Exploring Columbia SC – Eating Around
There’s a lot more to Columbia than the stretch from the Capitol down Main Street to the museum and library. For one thing, it is the home of the University of South Carolina, whose lovely campus is located on the other side of the Capitol from those attractions. The presence of a university almost guarantees a range of good cheap restaurants for feeding starving students escaping dorm food. We tried a couple:
Camon Japanese Restaurant and Sushi Bar on Assembly Street near the campus has Japanese sliding screens, woodcut prints, and unexpectedly excellent sushi. It was empty when we entered at 6PM, and when we ordered an Asahi beer and were told there was no liquor license, we thought we knew why. But by the time we left, well satisfied with our edamame, unagi roll and pork tonkatsu, the place was nearly full of local adults as well as students who were probably underage anyway.
Another night we went further down Main to the Green Olive, its inauspiciously plain exterior surrounded by cracked parking lots and state office buildings. But the interior was much more promising, with a number of comfortable booths and tables testifying to a significant number of expected customers. The server looked exotic enough to be Turkish, but when I asked she giggled and said “No, I’m half Chinese and half Peruvian.”
The presentation of the food made no attempt at artistic plating or frou-frou snips of parsely or fennel. The flavor though was delicious and the amount generous. Again, as we ate the booths began to fill with a diverse population of older adults as well as flannel-shirted twenty-somethings.
Our most successful lunch was at a deli near our hotel downtown. I didn’t expect much from the East Bay Deli, one of five locations in Columbia for a chain that originated up in Charlotte. We went there because it was close to our hotel, we were hungry, and we were with my in-laws and needed a place with a diverse enough menu to satisfy each of our tastes. And it was good. Just plain good. Good bread. Good meat. Real lettuce, not ribby romaine. Crispy fries. Enough food that my in-laws split a sandwich between them.
You won’t starve for lack of good food in Columbia
Allyson Johnson 