Road Tips

Rusciano's - North Liberty, IA

My wife's daughter recently celebrated a significant birthday and we wanted to get the family together to celebrate.  Since her daughter lives in North Liberty, my wife and I drove over to meet her daughter, her daughter's son and daughter, and my wife's son for dinner.  Their choice that evening was an Italian pizza restaurant I've been to before, but hadn't written about - Rusciano's Authentic Taste of Napoli.  We got there just as they opened up at 5 p.m. on a recent Saturday evening.  

Gennaro Rusciano was born and raised in Naples, Italy.  You could say that working in kitchens was in his blood - he used to tell people he was born under a wood-fired oven.  His grandparents and uncles ran restaurants and bakeries in Naples.  Gennaro learned how to make food in a wood-fired oven from them making his first pizza at the age of 8.  As a young adult, his goal in life was to immigrate to the United States and run his own restaurant there.  But the process to move to the U.S. was an arduous task, at best.  It took a chance encounter with an American tourist to set those wheels in motion for Rusciano to move to the U.S.

Carol Gorney was a native of the Quad Cities and a licensed physician's assistant in Iowa City.  During a trip to Italy in 2016, she was introduced to Gennaro Rusciano by a fellow tourist on the trip who happened to be Rusciano's mother's cousin.  Rusciano told Gorney that his dream was to move to America and open his own restaurant.  At first Gorney and Rusciano were sort of joking about it, but the more they talked, the more they realized they could get it to work out.  

To be eligible for a visa, Rusciano had to present United States immigration officials with a solid business plan on opening and working in a restaurant.  Less than two months after they met, and with Gorney as a partner, Rusciano was able to get a work visa that allowed him and his family to move to the states in March of 2016.  It took some time for Rusciano and Gorney to get everything together and in June 2017 they signed a lease in a space in a strip mall on North Liberty's north side of town.  In November of 2017, Rusciano's Authentic Taste of Napoli opened to the public.  Helping Rusciano out with the day-to-day operations was Gorney's son Taylor who stepped in as the restaurant's manager.  

Pictured right - Gennaro Rusciano.  Photo courtesy Rusciano's Authentic Taste of Napoli Facebook page.  

And the authentic taste of Naples is far from just word salad.  The large brick oven Rusciano's uses to cook pizzas and breads was made in Naples and imported over in 2017.  He gets his flour and olive oil sent over from Italy.  San Marzano tomatoes and Calabrian peppers are also imported from his home country as are some of the wines he offers at the restaurant.  Craft beers from Iowa breweries are available at Rusciano's, local baker Adam Kopfman from Tip Top Cakes in Iowa City made the desserts exclusively for Rusciano's.  Other ingredients Rusciano uses are locally sourced from farms and other food outlets.   

We had six people in our party for dinner that evening and my wife and I showed up early, just after 5 p.m. to make sure they had the reservation for our party correct.  They had a table in the corner in the front of the restaurant for us all ready to go.  The restaurant space, itself, was what I would call modern industrial with an open ceiling with ductwork and light fixtures hanging above the dining area.  The large brick oven that was imported from Naples sits in the back corner behind the counter.  

Along the other side wall was more artwork - photos and paintings of Naples.  A large wood carving of the silouette of Mount Vesuvius with neon lighting behind the carving giving it a bit of a red hue on the outline.  Booths were along the wall underneath the pictures and the wood carving.  

My wife's showed up not too long after we got into Rusciano's, then her daughter and her daughter's son and daughter showed up about 5:20.  A young lady by the name of Sierra was our server that evening and after she dropped off menus for everyone, she took drink orders.  My wife ordered a glass of the house chianti - a Castello di Querceto from the Florence region in Italy, while I got a Pseudo Sue pale ale from the Toppling Goliath brewery in Decorah, IA.  

Rusciano's menu has a lot more to offer than just pizza.  They offer some authentic Napoli street bites as part of their appetizer menu including balls of risotto and ground Italian sausage; mini-pizza dough balls topped with marinara and fresh mozzarella; and bucatini pasta balls with sausage, San Marzano tomatoes, and fresh mozzarella.  They had a caprese salad and creamy burrata, as well as focaccia bread and bruschetta.  We started out getting a charcuterie board with a selection of cured meats and cheese.  My wife also wanted to get the olive appetizer with a mixture of black and green olives on the plate.  

My wife and her daughter decided to get a couple things to share.  They started out with a salsaccia and cheese pizza with San Marzano pizza sauce, real mozzarella cheese and fresh basil leaves on top.  Rusciano's grinds all their sausage in house.  The pizza had puffy edges from the OO flour that is imported from Italy.  

The granddaughter and grandson both got their own personal pizzas.  The grandson got a pepperoni pizza while the granddaughter - who was seated next to me - got her own personal cheese pizza.  I kept acting like I was going to steal a piece of her pizza while she was eating and she kept smacking my hand away.  "You should have got your own," she said in her own sassy way.   

My wife and her daughter also got pasta - it was truly a family-style atmosphere at our table as there was sharing going on.  They got the rigatoni pasta with a mixture of San Marzano marinara and an alfredo sauce.  I guess you could call it a creamy marinara, but my stepdaughter had it at Rusciano's before and my wife thought it was awesome in flavor.   

My stepson got the fettuccine alfredo with shrimp.  Two large pieces of toasted bread came with the fettuccine alfredo.  It wasn't that large of a portion, but he was helping eat off his mom's and sister's pizza and pasta.  

I had gotten a pizza on my previous visit to Rusciano's before COVID hit, and I contemplated getting a calzone - the Zi Totonno with sausage and Genoa salami stuffed inside with San Marzano sauce, mozzarella and pecorino romano cheese.  But this time I went with the fettuccine in a hearty bolognese sauce.  Rusciano's uses slow-cooked braised beef along with San Marzano tomatoes in their bolognese sauce.  If you're a regular Road Tips reader and have been paying attention over the past few months, I've really been on a bolognese with pasta kick as of late.  I've made my own at home with ground beef, ground pork, San Marzano tomatoes, some cream, and Italian herbs.  The bolognese at Rusciano's was surprisingly good.  As in very good.  I would have put it up against some of the bolognese and pasta dishes I've had a some nice Italian restaurants over the past year.  

Since it was a significant birthday for my wife's daughter, we decided to all get something from Rusicano's dessert menu.  They had tiramisu and that's what my wife ordered for her daughter and her.  It was a big fluffy piece of tiramisu with ladyfingers encased in the spongy mascarpone.  Espresso beans with powered chocolate covered the piece of tiramisu.  I had a bite and it was excellent.   

My choice was the limoncello cheese cake that was topped with a strawberry drizzle.  Compared to the tiramisu, this was pretty "meh!"  It didn't have much of a lemon flavor to it, at least not enough to put a citrus "zing" on my tongue.  

My stepson got a couple cannoli.  He gave me half of one and it was also very good.  It was loaded with a batch of sweet ricotta cheese and sprinkled with a generous portion of powered sugar.  It was delicious. 

The grandkids went with the Nutella pizza.  I about fainted when I saw it because it was basically a pizza topped with powdered sugar, Nutella, slices of strawberries and dollops of whipped cream.  I said, "There is no way these little t**ds are going to be able to eat this."  Guess what?  They DID!!  (I think they had some help along the way.)  Thinking about how much sugar that dessert pizza had to have, I told my stepdaughter, "I'm glad they're going home with you and not with us!"  

Gennaro Rusciano came over to check in on us as we were enjoying the desserts.  I mentioned that it would have been nice to get an affogato as a dessert choice.  He said he didn't have espresso there, but there was a coffee shop next door.  "I've got some gelato," he said as it got me thinking.  Unfortunately, the coffee shop closed down at 5 p.m.  Oh, well.  

Rusciano's is my stepdaughter's favorite place to get food in North Liberty and it was no wonder that we ended up there for her birthday dinner.  I found that it's much more than just a pizza restaurant as the fettuccine bolognese I had there was outstanding.  About the only thing I can think of that wasn't very good to excellent was the limoncello cheese cake that was pretty bland to me.  Everyone was more than happy with what they got.  And I have to give a shoutout to Sierra who was on top of every request and was quick to respond.  Rusciano's really is an authentic taste of old Naples.  

Carmella's Cafe and Dessert Bar - Charleston, SC

After dinner one night, we were walking along the streets of the French Quarter of Charleston enjoying the evening vibe the historic district had to offer.  We came upon a place where people were lined up out the door to get into.  It turned out it was a cafe/dessert bar that was very popular with the locals and tourists alike.  A quick look at the menu convinced us that we had to get in line to have some dessert at Carmella's Cafe and Dessert Bar.  

Brian Solari was born into an Italian family of chefs and food purveyors.  The matriarch of the family was his Italian-immigrant grandmother Carmella who cooked recipes that had been passed down generations from the old country in Italy in her kitchen in South Philadelphia.  Solari's family business was as distributors of Italian meats and delicacies in New Jersey and his uncle Dennis was a chef at an Italian restaurant.  He had other relatives who owned dessert cafes around Philadelphia and they were all very well known.  In 1993, grandma Carmella moved to Charleston to retire and two years later Brian moved to Charleston to go to college there.  

Solari always felt that Charleston had a bit of European charm down to the cobblestone streets in the French Quarter and how people walked with ease about the neighborhood.  One thing that Solari felt Charleston needed was an Italian-style dessert cafe - similar to the ones that were on Italian piazzas, and like the ones his relatives ran in and around Philadelphia.  

Pictured right - Brian Solari.  Photo courtesy Carmella's Cafe and Dessert Bar website.  

Solari partnered with the Blandford family who owned a commercial construction company that did the build out on an old building in Charleston's French Quarter.  In October of 2014, Carmella's Cafe & Dessert Bar opened.  In December of 2023, a second location opened in Greenville, SC and plans are in the making for a third location in Columbia, SC sometime in 2025.  

The line moved pretty quickly and we were inside within a couple minutes.  Carmella's was packed that evening with people lined up at the marble-topped bar.  The menu for the cafe was posted on flatscreen televisions behind the bar.  Carmella's also has sandwiches, breakfast items, pizza-by-the-slice, and gourmet cookies including a lemon ricotta cookie that definitely caught my eye.    

Carmella's isn't a large place with a few tables along the original inner brick wall of the building.  With the door open on a warm and humid evening, the air conditioning was doing the best it could to keep up with the crush of people in the place.  Fans mounted high on the wall helped keep the air moving to try and keep everyone comfortable.  

While waiting in line we encountered the cake and pastry counter.   They had tiramisu in a dessert cup, cannoli, key lime pie, and a lemon/blueberry cheesecake that made my legs buckle when I saw that.  There was a honey orange cake that was a vanilla cake filled with a light orange curd and topped with a Swiss honey buttercream.  Yum!!!  Some of the pastries available at Carmella's come from recipes by way of Brian Solari's chef uncle Dennis who was mentored in pastry baking by world-renowned pastry chef Biagio Settepani of  Bruno's Italian Bakery in New York City.  

Carmella's is known for their "boozy" milk shakes and they have a full bar if you're looking for a cocktail or craft beer.  Wine was also available along with specialty cocktails including hot and frozen drinks, and milk shakes such as a lemon vodka, lemonade, limoncello and vanilla gelato shake; and one with espresso liqueur, creme de cacao, and mascarpone gelato - basically a tiramisu drunken shake.  Now, both of those also made my knees buckle when I was looking at them on the menu!  

Of course, Carmella's has coffee, cappuccino, espresso and lattes, as well as gelato and sorbetto.   My wife saw something at she had to try - The Resurrection.  It featured espresso vodka (didn't know there was such a thing as espresso vodka or espresso liqueur until I went to Carmella's), espresso and espresso gelato.  I told my wife that she was going to be drunk and awake all night!  

I had to go with an affogato made with espresso and vanilla gelato.  And for good measure, I had them put a shot of amaretto in with it.  A spot had opened at the bar by the time our dessert drinks were served to us.

Oh my GOD!!!  I love affogato, but I love it more with some sort of liqueur poured in with the gelato and espresso.  It was so good to enjoy some gelato and get a buzz from the espresso and the amaretto.  

From the first sip my wife took, she went, "My god", as well.  "This is lethal," she laughingly exclaimed.  I had a drink of it and - boy - did it taste good.  We were just blown away at how good these dessert drinks were.  But I was also blown away at the price.  It was $24.50 before tax and tip.  I suppose that's what happens when you add alcohol to already decadent dessert drinks.  

We never made it back to Carmella's Cafe and Dessert Bar during our time in Charleston.  And it's probably a good thing.  The dessert pastries, cakes and cookies were enticing enough, but the boozy shakes and the chance to add liqueur to affogato was just plain sinful.  It was so wickedly good and that it is probably outlawed in some areas of the U.S.   What a great find Carmella's was!  It makes me want to go back to Charleston tomorrow.

 

 

Black Dog Pub - Fort Wayne, IN

My colleague from Montreal and I were out in Fort Wayne earlier this year to do some training sessions and we had spent a good portion of the day setting up for the trainings.  We had some running around to do to pick up some items that we would need for the presentations and to ship the products back to our warehouse in Montreal after we finished the next evening.  My colleague is a vegetarian and I have to be cognoscente of his dietary needs when we're together.  But it turns out that he can pretty much find something on the menu at any place we go to.  After our last stop, it turned out there was an Irish pub not too far away from us.  A beer and a bite of food sounded good for the both of us, so we drove a short way to the Black Dog Pub.

Brothers and restaurant veterans Jeff and Dave Hamilton established the Black Dog Pub in 2002 and it quickly became a neighborhood favorite for people living on Fort Wayne's west side.  The restaurant is located in a strip mall near the corner of W. Covington Rd. and Getz Rd., not far from where Getz and W. Jefferson Rd meets up.  (see map)  

We were able to find a parking spot just down from the Black Dog Pub in the lot for the strip mall.  There was a shaded patio area in front of the brick facade building, but it was a very hot day and there was no way that we'd want to be seated outside.

There appeared to be two doors into the Black Dog Pub and we took the one on the right.  That took us into the lounge area.  It featured a bar on one side of a well lit room with green and white checkerboard tile on the floor.  The opposite side of the bar featured some booths and high-top tables.  The bar area was an interesting mix of blue collar workers, duffers just off the golf course, older people enjoying an early evening drink and young ladies who looked like they just came from the office.

We found the last booth that was open in the dining room next to the bar.  The dining room was also well lit and had a faux brick wall on one side with flatscreen televisions on the walls.  My colleague was keen to watch some of the replay of the Euro 2024 soccer match from earlier in the day that they had up on one of the screens in the bar.   He was able to get someone to turn the channel to the game on one of the televisions near where we were seated.

Our server that evening was a young lady by the name of Ciera.  She dropped off a couple food menus for us to look over and there was a beer menu on the wall.  They had about 20 different beers and ciders on tap at Black Dog Pub.  I wanted to get one of the hazy IPA's they had listed from a brewery in Indianapolis.  Ciera went and checked on that and she said that they were out of that beer.  I then asked about the IPA that GnomeTown Brewery in downtown Fort Wayne makes for them.  Well, they were out of that!  I ended up cutting my losses and got a pint of the Two Hearted India pale ale from Bell's Brewery out of Kalamazoo, MI.  My buddy ended up getting the same thing.  

The menu at Black Dog Pub isn't all that dissimilar to other pub-style restaurants.  Appetizers, soups and salads, sandwiches, burgers, wraps and entrees such as ribs and an 8 ounce beef tenderloin filet were prevalent on the menu.  They also had pizza and calzones on the menu, as well as submarine sandwiches.  

My colleague went with the Beyond Burger with a plant-based patty that I've actually wanted to try at some point (but have been too chicken to order).  He said that the Beyond Burger's are pretty good, but he doesn't get them all the time because of how highly processed they are.  "Even though they are vegetarian, they aren't all that good for you if you have one more than once a week," he said.  The things I learn from a vegetarian.  

I had seen a pizza going out to another table and that's what I ended up getting - a small (10") thin-crust with sausage, pepperoni and mushrooms. I'd had a big salad for lunch earlier in the day and this was really all I needed to eat.  It was a tad overcooked and there was a dearth of sauce on the pizza, but other than that it was fine.  Not the best I've had, but it was still good.   

The Black Dog Pub was fine for what it was.  My old neighbor would have probably hated the place because he's the kind of guy (full Irish) who rails against restaurants or bars who go into a strip mall, put up an Irish flag in the corner, and call themselves and Irish pub.  And in this case, he's probably right.  About the only authentic - or near authentic - thing they had on the food menu was fish and chips.  No shepard's pie, no bangers & mash, no corned beef & cabbage - none of that was found on the menu at Black Dog Pub.  But what they did have to offer was fine for pub fare.  It worked for us that evening.  

M.L. Rose - Nashville

I got into Nashville after a long day of driving - most of it through Central and Southern Illinois in a heavy rainstorm from the remnants of Hurricane Beryl - around 6:00 p.m. one recent day.  I had set up a dinner get together with a former colleague who lives in Nashville.  He asked me what if I wanted to go somewhere upscale or casual.  I said, "Hey, man.  This is your town.  But you know me, casual, good food, beer."  He immediately said, "We're going to M.L. Rose."  

Austin Ray grew up in Nashville, the son of Davidson County's first female sheriff Gayle Ray.  When he got old enough to look for a job, it didn't hurt that his mother had a lot of connections in the community.  Ray's first job at the age of 13 was washing dishes and making sandwiches for a catering company.  Later on, he went to work in the kitchen at The (now-closed) Mad Platter, a trendy restaurant run by Craig and Marcia Jervis located in Nashville's Germantown neighborhood.  After graduating from Hillsboro High School on Nashville's southwest side in 1997, Ray wanted to go to college that had a strong hospitality program.  He chose Boston University in Boston, MA.  

Pictured right - Austin Ray.  Photo courtesy M.L. Rose website.  

While in college at B.U., Ray worked in bars and restaurants learning the trade on the side.  When he got his degree in hospitality from Boston, he was immediately set up to work for a large corporation.  But after a while, Ray found that the corporate lifestyle wasn't his thing, so he moved back to Nashville in 2002 to look for opportunities there.  

Living in an apartment in Nashville's tony Oak Hill neighborhood, Ray started a small catering business using his small kitchen as the main facility.  But it wasn't too long after he started his catering business when he met Benjamin Goldberg, a young man who also had the same drive and vision Ray had in wanting to chart his own course in the restaurant/bar business.   

Ray and Goldberg collaborated on a new upscale nightclub - Bar Twenty3 - which opened in 2004 in Nashville's Gulch neighborhood.  And when two popular live music venues were shut down due to urban development in the fast-changing downtown Nashville area, the two opened City Hall, a live music event space.  But by 2008, Bar Twenty3 had fallen out of favor with new night spots opening up in The Gulch, and City Hall's lease had expired.  Ray and Goldberg closed the bar and the live music venue and went their separate ways.  (Goldberg and his brother Max eventually founded Strategic Hospitality overseeing Nashville restaurants such as The Catbird Seat, Bastian, and Henrietta Red, as well as eateries at local landmarks and venues such as the Nashville International Airport, First Horizon Park, and GEODIS Park.)    

By this time, Ray was now living in the Melrose neighborhood of Nashville and he wanted to have a neighborhood bar that was the antithesis of Bar Twenty3.  While Bar Twenty3 was trendy, upscale and sort of elite, his next project was going to be more of a drinking than eating establishment where every day regulars would show up and enjoy themselves.  

Ray purchased a former gay bar in Melrose - The Chute - and started renovations.  He quickly realized that the building was in bad shape and needed a lot of work.  There were times when Ray questioned his decision to open a bar in the neighborhood, but then he realized that the neighborhood was changing from a seedy section of Nashville into a more gentrified area.  Ray opened the Melrose Pub in 2008.  

Just across the street from the Melrose Pub was a place simply called The Melrose.  It had been there since 1944 and was a dingy dive bar/pool hall.  In fact, it had been there so long that some people thought the neighborhood was named after the pool hall!  With The Melrose just across the street from the Melrose Pub, it soon became evident that when people were going to meet friends at the Melrose Pub, some thought they were to meet at The Melrose across the street.  It got to a point where people would refer to The Melrose as "the dirty Melrose", and the Melrose Pub as "the clean Melrose."  

But some people continued to think the Melrose Pub was the same thing as The Dirty Melrose pool hall and refused to go there.  Austin Ray knew he had a small personality problem on his hands and around 2012 he changed the name from the Melrose Pub to the present day M.L. Rose.  (Ray got the last laugh in the whole deal - he bought The Melrose pool hall in 2016 and spiffed the place up taking a lot of the dinginess out of the place and making it more of a 1940's-style, art deco drinking establishment.  It's still referred to as "The Dirty Melrose", but it is far from that these days.)  

About the time Ray changed the name of his establishment to M.L. Rose, he opened a second location in the Sylvan Park neighborhood.  In 2017, Ray opened a third M.L. Rose location in the Capitol View residential, entertainment and commerce district on the north side of downtown.  In the meantime, he also opened a German-style sausage house and beer hall - Von Elrod's - in Nashville's Germantown neighborhood.  M.L. Rose has seen steady expansion over the years and it is projected that there will be 7 M.L. Rose locations in and around Nashville by the end of this year.  All of the M.L. Rose restaurants, along with Von Elrod's and the Dirty Melrose are under the A. Ray Hospitality banner.  

It was the Sylvan Park location just south of Interstate 40 in West Nashville where my buddy and I were going to meet up. (see map)  I took an Uber to the place because I've sort of learned over the times I've been coming to Nashville that some places either don't have any available parking nearby, or it costs to park with an app on your phone you have to download and enter a credit card for payment.  It turned out that there was sufficient parking in a couple lots near the Sylvan Park M.L. Rose location.    

Out front of this M.L. Rose location was a retro-fitted A-frame patio area that looked like it was added on well after the building had been erected.  It was a good-sized area which may have been larger in capacity from the inside dining area.  Flatscreen televisions were hung in the corners for sporting events.  It was actually more of an "inside" patio.  

Just inside the front door I ran into the main dining area.  It was sort of kitschy, but not to the point of being repulsive.  It was a lively atmosphere in M.L. Rose that evening and all the booths along the wall were full.  It was going to have to be a high-top table in the dining room or near the bar for seating as it was muggy outside from a recent rain shower in the area.  

The bar area was on the long wall of the "L"-shaped restaurant.  It featured a long bar with high-backed chairs and large televisions on the wall on the back bar.  It was sort of packed in the bar when I first got there, so I ended up taking a four-seat high-top table just inside the front door.  

I was greeted by a young guy wearing a Caitlin Clark t-shirt who let me know he would be taking care of me that evening.  I told him that I had a buddy showing up, so we needed a couple food menus.  He dropped the menus off and asked me what I wanted to drink.  I fumbled around looking for a beer menu before the guy pulled one off a holder behind the condiment holder on the table.  They had about 3 dozen beers, ciders and sours available and I was looking for a hazy IPA to try.  While my server patiently waited for me to give him my order - I apologized a couple times while I was perusing the tap menu - I finally settled on a Tunnel Vision hazy IPA from the Bearded Iris brewery in Nashville.

My buddy showed up not long after I got my first beer.  After exchanging pleasantries, our server came back over to take his beer order.  He got a Music City Light from the Music City Beer Company in Nashville.  When he brought my buddy's beer to him at our table, I had to ask the server if he was a big Caitlin Clark fan.  He told us that he was born in Iowa City, but moved to Minnesota as a young boy.  But he went to college at the University of Iowa and I said, "So did I!  I'm from Davenport now!"  My buddy - who is a huge Illinois sports fan - just had to sit there was we talked about how great going to Iowa was.   

The menu at M.L. Rose isn't all that deep.  They have the usual appetizers - wings, pretzel bites, fried pickles and peppers chips, and waffle fries topped with cheddar and jack cheese with bacon bits, diced tomatoes and chopped green onions.  But most of the rest of the menu was devoted to burgers and sandwiches.  I was definitely going to get a burger, but the crispy Buffalo chicken wrap made me pause for a moment.  

My buddy had been to M.L. Rose many times and he said he didn't even need a menu as he knew what he wanted.  He got the Crunchwrap burger - a burger patty topped with a cilantro creme and cheddar and jack cheese tucked inside a tortilla which is then fried.  Shredded lettuce and pico de gallo came on the side along with a chipotle ranch dressing with salsa.  I thought it was pretty interesting and he offered me a bite, but I declined.  "It's like a Mexican hamburger," he said between bites.  "I think it's great!"  

I got the ANM.L.-Style burger with waffle fries.  It's M.L. Rose's take on the famous In-n-Out "animal-style" cheeseburger featuring two smashed burger patties topped with American cheese, stout beer-braised onions, shredded lettuce, tomato slices, dill pickles and finished with M.L. Rose's mayo-based "awesome sauce".  The cheese just oozed out from the sides of the burger patties.  It was a great burger and very messy.  It was at least a five napkin burger.  But the bun held together exceptionally well with the gooey cheese and the dripping sauce on the burger.  

My buddy and I lingered after dinner for a couple more beers getting caught on things in our industry.  He told me that he had just bought a Rivian R1T electric pick-up truck - he had mentioned the last time I saw him when we ran into one another in Fort Wayne earlier in the summer that he was thinking about getting one.  I had to see it and we went out into the parking lot so he could show me his new truck.  I was going to Uber it back to my hotel and he said, "Nonsense.  I'll take you back."  I've always liked the looks of the Rivian trucks when I've seen them on the road and I was pretty impressed with the features - and the power - of my buddy's truck.  

M.L. Rose was exactly what I was looking for - a casual restaurant with a good beer menu, good beers and a laid-back vibe.  Our server that evening - whose name I missed getting - was a good guy, especially for wearing a Caitlin Clark t-shirt.  But he was very attentive and on top of any request or need we had.  While the menu isn't all that big at M.L. Rose, there's enough of a variety for basically anybody.  (There's a Kid's Menu for families, as well.)   It's easy to see why M.L. Rose is one of the more popular burger joints in the Nashville area.  

The Claw House - Murrells Inlet, SC

Murrells Inlet, SC is dubbed the "Seafood Capital of South Carolina" with its many commercial fisheries and seafood restaurants in the small town south of Myrtle Beach.  And one of the attractions in Murrells Inlet is the MarshWalk, a half-mile boardwalk along the marsh fields and the estuary where saltwater meets freshwater.  The MarshWalk is home to 8 restaurants with a like number (if not more) in the immediate area along Business U.S. 17.  One evening during our stay in Murrells Beach, we went down to the MarshWalk to take in the sights and sounds of live music, the rising tide, and to have a drink or two before we figured out where to have dinner.  We had a lot of options, but we ended up at the first place we stopped to get a drink, a seafood restaurant by the name of The Claw House.  

Charlie Campbell owns the Dead Dog Saloon next door to The Claw House.  Campbell - along with his sons John and Mike, and partner Peter Jaentjens - opened the highly popular destination on the MarshWalk in 2002.  A fire in February of 2012 destroyed the restaurant/bar, but they rebuilt and were back open later that year.  In 2015, the lot just to the south of the Dead Dog Saloon that used to be part of an old fishery opened up and the group bought the land to "do something with it".  They weren't exactly certain what to do, but it was going to be a seafood restaurant of some sort.  

The problem was that there were dozens - maybe hundreds - of seafood restaurants up and down the Grand Strand, the 60-mile stretch of beach front and estuaries that went from just north of Myrtle Beach down to Georgetown south of Murrells Beach.  The Campbells and Jaentjens knew they had to do something different than the usual seafood restaurants that blanketed the area.    

The concept folded into a New England-style restaurant where fresh lobster would be brought in a couple times a week.  Ground was broken for the new restaurant - the first one to be built in about 20 years along the main road in Murrells Beach - in November of 2015.  

Construction on the new restaurant with room for over 250 patrons inside and a beer garden overlooking the marsh went quickly and the new restaurant opened with high anticipation in early April of 2016.  The lobsters that are trucked in twice a week are kept in specially designed cold water tanks.  A raw bar was also part of the new restaurant allowing patrons to have oysters-on-the half shell, steamed mussels and shrimp cocktail.  

When we got to the MarshWalk around 6:30 that evening and were able to park right near The Claw House. (see map)   It was already packed with people enjoying live music playing at two or three places along the boardwalk, and people getting ready to go on moonlight cruises from the docks next to the MarshWalk.  The moon was going to be full that evening and we had anticipated heading over across the estuary to Garden City Beach to watch the moon rise out of the ocean.  

After grabbing a beer for me and a Tito's and cranberry juice for my wife from the beer garden, we went out to the end of the MarshWalk pier to check out the sights.  After walking around checking out some of the bars and restaurants, my wife decided that she needed food sooner than later.  Like most restaurants along the boardwalk, The Claw House had their menu outside their back patio.  After taking a quick look at the menu, we decided to go in and have dinner.  

We went in the back door/patio side of the restaurant and made our way up front to the hostess stand to get seated. The focal point of the restaurant toward the front were large aquariums in a deep blue hue.  The 3000 gallon tank on a pedestal was featured in the Animal Planet reality show called Tanked which depicted two men making over-the-top aquariums for commercial and private use.  

The bar area featured a square bar with a large mobile of stingrays just over the center of the bar.  Some tables and booths were off to the side in the bar area.

The main dining room was just over a half wall from the bar.  Wooden plank banquette seats were along the half wall with large table that could seat up to six people at each table were in the dining area.  Wood paneled walls and wood planked floors gave the place a lively feeling.  

Just beyond the bar and main dining area was an indoor patio seating area.  The well-lit area also featured a number of large table with metal chairs on a wooden floor.  Windows that looked out onto the beer garden and the estuary beyond that were along the long back wall of the room.  

We were seated at a booth next to the bar and given food menus to start out.  A few moments later a young lady by the name of Alex came to greet us and told us she would be our server.  She asked us what we wanted to drink and I took a quick look at the tap list they had on the table.  They had nearly 60 beers on their tap list and it took me a few moments to get an idea of that they had to offer.  Even though they had my beer of choice on tap - Kona Big Wave (and there was a large Kona Big Wave logo underneath the 3000-gallon aquarium in the restaurant) - I wanted to go local since I can get Big Wave back home.  I ended up getting a Sway hazy IPA from the Crooked Hammock Brewery just up the road in North Myrtle Beach.  My wife stuck with water for the time being, but ended up getting a glass of the house pinot grigio with her dinner.  

The food offerings at The Claw House definitely did have a bit of old New England mixed with some southern seafood specialties.  The Pig Wings - small, bone-in pork shanks served with either a barbecue sauce or Buffalo-style wing sauce - caught my eye right off the bat in the appetizer section of the menu.  The drunken mussels that were steamed in beer, lemon juice, garlic butter with bacon bits and fresh herbs also got my attention.  They had three different types of oysters-on-the-half shell available, as well as tuna ceviche and crab meat and shrimp wraps.  Tuna poké tacos were also available either as an appetizer or as a main dish.  

My wife wanted to start out with a cup of The Claw House's clam chowder.  Except we think they brought her a bowl.  That is, if this was a cup, I would have been interested to see what they thought a bowl size was.  The clam chowder was rich and creamy with good-sized chunks of clams throughout.  My wife was very happy with the clam chowder.  

I got the peel & eat shrimp, they had it in the one pound size and the half pound size.  Of course, I got the one pound size.  The shrimp weren't all that big, but they were meaty enough.  A zesty shrimp sauce came with the shrimp platter.  I contemplated getting another pound of them for my main meal, but there were some interesting things on the menu that I was drawn to while going through the menu.  

Seafood was, of course, the main item on the menu, but they did have steaks, chicken schnitzel, and a braised short rib plate served with garlic mashed potatoes and topped with a red wine demi glace.  For seafood they had bacon jam scallops, pan-seared grouper, shrimp & grits, and a panko-encrusted grouper and crab cake served over rice and topped with a lobster cream sauce.  I thought long and hard about getting that.  

My wife sort of went that way getting the crab cake entree.  They were Maryland-style pan-seared crab cakes served with fries and cole slaw.  The crab cakes were thick and much larger than she expected.  And, of course, they were very rich and she had a lot of trouble finishing one, let alone trying to finish two.  She offered me bites of her second one and it was very good with a very fresh crabmeat flavor.  But, boy, the WERE rich and filling!  

After hemming and hawing over three or four different items on the menu (tuna poké tacos, another pound of the peel & eat shrimp, and the grouper and crab cake), I ended up going with the Cajun-style red snapper.  I asked Alex if the chef could put even more of the blackening spice on it and he didn't disappoint.  It was topped with a roasted corn salsa and served on a bed of creamy grits.  This was Southern seafood cooking at its finest.  The red snapper was light and flaky, and the abundance of blackening spices on the fish gave it a wonderful spicy flavor.  The roasted corn salsa was a nice antidote to the spiciness of the fish.  The fish mixed with the creamy grits was also a great flavor.  

Even though my wife was full from eating the crab cakes and the clam chowder before, she still wanted dessert.  The dessert menu at The Claw House wasn't all that big - just three items: a New York-style cheesecake, a slice of chocolate cake and key lime pie.  Of course, my wife went with the key lime pie which Alex said was made in-house.  It had a cool citrusy flavor with a sweet graham cracker crust with each bite.  It was a great key lime pie.  

As I said earlier, our goal was to make it across the inlet waterway and go to the beach to watch the full moon rise out of the ocean.  But we were having a great meal at a very good restaurant and we didn't want to bother with trying to finish quickly, then drive 20 minutes to get out to the ocean.  As we were sitting there talking with Alex after we finished our meal, my wife happened to look out the window and she excitedly exclaimed, "My moon!"  That's an old family game that has been handed down through now four generations for the first person to declare that it's "their moon" when they first see the moon on a given evening.  Full moons get you more gravitas within members of the family and can quite literally start arguments of who saw actually saw the rising full moon first.  Now, for excited my wife was to see the full moon coming up over the horizon, I have to say that Alex was not.  We figured that she probably sees the moon coming up over the water all the time.   

After finishing up with Alex and getting the bill paid, we went out onto the boardwalk to walk off dinner and to take in the sight of the full moon rising over the inlet.  It wasn't quite like watching it rise out of the ocean, but it was still pretty cool to see the warm hue of the moon shimmering over the water.  

Walking back toward the MarshWalk, we lingered for a moment to take in the lights and colors of the bars and restaurants lined up and down the shore area.   The evening had cooled down and it was very pleasant out.  The large number of people who were on the patios and in the beer gardens of the establishments along the MarshWalk had pretty much cleared out by the time we were outside.  

 

We figured that as nice that The Claw House looked from both its front and back that the food had to be pretty good.  Taking a chance on the place, it turned out to be a winner all the way around.  The food was very good, Alex's service was fine, and the interior of the restaurant was very nice, fun and relaxing.  My wife loved her crab cakes, even though she couldn't finish them both and needed help from me.  And the spicy blackened red snapper with the roasted corn salsa and the creamy grits were all excellent.   Of course, I couldn't get out of here without saying that the clam chowder, the peel & eat shrimp, and the key lime pie were wall delicious, as well.  With a number of seafood place up and down US Business Highway 17 and the MarshWalk, I'd say to try The Claw House first and then go from there.   

ReUnion Brewery - Coralville, IA

My wife and I had gone back for my high school class reunion in Central Iowa earlier this June and on our way back to the Quad Cities we decided to stop in the Iowa City area to get some dinner.  After stopping at Trader Joe's in Coralville, I suggested that we go have dinner at a place I had been to with a friend a year ago, a brewpub with the ironic name of ReUnion Brewery, considering we were coming home from my reunion weekend.  We scooted down to the 2nd Ave. strip in Coralville and pulled into ReUnion Brewery around 6:00 p.m. on a Sunday evening.  

The building that houses ReUnion Brewery has been a number of different concepts over the years all owned by local Iowa City serial restaurateur Jim Mondanaro.  Mondanaro bought the old COD Steam Laundry bar and restaurant in 1978 and turned it into the Copper Dollar, a popular hangout when I was going to Iowa in the early 80's.  After selling the Copper Dollar, Mondanaro established Micky's, one of my all-time favorite bar/pubs in Iowa City.  From there, Mondanaro has owned restaurants such as Venessa's, Vito's, Givanni's, and Joseph's fine dining establishment that he named after his father.  In all, Mondanaro has opened over 40 restaurants in 4 states during his time as a restaurant owner.  

Mondanaro also put an Italian/pizza restaurant out on the Coralville strip and gave it his nickname - Mondo's.  (Actually, the first bar he owned in Ames, IA back in the mid-70's was also named Mondo's.)  Mondo's was also a popular place for a number of years before he rebranded the restaurant into Mondo's Draft House about 15 years ago.  

Pictured right - Jim Mondonaro.  I reused this photo from an earlier blog post from 2009 on Mondo's. 

In 2015, the allure of the growing craft brewery movement made Mondanaro rethink the Mondo's Draft House concept.  Along with partner Aaron Jennings, they put in a brewing facility in the building and hired Logan DePover away from the Backpocket Brewery just up the road in Coralville.  In early 2016, ReUnion Brewery officially opened.  In October of 2022, ReUnion Brewery set up shop on the Pedestrian Mall in downtown Iowa City in what the long time location of the popular Fieldhouse Bar.  

ReUnion Brewery is located on the famed "strip" in Coralville.  (see map)  Parking is available either on the east side of the building just past where you enter from the strip, with more parking available in the rear of the building.  There wasn't a lot of people there so we were able to park close to the building.  

The inside of ReUnion Brewery hasn't changed since the days of Mondo's.  It featured a long bar under a curved ceiling with table seating along the walls.  There's a little room off to the side toward the front of the building and that's where we were seated that evening.   

There's an outdoor patio at ReUnion Brewery and while we had the option to sit there, it was a warm evening and my wife wanted to sit inside in the AC.  It's actually a nice beer garden area with lights over the top and it's shielded off from 2nd Ave. by a row of tall bushes.  

On the west side of the building is the on-site brewing facility at ReUnion Brewery.  They actually have a bigger facility in Iowa City the staff calls the "Juice Factory" and it consists of a 30-barrel brewery that produces 20 different types of beers for distribution of ReUnion Brewery around Eastern Iowa.  

After getting seated and given menus to look over, our server for the evening - a young lady by the name of Clara -  came over to greet us.  We wife was "alcoholed-out" from the weekend and just got water with a lemon wedge.  But I wanted to try one of their beers from their expansive in-house tap list, and I ended up getting the Juice Factory, a nice tasting New England-style hazy IPA.  

Food at ReUnion Brewery is your typical brewpub fare - appetizers, sandwiches, soups and salads, but they also have pizza (a holdover from the days of Mondo's), Mexican food such as tacos and chimichangas, and breakfast items such as a breakfast burrito and a corned beef skillet with eggs, onions and peppers.  On Sunday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., ReUnion Brewery has a big brunch buffet that includes ham, salmon with lemon dill sauce, eggs Benedict, rosemary pork tenderloin, and a cheesey hash brown casserole.   

My wife needed some comfort food after a weekend of eating not the best items we could have and she started off with a cup of the chicken noodle soup.  It was rather interesting in that in addition of small chunks of chicken with house-made egg noodles, it came with a scoop of mashed potatoes made with chopped celery.  I'm not certain I had ever seen chicken noodle soup served that way, but my wife said it was very good.

For her main that evening, she got the open faced brisket sandwich - slowly-braised beef brisket on a piece of sourdough bread topped with a beef gravy.  Mashed potatoes came on the side along with some broccoli.  After about three bites my wife said, "This is EXACTLY what I needed!"  

I decided to go the simple route and I ended up getting the basic cheeseburger with pepper jack cheese.  Fries came on the side.  I'm not quite certain why I got the burger because they had a prime rib wrap on the menu, as well as carnitas tacos.  But the burger was fine with me.  It came with the usual veggie additives and was served on a toasted bun.  The bun was actually very good and enhanced the overall taste of the burger.  The fries were also very good and there were a lot of them.  I was more than happy to share some with my wife who only had a couple bites of her mashed potato side with her open-faced brisket sandwich.  

ReUnion Brewery was a solid choice that evening.  The food was very good, the service we got from Clara was also very good, and I really liked the hazy IPA that they had on tap.  I've found that just about every concept Jim Mondonaro has tried over the years seems to work out very well.  ReUnion Brewery is just another feather in Mondonaro's hat and is definitely an above average brewpub.  

 

J Peters - Murrells Inlet, SC

During our stay in Murrells Inlet, South Carolina just outside of Myrtle Beach, we had a number of choices of restaurants to pick from in the area.  Known for their seafood restaurants, we were looking for a place for lunch where I could get a burger and my wife could get a salad with some protein on it.  Now, some of the places in the area, I just didn't care for their names - no matter how popular or good they may have been.  I wasn't going to eat at the Dead Dog Saloon, Creek Ratz, or Drunken Jack's.  The names alone just seemed to be too touristy for my taste - even if they really weren't tourist joints.  But there was one place that we had passed a number of times that both from the name and from the outside of the building I thought would be a bit more upscale than some of the other places with the funky names.  We pulled into J Peters Grill & Bar on the MarshWalk to have lunch one afternoon.  

Jon Peter Angell was a native New Yorker who made the move to South Carolina a number of years ago to help out his brother, Dan, who was helping to open restaurants in Charleston and Myrtle Beach.   Jon's brother first employed his younger brother as a dishwasher before he rose through the ranks of various restaurants and bars his brother was managing.  After a few years, Jon decided to get completely out of the bar business and found other lines of work in the meantime.

In the meantime, Dan Angell had met another lifetime restauranteur, Jason McDowell, during his rounds of working at restaurants in Columbia, SC.  McDowell was working on a concept for a casual upscale restaurant, something Jon Angell had been thinking about, as well.  Dan Angell put the two together and in January of 2010 they had opened their first restaurant - J Peters - in Anderson, SC on the western side of the state.  

From there, the partners - along with Dan Angell - opened a number of J Peters locations across the state and into Georgia and North Carolina.  At one point, there were 14 J Peters locations run by the Angells and McDowell with two locations of another concept - The Rusty Anchor restaurant and Catfish Johnny's bar.   

In 2019, McDowell approached Jon Angell about a proposition to buy him out of their partnership while maintaining ownership of some of the J Peters locations.   Angell and McDowell had an amicable separation allowing McDowell to rebrand four of the J Peters restaurants in the greater Columbia area to J.R. Cash's Grill & Bar (the initials of his two oldest children with the "Cash" coming from his youngest child's name).

That same year, Angell and his brother opened their second Myrtle Beach-area location on the MarshWalk along Business Route US 17 in Murrells Inlet.  (see map)  That was the location that we went to for lunch after spending a large portion of the morning at Brookgreen Gardens just south of Murrells Inlet.    

They have a very nice patio at J Peters.  We had the option of sitting on the patio, but we had just spent over 3 hours out in the South Carolina coastal heat and humidity, so we decided to sit inside.  

The view from the patio looking out over the MarshWalk and the marsh beyond that was actually quite nice.  Palmetto trees bordered the walk way and the water left over from the tide that had gone out earlier was a deep azure in color.  It would have been relaxing to sit on the deck, but it was also pretty hot.  

The main dining room at J Peters featured a number of large booths.  This is where we sat during our visit to J Peters.  Our server that day was a lady by the name of Bethany.  We chatted with her during part of our time there and found that she was originally from Cromwell, CT.  "Lower taxes, lower prices, better place to raise my kids," she told us as to how she found her way to South Carolina.  "It's a great place to live."  

The bar at J Peters was off to the side of the dining room.  It wasn't all that large and could seat about 15 or 16 people.  Brush aluminum plating was the edging around the bar with accent lighting on the back bar.  It was a full service bar and my wife was able to get her Tito's and cranberry juice with a lime, while I went with an Air Bruch hazy IPA from the Grand Strand Brewing Company up the road in Myrtle Beach.   

J Peters had an upstairs area for overflow dining or for groups.  The upstairs dining room looked out over a glass partition down into the main dining room on one side and out over the patio and marsh on the other.   

Looking over the menu, J Peters featured a wide variety of sandwiches, appetizers, soups, salads, aged Midwestern steaks, and entrees such as blackened chicken alfredo, fresh Atlantic salmon, and hand-breaded deep-fried flounder filets.  Prime rib was available every day at J Peters as was a prime rib sandwich.  

My wife wanted to try J Peters version of the she-crab soup, something that we saw on a lot of menus in restaurants during our time in South Carolina.  Originally made in the early 1900's in Charleston, she-crab soup is called that as the crab roe from female crabs was one of the main ingredients in the soup.  Lump crabmeat is the main ingredient in most of the she-crab soups we saw during our time there.  The J Peters version was a very creamy and buttery bisque with generous chunks of crabmeat in the soup.  It was simply wonderful in flavor.   

For her lunch selection, my wife ended up with the blackened steak Caesar salad.  It featured chunks of blackened sirloin steak on romaine lettuce with shaved parmesan cheese.  A hearty Caesar dressing came on the side.  Her steak salad also came with J Peters' signature freshly baked honey-butter croissant.  They're so popular they're included in the appetizer section of the menu.  My wife was very happy with her selections for lunch. 

I thought about getting the prime rib sandwich, but in the end I went with the house burger.  It was a 10 ounce blended ground beef patty with the full complement of dill pickles, red onions, sliced tomatoes and lettuce on a toasted bun.  I had my choice of cheese to go on the burger and I went with Monterey jack.  The burger was delicious - juicy and full of flavor.  It was a multiple napkin burger as the tomatoes were very fresh and the burger was oozing the cooked-in marbling from the beef.  The bun held together very well with all that messiness.  Fries came on the side and they were also very good.  They had that great crispy outside shell with an almost creamy potato inner core.  This was an excellent lunch all the way around.  

J Peters is the perfect antidote to the "catchy" named tourist destination restaurants that you find on the MarshWalk in Murrells Inlet.  It was a stylish place without any pretension or snobbish-nature.  The food we had was very good, as was the service from Bethany.  If you're looking for a little more of an upscale atmosphere from the bars and grills on the MarshWalk, J Peters fits the bill.   

Soul & Smoke - Evanston, IL

I was in Evanston, IL checking in with an old account I had worked with a number of years ago and it was around 1:30 in the afternoon when I was finished up with my visit.  I was looking for a brewpub to have lunch at and I was heading toward Double Clutch Brewing Company north and west of downtown Evanston when I was at a stop sign.  Looking to my right, I saw a sign that said, "Soul & Smoke".  The semi-vine covered brick building looked like it was in a state of flux with a series of somewhat crudely drawn arrow signs showing the way to an entrance.  Somewhat intrigued, I turned the corner and followed the signs.  It turned out it was a barbecue joint!  Man - barbecue sounded good to me!  I took a right turn and parked on the street next to Soul & Smoke.  

D'Andre Carter's life while a young boy on the south side of Chicago seemed to evolve around cooking.  He could always remember his grandmother and mother cooking - his grandmother taught him how to make peach cobbler in her kitchen.  Cooking was a big deal in Carter's family, but it was a full-family celebration when they would get together to barbecue in his grandmother's back yard on Sunday.  Carter was the oldest grandchild and he was tasked with helping with the barbecue and in his grandmother's kitchen.  

Carter enjoyed helping in the kitchen so much while growing up, it was almost a given that he decided to go to culinary school.  After graduating from the (now-closed) Le Cordon Bleu culinary school in 2008, Carter entered the professional chef world as a cook for Blue Plate Catering, an events company in Chicago.  While at Blue Plate Catering, he got a job as an intern at Moto, an upscale restaurant in Chicago's Fulton Market District.  Moto was famous for their avant garde and scientific approach to food preparation where the chefs would use centrifuges, Class IV lasers, and liquid nitrogen for flash freezing some foods.  

After a short time at Moto, Carter was elevated to a sous chef and one of the chef's he worked with was Heather Bublick. The two hit it off and soon they were a couple.  Bublick left Moto in 2010 to become a sommelier at Tru, a French-style restaurant in Chicago's Streeterville neighborhood run by Rich Melman's Lettuce Entertain You restaurant group.   

Pictured right - D'Andre Carter and Heather Bublick.  Photo courtesy Chicago Tribune.  

The two had many conversations about opening their own restaurant over a long period of time before they decided to jump ship from their respective restaurants in December of 2012 and do their own thing.  

The couple figured that at some point they'd own their own restaurant. But they really didn't know what kind of restaurant.  In the meantime, they began to cater small pop-up dinner parties at their home and at homes of people they knew around Chicago.  On the strength of these pop-up dinners, people began to ask Carter and Bublick to cater events.  In 2013, Carter and Bublick opened Feast & Imbibe, a catering company that focused on weddings, parties, corporate events and other gatherings.  To help the couple out, they hired friends and family members to give them a hand in the kitchen and serving the food.    

But Carter remembered how much of a celebration it was when his family would barbecue and he wanted to incorporate barbecue into the mix at Feast & Imbibe.  In 2015, the couple created Soul & Smoke as a more casual alternative to the mixed tasting plates they would do for Feast & Imbibe.  

Just as he did with the menu at Feast & Imbibe, Carter drilled down to the smallest detail in coming up with rubs, side dishes and cooking techniques - even trying a number of different types of smokers before he settled upon using a Cookshack smoker.  But Soul & Smoke took a backseat to Feast & Imbibe for five years before a couple big things happened in Carter and Bublick's life.

In February of 2020, the couple purchased an old bus depot in a small industrial area in Evanston.  The building was about 100 years old and needed some serious upgrading.  They had a room in the front of the building that they could use for an event space, but much of the building was without flooring, electrical or HVAC.  Then in March of 2020 - of course - the pandemic hit.  

And because they had so much food for upcoming catering events, they had to do something with it.  On March 17 of 2020, Feast & Imbibe offered 40 free meals from their carry-out window - no fee requested.  Then when a shelter-in-place order was given less than a week later, Carter and Bublick began to deliver meals to those in need.  Less than a month later, the couple was delivering up to 300 meals a day, mainly through a non-profit community emergency food-relief organization that was helping feed the homeless and unemployed during the pandemic.  

In the meantime, Soul & Smoke had opened a pick-up window at their building allowing people to get barbecue to go.  In the summer of 2020 when the pandemic was gradually lifting, Carter and Bublick bought a food truck and would take it to neighborhoods for pop-up events.  

Word of mouth on Carter's barbecue began to run rampant throughout the greater Chicagoland area.  In 2021, Carter and Bublick opened a ghost kitchen on Spaulding Ave. in Chicago for to-go orders only and using Uber Eats and DoorDash to reach more people that way.  In 2022, the couple opened their first sit-down restaurant in the Rockwell-on-the-River event center in Chicago's Avondale neighborhood partnering with (the now-closed) Metropolitan Brewing, Judson & Moore Distillery, and Metropolis Coffee Company.  A Soul & Smoke counter opened not long after that at Soldier Field, while a location in the Accenture Tower in Chicago's West Loop opened earlier this year.  

The Evanston location (see map) was "sort of" a sit down venue when I was there.  There were some picnic tables outside along the sidewalk and the street.  A pick-up box for free meals was located near the front door of the facility.  A colorful awning hung over the door on the side of the building with the slogan "Keep it Saucy & Soulful" on the bottom of the awning.  

Inside the building, there was a long, narrow dining area with picnic tables on artificial turf.  With racks and containers along one wall, it sort of looked like it was a storage area with some picnic tables - sort of something like what a break room would look like for a grocery store or a big box store.  But in the same vein, it was sort of homey and welcoming.  

It's counter service at Soul & Smoke and I was met by a guy by the name of Greg who asked if I had a to-go order.  I said, "Umm... No, I was driving by and wanted to stop in to get some lunch.  Can I eat here?"  

Greg said, "Oh, yes!  By all means!"  He handed me a menu to look through.  A couple other people were milling about behind the counter and I later realized that one of them was Heather Bublick.  

The smoked meat selections at Soul & Smoke was almost overwhelming.  They had prime brisket, pastrami, spare ribs, 'Nduja (andouille) sausage, pork rib tips, and smoked jalapeño/cheddar sausage links.  They also had down-home soul food including smoked chicken gumbo, grilled wings, Cajun shrimp and grits, and grilled jerk chicken.  Pulled pork and smoked brisket sandwiches were on the menu, and well as sides which included cornbread, sweet potatoes, grits, red beans and rice, apple slaw, and - for an upcharge - collard greens.  This turned out to be a promising experience!

While I was looking through the menu, a couple people came in to pick up to-go orders.  All the while I was there, there was a steady presence of people picking up to-go orders or waiting to get their orders they had placed earlier.  I was going to be the only one eating in at Soul & Smoke and I was fine with that.

Once I was able to get back to the counter to place an order, I ordered up the half-pound prime brisket.  For my side I ordered the dirty rice.  "Great choice," Greg said after I ordered the side dish.  They had a few craft beers available and I ordered up an Insufficient Clearance hazy IPA from the Sketchbook Brewing Company in Evanston.  

When I placed my order, Greg explained that they no longer take tips at Soul & Smoke, but they do add an 8% service charge for counter orders.  He said that instead of tips, they just redistribute the service fees to all the employees at the restaurant whether they work in catering or back in the smokers.  He said that he would waive the fee for first time customers, but I told him that wasn't necessary.   

After taking a seat at a picnic table, it was about 10 minutes when someone from the back brought out a small cooking sheet with wax paper with paper boats of the prime brisket and the dirty rice on it.  Greg wanted to know if I wanted fatty or lean brisket when I ordered and I asked him if I could get both.  "That's no problem," he said enthusiastically.  The brisket had a nice bark on the outside and a visible smoke ring around the edges.  

And the brisket was delicious.  It didn't take much to cut into it as it was very tender.  The smoky flavor wasn't overpowering and the spices used on the outside gave the bark a great taste.  The brisket was outstanding.  

The dirty rice was also very good.  It had chunks of meat - don't know if it was pork or brisket - mixed in with it.  I hadn't had dirty rice for quite some time and I'm glad I got the dirty rice from Soul & Smoke.  

For sauces, they had a wide variety of five different sauces.  The original sauce that D'Andre Carter came up with years ago is a medium-thick tomato-based sauce that had a complex flavor to it.  Carter uses 22 different types of artisanal ingredients in his original sauce that gives it a somewhat sweet and citrusy taste with a bit of a spicy back end.  I used that sauce mainly because I wasn't keen on some of the other sauces including a North Carolina vinegar-style sauce that would have been good on pulled pork.  Soul & Smoke had a bold mustard-based sauce made with pineapple juice and chopped jalapeños; a Jamaican jerk sauce made with citrus juice, soy sauce, chili peppers and spices that would have gone well with some of their smoked or grilled chicken offerings; an a spicy and tangy version of a Buffalo wing sauce.  

But, quite honestly, the brisket was great on its own.  I didn't use much barbecue sauce and I would have liked to have had some Tabasco or Louisiana Hot Sauce to put on the dirty rice.  But that really wasn't needed, either.  

For stumbling on to Soul & Smoke, I'd have to say I was a pretty lucky guy.  While their temporary space inside their soon to be revamped building in Evanston was sort of strangely fun to eat in, I can't wait to see what they're going to have when they get up and going full bore with their barbecue restaurant.  The brisket I had was outstanding as was the dirty rice that I had as a side.  They have so many different types of barbecue on the menu, as well as a large number of sides to choose from, I can't wait to get back to sample some of their barbecue once they get their space revamped.  Then again, I like Soul & Smoke so much that I may have to get back there before their remodeling is finished!

Cōsta Coastal Kitchen and Bar - Murrells Inlet, SC

On our last night in Murrells Inlet, we wanted to eat at someplace nice - and not at a seafood-centric restaurant.  There's a number of options in the area, but we decided to make reservations at an Italian restaurant by the name of Cōsta Coastal Kitchen and Bar.  (Pronounced CO-sta with the long "o".)  Pasta sounded pretty good to me after stuffing myself with seafood most of the week.  

Jimmy Pronesti grew up in an Italian family where there were a lot of cooks.  Working restaurants in his hometown of Pittsburgh, Pronesti ventured down to Myrtle Beach about 25 years ago for a family vacation.  He loved the area  so much that he ended up moving there and opening up his own restaurant in 2002.  After closing that restaurant in 2008, Pronesti opened an upscale Italian restaurant - Caffe Piccolo - in Pawley's Island just south of Murrell's Inlet in 2010.  

In 2016, the restaurant attached to the Inlet Sports Lodge in Murrells Inlet - Bliss - closed their doors.  The landlord was looking for another restaurateur to come in and take over the place and contacted Jimmy Pronesti.  With Caffe Piccolo doing well just down the road, Pronesti took over the for Bliss space and established Cōsta Coastal Kitchen and Bar.  

We had a 7 p.m. reservation, but we decided to go a bit early and have a drink at the bar.  There was a parking lot in front of and on the side of the building at Cõsta, but all the spots were filled.  Down the side street off Business U.S. Highway 17 next to Cõsta, we found a spot to park on the street.  (see map)

When we walked in and checked in with the hostess.  We explained we told her we knew we were early.  She said that we could wait in the bar or on the patio outside.  We decided to hang out on the patio which was really nothing more than a landing with a couple high-top tables and some high-back chairs that were at a narrow ledge that looked over the Inlet Sports Inn's pool.  There was a fire place at one end of the patio, but since it was a warm evening it wasn't going.

We realized after about 5 minutes of hanging on the patio that there was no waitstaff service out there.  We went back in to the bar area to get a drink.  The bar was packed.  There were a couple tables and booths in the bar area where people were eating, and there were people eating at the bar, as well.  The bar was bathed in a deep blue light with light fixtures with Edison lighting directly over the bar.  

It took some time for us to get the attention of one of the two bartenders they had working that night because not only was the bar packed, but they were full up in the dining area, as well.  Finally, one of the bartenders - a sassy lady by the name of Beth - came over to our little corner of the bar.  "Sorry folks," she said somewhat breathlessly.  "It's been a madhouse over the last half hour here."  My wife ordered up an Absolut very dirty martini, while I ordered a Tito's and lemonade.  They had a handful of craft beers available at Cõsta, but I wanted a Tito's and lemonade that evening.  (I've found in the South that a lot of places have pink lemonade which tastes completely different from regular lemonade.  But Cõsta had real lemonade as I watched Beth pour it out of a carafe.)  

It was finally about 7:30 when a table opened up and the hostess came over to take us to our seats.  We were seated in a corner of the dining area with banquette seating along the wall next to the kitchen.  It wasn't the most ideal spot, but at least we had a table.  Wooden beams hung over the dining area that was primarily booths in a well-lit room.  The dining room had sort of an upscale, yet rustic beach joint feeling to it.  

After menus were placed in front of us by the hostess, our server that evening - Trent - came over to say "hello".  My wife was still sipping on her dirty martini, so I got a West Coast IPA from the Revelry Brewing Company in Charleston.  

The menu featured a number of Italian or Italian-inspired dishes including pasta, chicken or veal entrees, and seafood items.  Appetizers included calamari, sausage-stuffed banana peppers, and little neck clams sautéed with Italian sausage and Calabrian peppers in a light tomato-basil sauce.  They had a handful of specials that evening including a steak and shrimp combo dinner, and diver sea scallops that were served on a bed of roasted corn risotto.  

My wife and I both decided to forego any of the appetizers since we'd had a pretty hearty lunch earlier in the day, so we both got the Caesar salad to start out.  It featured crisp romaine lettuce, shaved pecorino romano cheese, and house-made croutons mixed with a hearty Caesar dressing.  It was a very good start to the meal.  

I was sort of up in the air as what to get for dinner.  I saw a couple at the bar sharing a bowl of the bolognese with pappardelle egg noodles that looked very good.  They had chicken parm on the menu, and they also had a seafood fettuccine alfredo with shrimp available.  The veal piccata was also something that got me intrigued, as did the  linguine with scallops in a white wine, butter and lemon sauce.  The whole menu at Cõsta was interesting to me.  

My wife asked Trent to re-explain the "fresh catch" special that evening.  He described it as a broiled halibut filet topped with artichoke hearts, spinach, and sun-dried tomatoes topped with lemon, wine and butter sauce and served on a bed of linguine.  That had my mouth-watering from his description alone.  She ended up getting that and she was more than happy with her choice.  The halibut was tender, flaky and very fresh in flavor.  The combination of the artichoke hearts, spinach and sun-dried tomatoes on the lemon, white wine and butter sauce gave the dish a number of different flavors.  She also got a glass of the house pinot grigio to go along with her seafood pasta special.  

Confused and somewhat in angst over what to get, I was still up in the air when Trent asked me what I wanted.  In the end, since I had seen it earlier while we were at the bar, I went with the bolognese and pappardelle pasta.  However, when Trent brought it out, it was bolognese with linguine with a meatball.  I said, "I'm not certain I ordered this."  He looked puzzled and I said, "This looks like my wife's linguine noodles and I wanted the pappardelle pasta with it."  

Trent looked at the dish and said, "Oh, you wanted the egg noodles!"  Well, yeah - that's what was in the description on the menu and with no mention of a meat ball.  He seemed somewhat embarrassed over all that and offered to take it back.  I waved him off and said that I would eat this.  The bolognese sauce was very good, but I know the whole bowl of pasta would have tasted much better with the more thin and pliable pappardelle noodles.  

To make up for the gaffe that either came from the kitchen or on his part for not having the right pasta with my meal, Trent offered us a couple free desserts.  Well, we were both stuffed from what turned out to be a very good meal, so I sort of groaned when he made the offer.  My wife, however, wasn't going to pass up at least one free dessert and she ended up ordering a slice of the limoncello cake.  It was a white cake with limoncello liqueur added in, topped with a lemon frosting, with sides of house-made whipped cream, then topped with a raspberry drizzle and powdered sugar.   And the taste was heavenly.  There was enough of a lemon flavor in each bite.  And coupled with the real whipped cream and the raspberry drizzle, this was a terrific dessert to end the evening.  

Even with getting linguine instead of the preferred pappardelle pasta to go with the bolognese sauce I had ordered, I'd have to say that was probably the only thing that was wrong with our visit to Cõsta.  While I was disappointed, it turned out to be fine all around.  My wife was more than happy with her broiled halibut on linguine special she had that evening, and we both raved about the wonderful limoncello cake we got gratis for the mix-up on my pasta selection.  The atmosphere was laid back and had somewhat of a beach restaurant vibe.  Cõsta Coastal Kitchen and Bar was a great meal to close out our time in Murrells Beach.  

Canal Bistro - Indianapolis

My wife and I ventured out to Indianapolis for a long weekend to celebrate a combination birthday/retirement party for the husband of my wife's good friend.  Since the party was going to be a surprise for him, my wife and I were used as a ruse to keep him off the trail of his surprise that was to happen the next day.  Because he knew we were going to be in town, my wife and her friend decided that we all needed to go out to dinner the night before.  They had eaten at a Mediterranean restaurant in Indianapolis' Broad Ripple neighborhood on a previous visit my wife had out there and they thought it would be great if we would all meet at Canal Bistro for dinner.  

George Hanna is a native of Egypt and was born into an extended family that ran restaurants.  Immigrating to the U.S. a number of years ago, George's father ran restaurants and also owned a number of Baskin-Robins ice cream stores in malls around Indiana.   Following in his father's footsteps, George bought into the sweetFrog premium frozen yogurt franchise.  But it was his wife Mona who convinced him to take a different direction in running a restaurant.  

Mona grew up in Lebanon and moved to the U.S when she was 23.  She had been around Mediterranean cooking all her life and brought a number of family recipes with her when she came to America.  Seeing a need for an authentic Mediterranean restaurant in Indianapolis, they settled on a building in Broad Ripple along the start of the Indiana Central Canal.   After months of renovations and redecorating the inside of building, the Hannas opened Canal Bistro in November of 2014.  

We were to meet our friends at the restaurant around 7 p.m. on a Friday night.  Friday and Saturday night in Broad Ripple - well, actually most nights - can be a pain if you're trying to find parking.  Canal Bistro is a block away from a former account that I had in Indianapolis and I contemplated just parking in his lot in front of his building and then walking back through the alley to Canal Bistro.  But it turned out that a car was leaving a spot in a parking lot just across Guilford Street from the restaurant, so we ended up taking that space.  (see map) 

We went into the restaurant and were met by George Hanna at the front desk.  The reservations were in our friend's name, but they weren't there yet.  The kitchen was just beyond the host stand and you could easily see in to watch the staff do their magic.  It was a warm and muggy evening and we contemplated sitting out on the patio they had in front and on the side of the building.  But my wife thought it may be two hot for all of us to sit outside.  We decided to sit inside and George had a young lady take us back to our table.  

The dining room at Canal Bistro is a long, hall-like room with a bar dissecting the two portions of the dining area.  Alcoves with paintings and knick-knacks were along the walls on one side while the other side were a series of windows looking out onto the patio.  The ceiling was painted a sky blue with billowing clouds so it appeared you were seated outdoors.  Wooden slats spaced about 15 inches apart ran the length of the restaurant's ceiling.  There was a large gathering of women in the front of the dining room for a surprise 60th birthday party and the place was loud with the women trying to talk over one another before the guest of honor showed up.  

The focal point of the bar area in the middle of the room was this colorful Turkish lantern that was directly over the center of the bar.  I took a number of pictures of the beautiful globes from different angles trying to get the beauty of the light, but this was the best I could get given the contrast of light and dark in the room.

We were seated in the far back area of the dining room at a table with four wooden chairs.  More alcoves were in the back dining area with colorful scenes and figurines were on the lower shelves.  It was still pretty warm in there, but we figured it was better than sitting outside.  

We weren't seated for more than a minute when our friends showed up.  We laughed because he initially thought it was a surprise birthday party for him as he just turned 60, as well.  "When I came into the room, I saw all the '60' balloons and thought, 'Surprise party!'", he said.  "But then I didn't recognize anybody!"  

Our server that evening was the greatest waitress on earth - a smallish young lady by the name of Reema.  And when I call her the greatest waitress on earth, she was absolutely the best.  She had a great sense of humor, she was on top of any request we had all night long, and had some great suggestions for all of us.  Reema dropped off menus for us to go through.  She wanted to know what we wanted to drink and my wife ordered an extra dirty martini.  Our male friend said, "Hey, that sounds good!  I'll have one of those!"  His wife ordered an amaretto sour, while I got a Mythos Hellenic Lager.  

Reema brought out some pita bread with a bowl of olive oil infused with herbs.  The pita was warm and fresh and the olive oil had a wonderful flavor.  

My wife thought it would be great to get some hummus.  Believe it or not, she has sort of got me going on hummus at home.  Canal Bistro makes all their hummus from scratch in-house with pureed chickpeas and tahini with lemon juice.  The hummus was topped chopped parsley and diced tomatoes.  I'm not certain I've ever had hummus that tasted so good and fresh.  

My wife had never had saganaki before - the Greek flaming cheese delicacy that is flambéed at table side.  Our male friend thought that was a great idea and we ordered one up from Reema.  Not more than a couple minutes later, one of the guys from the kitchen came out with a pan of Greek cheese powdered with flour.  He had a small container of the Greek liqueur Ouzo that he poured on the cheese pan and then lit it.  "Opa", he shouted the traditional Greek exclamation.  My male friend and I followed suit with our own, "Opa!"  My wife didn't know what to think.

The saganaki was outstanding.  It had just a thin crust on the outside while the warm goodness of the Greek cheese was oozing out from the sides.  It was so wonderful, but - oh! - so rich!  I was worried that I wouldn't be all that hungry when we finally ordered up our food for the evening.  

We started out with salads and my wife got the Tabouli salad - finely chopped parsley with diced tomatoes, chopped onions, mint and bulgar wheat instead of rice.  I thought it was a somewhat odd choice, but she seemed to like it.  She offered me a bite and I just thought it was way too much parsley for my liking.  

At first, I ordered a dinner salad and just before Reema left the table, I said, "Man, what am I thinking?  I'll take the Greek salad."  She kind of laughed and said that she thought I was more of a Greek salad kind-of-guy rather than a regular house salad.   The Greek salad featured fresh romaine greens, chunked tomatoes, chopped onions, cucumber wedges and kalamata olives topped with feta cheese and a wonderful balsamic vinegar that pulled it all together.  

After the pita bread with hummus, the saganaki and the Greek salad, I wasn't certain I was going to be all that hungry.  But along with our lady friend, I got the gyros platter.  It featured large chunks of rotisserie lamb meat with a block of rice, some lettuce greens and tzatziki sauce.  Reema came out after our food was delivered to the table with additional tubs of the tzatziki sauce.  "I figured you would want more," she said as she put them on our table.  The gyro meat was tender and flavorful with the right amount of seasoning on the meat.  But, man - there was a lot of gyro meat on my plate.  I knew there was going to be no way I could eat all of it.  But I have to tell you - it was so good that I just sort of kept picking up a chunk or two from time to time well after I knew I should have stopped.  

Our other friend got something that I thought about getting - the moussaka.  My wife asked what moussaka was when he ordered it and I said, "It's like a Greek lasagna."  Our friend said that was a pretty fair description.  It's layers of eggplant in between ground beef in a tomato sauce - like lasagna, only with no pasta.  My wife said that she would have to try that at some point down the road.  He said the moussaka at the Canal Bistro was outstanding.  And I could tell as he ate the whole thing!   

My wife wanted a kabab, but was torn between the chicken kabab or the lamb kabab.  Reema said, "You can get a mix, if you want."  And that's what my wife ended up ordering.  The only problem was is that she didn't care for it.  The chicken was overcooked and hard to chew, while the lamb meat didn't have much flavor, something I confirmed by taking a couple chunks of both.  I let her have some of my gyro meat as I knew I wasn't going to be able to finish it.  

Now, by this time, I was full.  And I mean stuffed!  Satiated!  Had I been wearing a belt, I would have unbuckled it.  But Reema came out with a dessert menu and my wife saw that they had tiramisu.  She asked Reema if they made it in house.  "We do, yes," she replied.  Then she said, "It's the best in the state of Indiana."  Well, that was enough for my wife.  She ordered up the tiramisu with two forks.  

When Reema brought out the tiramisu, my eyes widened.  It was a huge piece of tiramisu, basically a double cut the size of a normal portion of tiramisu with a chocolate sauce drizzle.  I just shook my head.  Reema said, "C'mon, now.  You can do it."

From the first bite, I knew my wife hadn't made a mistake in ordering the tiramisu.  It was tremendous, some of the best tiramisu I've ever had.  It was moist, tasty and very rich.  Even though I was full past the point of feeling somewhat ill, I still ate my fair share of the tiramisu.  

When Reema came back to see how we liked it, I said, "I'm not certain that I've even had tiramisu in the state of Indiana before, but I doubt I'd be able to find any better if I were to try."  

Next to Canal Bistro, George Hanna put in a gourmet ice cream parlor - Canal Creamery.  And some of the items on the dessert menu that Reema brought us were ice cream dishes from Canal Creamery.  They ordered up something that I was sort of interested to see, the baklava sundae.  They take baklava, put it in a bowl, top it with a couple big dips of vanilla ice cream, then top that with whipped cream, then drizzle hot fudge over the top of all that, then sprinkle nuts on to the whole thing before finishing it off with a couple cherries.  Now, THIS was a huge sundae!  More than once they offered us a chance to take a bite of the sundae, but we declined each offer.  I mean, I was miserable - but in a good way - after finishing the last bite of the tiramisu.  But that didn't matter as our friends killed the whole thing!  Our man friend kept saying, "I'm so full, but I can't stop eating this!"  

Reema allowed us to take our time to digest everything and to finish up visiting with our friends.  When she came over to give us our check for the meal (which our friends graciously picked up), she asked if there was anything else she could get us.  I said, "Do you have a two-wheeled cart to take me out to my car?"

She laughed and said, "We do have big portions here.  And you guys had a lot of food."  

Reema may have been the highlight to our visit to the Canal Bistro.  She was one of the best servers I've ever encountered.  She was funny, yet professional.  She was helpful with her suggestions, and we loved the playful banter back and forth with her.  About the only thing that wasn't very good to great at Canal Bistro was my wife's lamb and chicken kababs where the meat was woefully overcooked.  But I had enough of a large portion of gyro meat on my plate that she was able to eat some of that to help her get filled up.  As we were headed back to the hotel that evening, I told my wife that I needed to seek out more Greek/Mediterranean restaurants when I'm on the road.  My wife lamented that she just wished we had something like Canal Bistro back home.   

Swig & Swine - Charleston, SC

There's a handful of very good to excellent barbecue places in and around the greater Charleston area.  One place I wanted to try - Rodney Scott's BBQ - was a James Beard Award winner in 2018.  But we were told by someone deep in the "know" about local eateries in Charleston that Rodney Scott's had "passed their prime".  "If you want to go stand in line for good barbecue, that's fine," we were told.  "But if you want the best barbecue in Charleston, you need to go to Swig & Swine."  Now - believe it or not - I had heard about Swig & Swine before.  But not for their barbecue.  One evening while in Charleston, we headed out to Swig & Swine for dinner.  

Now, believe or not, I had heard of Swig & Swine before we had gone to Charleston.  But not for the food, per se, but because for the past couple of years they have sponsored a college baseball classic at Shipyard Park in North Charleston.  The University of Iowa baseball team played in the series last February, and being a fan of the Iowa baseball team I had to look up as to what Swig & Swine actually was when the Hawkeyes played there.  The classic usually features teams from the northern part of the U.S. who come south to get a few games in at the start of the season.  (Iowa went 2-1 in this year's Swig & Swine series with wins over Seton Hall and Ball State, but losing to Lehigh in their final game of the weekend.)   

But the founder/owner of Swig & Swine didn't start out thinking that he was going to be the owner of a barbecue joint.  It took some time before New Jersey-native Anthony DiBernardo figured out what he really wanted to do.  DiBernardo always figured he'd end up as a cook somewhere.  He started out at the early age of 14 working as a line cook for a banquet restaurant.   

After graduating high school, DiBernardo joined the U.S. Navy and was assigned to a 1970's-era submarine that was based out of Charleston.  He was the lead cook for the submarine and had to make 4 meals a day for a crew of 135.  The kitchen was tight for him - the ceiling was six-feet, five-inches and DiBernardo stood 6'5".  

Pictured right - Anthony DiBernardo.  Photo courtesy Charleston Food+Wine.

After a four-year stint in the Navy, DiBernardo stuck around Charleston rather than going back to the Philadelphia area.  He caught on at Blossom, a popular and hip southern/seafood restaurant in Charleston's French Quarter.  (Blossom closed in 2020 after 27 years, a casualty of the pandemic.)  In 2002, DiBernardo was then recruited to become the head chef at Jasmine Porch, a Low Country-style restaurant at the Kiawah Island Golf Resort, a luxury seaside resort on Kiawah Island south of Charleston.  

It was at Jasmine Porch where DiBernardo was introduced to whole hog barbecue techniques.  As a teenager, DiBernardo had helped his father - who was a butcher - smoke hams and roast whole pigs.  But barbecuing was a whole new thing for him.  The resort had a weekly beach barbecue where a whole hog would be slow-barbecued on the beach.  When he left Jasmine Porch to become the chef at the popular Mustard Seed restaurant in Mount Pleasant, SC, he included barbecued meats on the wide and varied menu at the restaurant.  

When the Halls Restaurant Management Group was looking to open a new American restaurant in Folly Beach, SC, they turned to DiBernardo to be the chef and managing partner in the new restaurant.  DiBernardo left the Mustard Seed and went to run Rita's Seaside Grill for the group.  He incorporated smoked meats at Rita's including smoked chicken wings, pulled pork, and hickory-smoked pork belly.  

By 2013, the barbecue bug was deep inside DiBernardo.  At that time, there was a dearth of good barbecue places around Charleston and there wasn't any of them who were doing whole hog, low-and-slow cooked barbecue.  He turned to brothers Steve and Jonathon Kish from the Queen Street Hospitality Group (82 Queen, Florence's Low Country Kitchen) to help him establish a barbecue joint of his own.  

The group found an old car wash in Charleston's West Ashley neighborhood and began renovating the building into a barbecue restaurant complete with a smoker and full kitchen.  In May of 2014, Swig & Swine opened to the public offering whole hog barbecue once a week (the smoker was too small to do one every night), along with a long list of bourbons and whiskeys, as well as a number of locally-brew craft beers.   

The days DiBernardo did his whole hog barbecue became the busiest times for Swig & Swine. In order to help sustain that momentum, DiBernardo had to come up with a way to have whole hog barbecue available each day.  He designed larger smokers with offset wood boxes that would allow for whole hogs and other meats to be barbecued all at once and had a company in North Carolina make them to his specifications.  Once the new smokers were in place, DiBernardo hired more crew members to help smoke the whole hogs, pork shoulder, brisket and other meats 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  

The West Ashley Swig & Swine was an absolute hit with the eating public.  It wasn't long before DiBernardo and the Kish brothers were looking to expand.  Four more Swig & Swine locations have popped up over the past 8 years in the South Carolina cities of Summerville, Myrtle Beach, Moncks Beach and Mount Pleasant.  In 2019, DiBernardo was able to buy the shares of the Kish brothers to become the sole proprietor of Swig & Swine.  

It was about a 10 minute drive from our hotel out onto Savannah Highway to the Swig & Swine location in West Ashley.  (see map)  Parking was limited in front of the restaurant, but there was a strip mall just to the east that was home to a Whole Foods grocery store and some other businesses.  We parked along the side of the strip mall and walked a short distance over to Swig & Swine.  

As we crossed over into the parking lot, there was this painting of a pig on the side of the building with the Swig & Swine logo and the phrase, "horrifying vegetarians since 2013".  I got a chuckle out of that and knew that I had to send a picture of it to my colleague in Montreal who is a vegetarian.  Moments after I sent the picture to him, he replied with three 😆 emojis.  He's a good sport when it comes to acknowledging his vegetarianism.  

Inside Swig & Swine, it's your typical barbecue joint.  It was clean, but nothing fancy.  A row of booths lined one wall, while the other wall had banquette seating with small tables.  Garage door windows that opened to a patio seating area in front of the restaurant were next to the booths.  It was a warm evening and the windows were closed up and the air conditioning was on full blast in the restaurant.  Off to the side of the patio in front of Swig & Swine was a screened in area that housed their industrial smokers.  And true to form, they were in use and billowing wood smoke.  

The bar area was off to the side.  They had red metal stools - the type of metal stools that I find uncomfortable - along the short bar and at high-top tables near the bar.  Baseball games were playing on the televisions in the bar area.  They had a number of bourbon and rye whiskies available on their liquor shelf.  

We were seated at one of the tables along the wall with the banquette seats.  The tables along that side of the wall weren't close together, so it didn't seem like the tables were on top of one another like I detest at some restaurants with banquette seating.  After we were seated and menus were put on the table, our server for evening stopped over to greet us.  Her name was Kirby and she was a black woman with short blonde hair.  She was friendly, loud, and sassy - we immediately liked her.  Starting off with drinks, my wife got her usual Tito's and cranberry, while I got a Hop Art IPA from the Coast Brewing Company in nearby North Charleston.  

The menu consisted of meats by the half-pound or pound, as well as barbecue meat plates with brisket, pulled pork, smoked turkey, smoked chicken and pork belly.  Smoked sausage was also available as both an entree or by the link.  Sandwiches included a spicy fried chicken sandwich, a beef brisket and cheese sandwich, and a chopped prime brisket sandwich.  Appetizers including pork rinds - either with nachos, or pimento cheese, or with Tabasco honey and blue cheese; as well as a chopped pork and smoked jalapeño appetizer; and jalapeño smoked pimento cheese served with Ritz crackers.  

My wife likes fried pickles and they had them on the appetizer menu at Swing & Swine.  They were breaded and deep-fried dill pickle spears with a side of honey mustard and served on paper on a small cookie sheet.  The breading was sort of falling off the spears, but it there was enough on the pickles that we were able to get a taste of both the pickle and the breading.  

We wanted to try a little bit of everything and my wife got the two meat combo with prime beef brisket and pulled pork.  For her two sides she got the mac & cheese and pickled veggies with okra, cauliflower, collard greens, onions and pickles.  Pickled onions and dill pickle slices came on the side with the meat.  

I got the 1/3 rack of ribs for us to share.  The ribs had a thick layer of bark on them and were very tender and meaty.  For my sides I got baked beans and I ordered the vinegar slaw.  I thought vinegar slaw wouldn't be creamy, but their slaw was creamy AND vinegary.   It was actually pretty good.  They had five different types of sauces on the table at Swig & Swine - a mustard sauce, a white Alabama-style sauce, a spicy jalapeño sauce, a tomato vinegar sauce (that tasted great on the pulled pork) and a sweet tangy sauce.   I've never liked any type of mustard barbecue sauce or the white Alabama-style sauce.  But the sweet and tangy, and the jalapeño sauces were excellent.    

My wife gave me one of the small slabs of brisket to try and it cut easily with a fork.  And when I put it into my mouth, it literally melted in my mouth, it was so tender and flavorful.  Kirby came over to check on us and I told her that I wanted to get a half-pound of the brisket, it was so good.  Moments later she came out with a platter of a couple thick slices of the prime brisket.  It wasn't as tender as the first smaller piece I had, but I could still cut it with a fork.  The bark on the outside of the brisket and the ribs had a wonderful smoky and somewhat spicy flavor.  

My wife really liked the pulled pork and the two ribs that I shared with her.  I thought the baked beans were very good on their own and probably didn't need any additives, but I added some of the jalapeño sauce and the regular sweet sauce to the baked beans to zip them up.   My wife offered some of the mac & cheese and I thought it was a little dried out.  My wife agreed with me, but she loved the pickled vegetables.  

I could hardly finish the second helping of the prime beef brisket and I still had some on my plate when Kirby came over one more time.  "Are you gonna be able to finish it off," she asked.  I told her that I was going to give it a try.  While it was all I could do to finish the last couple bites, I was able to do it.  And when Kirby tried to tempt us with dessert with included a banana pudding, cobbler coconut pie, and chocolate bourbon pecan pie, I had to throw in the towel.  I was so damned full after finishing the last bites of the brisket.  

Swig & Swine was the only barbecue place we tried while we were on vacation down in South Carolina, but I can't imagine any other place being as good or better than the meal we had that evening.  The brisket was just excellent and the pulled pork and the ribs were very good, as well.  And we really enjoyed our service from Kirby.  She was a ball of fire and fun to banter with.   Although I was thoroughly stuffed when we left Swig & Swine, I was far from unhappy.