Charleston Restaurant Week just wrapped up twelve crazy nights from September 5th through 16th. We had plans to be out of town for the closing weekend so we went out nine nights in a row, breaking our long-standing trend of going out every night.
While it's not a competition there are clearly some winners and some losers. The competition was fierce and this time
Circa 1886 and
Tristan tied for our favorites. Honorable mentions go to
Husk and
Il Cortile del Rey, which were both good but not at the same level as the first two.
Based solely on the food I would be hard-pressed to pick one over the other, but the service at Circa put them a notch above in my book. Here are photos of our dinner at Circa. We each got three courses, and we went with friends who were kind enough to let me photograph their dishes.
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| Roasted beets, whipped BLiS 9 maple vinegar, arugula, goat cheese aioli, house made buttermilk cracker |
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| Hot corn custard, cold corn soup, red pepper caviar, micro greens |
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| Tomato sourdough bread pudding, pesto, bloody Mary shooter |
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| Seared strip steak, sauteed Napa cabbage, parsnip puree, Bordelaise sauce |
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| General Sanders chicken, Carolina Gold fried rice, broccolini, carrot puree, sake poached peach |
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| Antelope lion, browned butter sweet potato hash, chanterelle mushrooms, banyuls glace |
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| Strawberry souffle, honeysuckle ice cream |
And here is the dinner at Tristan for just the two of us.
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| Sweet corn soup, sheep's milk feta, lemon agrumato |
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| Smoked Ligurian potato salad, piquillo peppers, house made mozarella (the snake) |
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| Beef short rib, pearl barley minestrone, pickled ramps |
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| Poached shrimp, fregola pasta, grapefruit, English peas, buttery carrot sauce |
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| Honey cake, almond brittle, Greek yogurt, candied lemon |
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| Chocolate cheesecake, sour cherry sherbet, pistachio crust |
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| A parting mignardise - Snobiette of tiramisu cream |
