to read Star Island. I don't know if it was the subject matter, celebrities and paparazzi, or if Hiaasen has just lost his touch. Usually, I'm zipping through his books anxious to see what plot twist he'll throw in next and getting plenty of laughs along the way. Instead, with Star Island, I felt like I was doing some kind of penance for having read all of his other great books. I feel sorry for anyone if this is the first Hiaasen book they read, I imagine they'll wonder what all the acclaim for Hiaasen had been about. I was relieved to finally finish Star Island and anxious to get back to something good....maybe a Robert B. Parker. As for Tim Dorsey, while his book plots have gotten sort of repetitive, I now think he's the number one Florida comic novelist and I'll be looking forward to Serge's next adventure.

THE CORNER POCKET

UPDATE: CORNER POCKET is CLOSED

Last week, I was in downtown Greenville SC and decided to try out The Corner Pocket. It had been years and years since I had been inside and I was happy to see that they had done a complete remodel with the pool tables moved upstairs and more of a restaurant/bar downstairs.


I ordered the Reuben with chips and drank a couple of Miller High Lifes. A Reuben sandwich isn't hard to make, since it only contains four items between two pieces of grilled rye: corned beef, sauerkraut, Swiss cheese, and Thousand Island dressing. Anything else is NOT a Reuben sandwich. The hard part for most restaurants, with The Corner Pocket included, is getting the right mixture of each item on the sandwich. The main downfall here was the meat. While, I'm pretty sure it was your standard deli meat bought from someone like Sysco, I could forgive that (even though you're never going to have a great Reuben without cooking your own corned beef), but the meat was skimpy, leaving an unbalanced taste in the sandwich. At least the chips were pretty good once I added some salt.


My wife had the grilled pimento cheese sandwich and it was good pimento cheese; however, the sandwich appeared to be toasted NOT grilled, as the menu had stated. I imagine the pimento cheese probably also came from Sysco or one of the local fresh markets. But really, you can't mess this sandwich up, unless you burn it. She enjoyed the sandwich and also the fact that they had Blue Moon on tap and even knew to serve it with a orange slice.

If you will notice both meals appeared to be orange....I mean sheesh!, I might as well have been eating in Clemson! It's too bad that the food was unremarkable, IF the kitchen would just take a little more pride in what they are serving, The Corner Pocket would have something worth going back for, rather than just food that you wash down with beer.

Fortunately, even though the food was sort of a bust, The Corner Pocket was having entertainment. Since there was no cover, this helped ease some of the pain of three beers and two sandwiches running in the neighborhood of $25.00 before tip. A last note about our waitress, she was new and it showed, but she was still fine with only one major faux pas, someone else at our table, asked for a Budweiser and she said, so help me, "I don't think we have that"!!!!

BEST RESTAURANT in UPSTATE SC UPDATE

Last year in December I wrote about The Best Restaurant in Upstate South Carolina. Since that time, they have moved from Chesnee and are now closer to Gaffney SC. They're open Tuesday - Saturday 4pm-10pm and Sunday 11am-3pm.

The new address is 211 Old Metal Road, Gaffney, SC. You will have to google the address (it might show the previous restaurant located there "Minnow Creek"). Since we drive to Spartanburg and then our friends drive us the rest of the way, I really have no idea exactly where I was.

This is a much larger restaurant than the owners previously had in Chesnee, but please be aware that this seems to have just made them more popular. If you go during peak dining hours you can expect a wait of up to an hour. They do now put names on a list, as opposed to the old way in Chesnee where everyone was trusted to take their rightful turn.

The food is exactly the same and the owner is cooking and overseeing everything in the kitchen to make sure it arrives at the table to his specifications. This sometimes might delay your order arriving as quickly as you may like, IF you are dining during peak hours.

My current favorite is The Charleston Grouper fried and topped with shrimp and served with a crab cake in a cajun cream sauce. My wife's current favorite is The Carolina Medallions topped with mushrooms, onions, jack cheese, shrimp, and sauteed in white wine garlic butter. I would still recommend ANYTHING on the menu since, at one time or another, I have eaten my way through most of their selections and found all of them to be delicious. I still stand by my original assessment that this is The Best Restaurant in Upstate South Carolina!

Below is a copy of the menu in 3 parts. You may have to click on it twice to get it enlarged enough to view.

WADE HAMPTON CLOCK DRIVE-IN

A few weeks ago, The Greek Festival was held here in Greenville, SC. We hadn't been in many, many years, since we are usually in New Orleans this time of year. Since a lack of funds kept us home this year, we decided to check out the festival. After a tour of the church, we went to their dining hall and each got a plate of Greek specialties. While nothing was bad, nothing really "Wowed" us either. Even the tray of desserts we brought home were just all ok (all of them seemed to be a variation of honey and nuts).

This past weekend, We had a craving for some "Greek Food" (if you don't understand this reference, then you're not from here, so don't worry about it) and we headed to one of our all time favorites: The Clock Restaurant on Wade Hampton Boulevard aka The Wade Hampton Clock. I've often contended that whichever Clock/Petes/Lil Rebel/Palmetto/Carolina you like best is the one you grew up eating at, for us, it's The Wade Hampton Clock.

The Clock had curb service when we were younger, but now you have to go in and order at the counter. After you order, you can have a seat until they let you know your food is ready. There's some booths and a little bit of counter room with stools. Another thing that has changed over the years is that you used to pay as soon as you ordered. Either our age doesn't require this any longer or the counter people at The Clock have become more trustful, since now you pay either when you pick up your food at the counter or when you get ready to leave.

One of us always orders a plate with half and half (half french fries and half onion rings) since we can easily split those between us. This time my wife ordered the hot dog plate (years ago, all the plates used to be called "big boys" but I guess that's a thing of the past). The hot dog is made with homemade chili, the onion rings are handmade to the best of my knowledge, but the french fries are frozen crinkled cut, plus on the plate you get a small cup of homemade slaw.

I ordered one of my favorites, the chili cheeseburger with mustard and onions. It probably doesn't look like much in the above photo, but it's plenty with half of the french fries, onion rings, and slaw off of my wife's plate. We both had the only beverage you should ever drink when dining at The Clock - Tea!

Now a little word about grease. The chili which is the same on the hot dog and burger contains a lot of grease and that's part of what makes it so GOOD, this is NOT health food. Our local comedy troupe Cafe and Then Some even included a part in one of their plays about the original pot of grease that was brought over from Greece and as each new Clock/Petes, etc. opened, they got a little bit of this grease and started their own pot.

Also, the onion rings and french fries are cooked in grease, which brings me to an article I read on the web. In that article the author claimed the food was NOT greasy at all. I can only think that he must not have really eaten here. I guarantee you that if you lay the onion rings and fries on a napkin, the napkin will start to show grease right away. My small paper plate with my chili cheesburger was almost translucent with all the grease that had dripped on it by the time I had finished. But these things are what we LOVE about The Wade Hampton Clock; and WE can't be the only ones....they've been in business since the 1950s and are still going strong.

WADE'S RESTAURANT

Saturday we had planned to go to Spartanburg's Spring Fling, but when we got up the weather looked like it could rain at any moment. After hitting a few yard/church sales we decided to take a chance on Spartanburg.


One of our main reasons for going to Spartanburg was that I saw David Ezell was playing at 11:30. We used to see David a lot at the old Handlebar when it was located on Mills Avenue. That's back when The Handlebar was a true "listening room" instead of what it has become today (definitely NOT a "listening room"). We saw David open for a lot of acts back then and even do a show once on his own. We were always big fans and over the years just never have caught back up with him. He's still the great singer songwriter that we remember, plus he does lots of cool covers (Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Hank Williams Sr, Harland Howard, Dusty Springfield are some of the artists he covered when we saw him Saturday). Check David out if you ever get a chance, I guarantee you won't be disappointed.

We also got to walk through the Redwood Log House as seen above. A fully furnished three room house handcarved inside a 1900 year old giant California redwood tree. This was pretty unique and was a surprise attraction on our visit. Click on the link above to read more about it.

Since the food at the Spring Fling was your typical street fair offerings, we were torn on where to eat because several of our favorite restaurants are in Spartanburg. We settled on Wade's Restaurant, the best meat and three I've ever eaten at (for those not from the South, meat and three = blue plate special) and I've eaten at a LOT of meat and three's. I've never had a bad meal at Wade's, plus the service except on a few rare occasions has been top notch.


After bringing your drinks, they bring you yeast rolls and/or cornbread. The cornbread is pretty standard, so we usually go for all hot yeast rolls. My goodness are they good.


I had the chicken fried steak with milk gravy, baked macaroni and cheese, and sweet potato casserole.


My wife had a vegetable plate: crowder peas, baked macaroni and cheese, sweet potato casserole and creamed corn.

Everything was just as good as it looks in the photos. I've never had anything that I didn't like at Wade's, so I would recommend just ordering whatever appeals to you off that day's menu. I will add that even though I rarely have room for dessert, I have tried several of Wade's and never found the desserts to be as good as the regular meal. That's why I usually go for the sweet potato casserole, since it's sweet enough to be a dessert. On top of the great food, it's really a bargain price in today's restaurant world. We paid just a shade over $14.00 including beverages, pre tip for the above meals. These type of meals usually cost us $17.00 to $19.00 anywhere else. You can also count on Wade's having a pretty decent crowd no matter what time of day you go and if you go during peak dining hours be prepared to wait in a short fast moving line.