frothy beard Archives - Queen of the Food Age

Weekend Roundup: The Vegan Invasion

March 3, 2014

So this weekend was so much fun and eventful. Friday night, Lily and I went on to a “Couples Date Night” at Southern Season where we had all kinds of fun “Learning To Make Sweet Potato Gnocchi,” “Eating A Four Course Meal,” and “Tricking Your Culinary Instructor Into Thinking You’re A Lesbian.” It was pretty exciting stuff.

Despite all her squawking about “feminism,” Lily’s basically a 1950’s housewife.

We tasted a lot of delicious food, including blue cheese crostini with rosemary honey and pecans, fire roasted soup with seared scallops, sweet potato gnocchi, seared filet mignon with shiitake mushrooms and spinach and apple raspberry tart. You can find all of those photos on my Instagram account.

See that gnocchi? I made that!

After dinner, Lauren came into town, and Lauren, Lily and Kathleen and I all went out in our best sequins downtown.

Captains of the sparkle brigade.

On Saturday, we stopped at Persimmon Cafe for hangover brunch before going to pick up my bestie / cousin at the airport. Rob at Persimmon was awesome enough to make a custom vegan butternut squash sandwich for Naomi and she literally couldn’t shut up about it the whole drive home. Lauren also kept talking about how everything she ate was “an explosion of flavor” in her mouth (I’ll leave that one alone) and said she dreamt about the orzo pasta salad that night. Basically, I’m converting everyone I know into a Persimmon fan.

She’s gonna love that I’m using her “mouth full” picture.

After we got Naomi from the airport, we all vegged out around the house for a while, watching Pete Holmes standup before heading over to North Charleston to hang out at Frothy Beard where we were joined by Charlie, Chrissy, and Kelly. After we drank a few delicious pints, we grabbed dinner at E.V.O. in Park Circle. Naomi almost died on the spot when she found out they had a vegan pizza.

And I have to say, it was actually kind of yummy.

Saturday night we decided to have a game night at my apartment with some friends instead of going out. It was so much fun! I love nights like that. Sunday morning, we went to Lost Dog Cafe because apparently Charlie had never had the biscuits & gravy from Lost Dog before which is basically a sin. It was outstanding and they easily catered to Naomi’s veggie-communism with a yummy black bean burger and some home fries. Everything was delicious as always.

But seriously that gravy should be illegal.

After catching up on SNL (Colin Jost!), taking naps to recover from our delicious brunch and night of revelry, and bidding Lauren adieu, Naomi, Lily, and I made a vegan cheese sauce, normal people queso, and guacamole to watch the Oscars with. Lily also went on the great Ben & Jerry’s Cores hunt (get it?) which we also enjoyed whilst watching Leo lose for best actor yet again.

#PoorLeo

And that was my weekend. How was yours?

Charleston, SC Restaurant Reviews

Craftsmen Kitchen & Tap House – CLOSED

June 28, 2013

Last Wednesday, after a hilarious night of improv at Theater 99, we were struck by hunger pangs and looking for somewhere to eat. I consulted my handy dandy Yelp app to find a restaurant in Charleston that was still serving food at 10:30, and we were lucky enough to stumble upon Craftsmen Kitchen & Tap House. Located on Cumberland Street in the old Johnson’s Bar spot, Craftsmen is a cool space featuring 2 bars and an outdoor beer garden area.

No, not that kind of beer garden. [Photo: Tilly’s Nest]

I started off with a beer from Frothy Beard, one of Charleston’s newest breweries. The Photuris Pale Ale (apparently a photuris is a lightning bug. Who knew?) was good, but I think they still have some work to go on getting their technique right. Or maybe I just don’t like pale ales. I would like to try their Peppermint Porter (which hopefully I will be able to do this weekend at the brewery!) But, I digress. The beer menu is pretty cool, featuring 48 drafts on tap, which they rotate out regularly. I’d like to stop by during the day to take advantage of the outdoor space. The interior bars are also really well designed and have a very comfortable feel to them. Here are a couple of pictures of the two bar areas:

2 Bars, One cup [Photo: Eater]

The menu is divided into 2 parts. One one side, you have their “Bar Classics” which are available daily. On the other side, you have their “Daily Features,” which change out daily depending what they have in the kitchen. Laura and I both ordered the BBQ Pork sandwich (pulled pork, cole slaw, fried pickles on a sesame seed bun) from their daily features menu. It was delish. The bun was toasted ever so slightly and the fried pickles had just the lightest coating of batter and were delicious with the coleslaw. The sandwich was served with their “fries” which were more like fat potato chips.

I’m so glad I live in the south so I have access to good BBQ.

John ordered the Delta Catfish and Chips with Comeback sauce ($10) from the Bar Classics menu. He said it was delicious with a “good fry on it, nice sized chunk of fish, and good catfishy flavor.” I love catfish, and just looking at it from across the table, I could tell it was delicious.

It kind of still looks like a fish. Like it’s swimming across John’s plate.

Ben ordered the Farmhouse Burger (beef, pork, idazabal, beer pickles, and bibb lettuce) from the Bar Classics menu. I took a bite of it, and let me tell you, it was outstanding. Not as good as a Husk burger, but still pretty darn good. The combination of beef and pork was very interesting and gave it an extra layer of depth. The idazabal cheese was good too, and added an almost smokey flavor to it. Really, really good.

You can’t really see the meat because of the lettuce, but trust me, it’s there (and it’s delicious).

I’ve had like 4 people tell me that I should get the Crunchy Dame (BBQ Pork belly, butterkase, cherry jam, sunny egg, $9) from the Bar Classics menu. Apparently it’s “unreal” and it “may have brought tears to my eyes,” so when I go back I’ll have to give that a try. All in all, I was very impressed and definitely recommend you try this place out.

I mean, the space is so freaking cool.

Craftsmen Kitchen & Tap House
12 Cumberland St
Charleston, SC 29401
(843) 577-9699

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