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By Root 878 0

upon entering this little diner you are faced with the steam table from which the server puts together your plate. While it is possible to order off a menu—and the fried chicken and shrimp therefrom are exemplary—we cannot resist the array of barbecue and side dishes in the trays. You get either pulled pork, which is a medley of velvet-soft shreds from inside and crunchy strips from the outside of the roast bathed in the Sergeant’s brilliant tangy-sweet sauce, or ribs, which are crusty and unspeakably luscious, also caked with the good sauce. Each side dish is a super-soulful rendition of a southern classic: smothered cabbage richer than ham itself, broccoli gobbed with cheese, brilliantly seasoned red rice, a vivid mix of collard and turnip greens, real mashed potatoes, candied yams, etc., etc. A normal meal is one meat and two sides, served with a block of corn bread on top. Even that corn bread is extraordinary: rugged-textured and sweet as cake.

Sergeant White, by the way, is a U.S. Marine, a former drill instructor, who offers business-size cards at the counter to remind guests of the Marine code of Honor, Courage, and Commitment.

Shealy’s Bar-B-Que

340 E. Columbia Ave.

803–532–8135

Leesville, SC

LD (closed Wed & Sun) | $

We found out about Shealy’s thanks to tipster Paul McCravy, who wrote that “the vegetables surpass any I’ve had at the three family reunions I attend each year in Pickins County.” Greens and beans, boiled, fried, and mashed, served plain and in elaborate casseroles, make up the awesome array of vegetables. And they are merely the side dishes to some magnificent meals of great fried chicken with cream gravy, including wishbones for those who are feeling lucky.

For us, the main attraction is pork barbecue, which is presented at the buffet with all the glory of a traditional South Carolina barbecue feast, meaning you will find just about every part of the pig from the rooter to the tooter. That includes meat, ribs, hash, skin, gravy, and a rather bizarre creamy-spicy mush apparently quite popular in these parts known as liver nips. Of special interest on the tender shreds of smoked pork is Shealy’s sauce (available by the bottle), an alluring mustard-tinged sweet-and-sour condiment unique to the South Carolina Midlands.

Summerton Diner

33 Church St.

803–485–6835

Summerton, SC

BLD (closed Thurs) | $

Since Lois Hughes opened it for business in 1967, this little café on the outskirts of town has been a favorite of locals and a beacon for travelers along I-95. After Lois’s daughter Lynelle Blackwell took over in 1987, she enlarged and remodeled it, but today the diner has the feel of an ageless eatery: well-worn Formica counter, blond wood-paneled walls, each table set with bottles of hot vinegar peppers for brightening up orders of collard greens.

There’s a full menu, and such items as fried chicken or steak and quail are always available, but at lunchtime the thing to order is the special. For well under $10, you get an entree, three vegetables, dessert, and tea. Plus corn bread and biscuits. The Monday we stopped in a while back, the meats included calves liver with onions and gravy, baked ham, beef stew, and baked chicken supreme. We love that chicken! It is crusty and fall-apart tender; the waitress asks if you want white or dark meat. Like all entrees, it comes on a partitioned plate along with two of the vegetables you choose. (The third vegetable, for which the plate has no room, comes in its own bowl.) As you might expect in a true-South café such as this, the side dishes are superb: earthy fresh rutabagas, spicy stewed apples, porky sweet greens that still have an al dente oomph to their leaves, mashed potatoes blanketed in gorgeous, beef-shred gravy, hefty blocks of macaroni and cheese with crusty edges and creamy insides, rice infused with soulful gravy. Et cetera!

The serving of pudding is small but classic: balmy custard in which sliced bananas and softened vanilla wafers are suspended, all under a Kewpie-doll spiral of whipped cream.

Note that the Summerton diner