Roadfood_ Revised Edition - Jane Stern [137]
The Wreck
106 Haddrell Point
843–884–0052
Mt. Pleasant, SC
D | $$
The docks at Shem Creek in Mount Pleasant, just north of the city, are lined with seafood restaurants, all quite pleasant-looking and with similar shoreline menus, but if you meander farther along the water, out Live Oak Road to Haddrell Point, you will find a Roadfood jewel in the rough. And we do mean find, for the restaurant known as the Wreck (formally named the Wreck of the Richard and Charlene for a boat hit by Hurricane Hugo) has no sign outside—it’s tucked between the Wando Seafood Company and Magwood and Sons Seafood—and we also mean in the rough, for it is located in a former bait locker, and décor is mostly piles of cardboard beer cartons. Seats are plastic lawn chairs at tables clothed with fish-wrapping paper (but romantically lit by candles at night). If the weather is cool, you are warmed by a couple of fireplaces in the concrete-floored dining room. The view of docked shrimp trawlers couldn’t be more picturesque. And the food is impeccable.
Place your order by using a marking pen to circle what you want on the paper menu. Meals begin with a bowl of soft boiled peanuts—an addictive reminder that peanuts are in fact not nuts but legumes. She-crab soup is served in the traditional manner with a shot of sherry to pour on top just before dipping in a spoon. Then come crunchy fried shrimp, scallops, oysters, or broiled fish accompanied by zesty slaw and tubular hush puppies. Depending on your appetite, you can get a meal either “Richard-sized” (copious) or “Charlene-sized” (normal portion). Everything is presented on cardboard plates with plastic utensils; beer comes in the bottle. Dessert is a choice of key lime bread pudding or banana pudding.
If you are a fish-frowner, the Wreck does offer London broil. However the menu warns, “This is a seafood house claiming no expertise in the preparation of red meat. So, when you order red meat it is yours…No returns!!!!!”
Illinois
Al’s #1 Italian Beef
1079 W. Taylor St.
312–733–8896
Chicago, IL
LD | $
To dine well at Al’s, it helps to know the lingo.
“Big beef, double-dipped!” is the call for an extra-large sandwich of thin-sliced, gravy-sopped, garlic-charged beef that, once loaded into a chewy length of Italian bread, is reimmersed for approximately one second in a pan of natural gravy so the bread is soaked through.
“Beef with hot” is a request for the relish known as giardiniera, an eye-opening garden mélange of finely chopped marinated vegetables, capers, and spice that is roast beef’s perfect complement. Al’s giardiniera is made in thirty-gallon batches and fermented three to four days before it’s ready. “With sweet” is what you say if you prefer the popular alternative to giardiniera: big, tender flaps of roasted green bell pepper with a charcoal taste.
“Combo!” or “half and half!” is a call for a sandwich that contains not only beef but also a plump, four-inch length of Italian sausage, retrieved from the appetizing haze that hovers over the hot metal grate just behind the order counter. Taut-skinned, succulent, and well-spiced, the sausage is itself a major lure for many customers who sidestep beef altogether and order double-sausage sandwiches, hot or sweet.
Al’s is a small shop in old Little Italy that offers no seats for dining. You eat at waist-high counters along the wall or off the trunk of your car in the parking lot. After lunch, stroll across the street to Mario’s Italian ice shop for the perfect dessert.
Ann Sather
929 W. Belmont Ave.
773–348–2378
Chicago, IL
BL Mon & Tues, BLD Wed–Sun | $
This legendary Chicago restaurant started in 1945 as a Belmont Avenue diner run by a Swedish immigrant named Ann Sather. She finally sold the place in 1981 to Tom Tunney after Mr. Tunney apprenticed with her for a year. He expanded the business (there are now five Ann Sathers in Chicagoland), but kept the cinnamon rolls, which are spectacular. You get two big fluffy rolls per