Have you ever gone on a food tour when traveling to a new city? If you haven’t, I highly recommend it. It is a great way to learn the city’s history, some interesting facts and a great way to discover their culinary scene. While in Charleston, my husband and I went on the Charleston Culinary Tour. They offer a variety of tours of different areas in Charleston. From tasting local cuisine to touring behind some of the city’s famous kitchens.
We took the Upper King Street tour which explores this up in coming area of Charleston. The tour started at HoM which stands for House of Munch. The menu features burgers and other bar food. I thought, this was an interesting place to start the tour; what is so special about bar food? Oh how wrong I was. Each dish had a gourmet twist to it. My favorite dish was the Green Gobble’n turkey burger. It had leeks, spinach, melted brie, a green goddess aioli and a green apple slaw. The burger was so moist and delicious. They use stuffing in the burger which makes it juicy. It was the best turkey burger I ever had. It gave me inspiration on making my turkey burgers that way at home!
Our next stop was a bakery called Sugar Bakeshop. It was started by two New York architects turned bakers. Great little shop that entice you with the sweet smell of their baked goods. We got to taste a clementine orange cupcake filled with orange marmalade and topped with orange buttercream. The buttercream was sweet and heavenly. And as a special bonus we got a goodie bag with a ginger molasses cookie to enjoy later.
As we walked through the neighborhoods surrounding Upper King Street, our tour guide Charlie educated us with some of the city’s history. She was very personable and fun. Our next stop was Rue De Jean for a taste of french cuisine. We were served pommes frites and mussels cooked in the classic method pistou with garlic, basil and olive oil. Yum!
The last stop was Virginia’s on King for a taste of southern cuisine. We got to sample fried okra with a spicy, smoked pepper aioli and fried pickles with a crisp cornmeal batter and a aioli sauce. Both were delicious.
If you are traveling to Charleston, save an afternoon to take a tour with Charleston Culinary Tour. My only regret was that we didn’t do it on the first day we were there. There were so many restaurants that we visited and learned about on our tour that I wish we had more time to enjoy during our visit.
