Charleston Culinary Tour - Upper King Street.

It's no secret that I love food. And with a new restaurant popping up in Charleston what seems like every week, it's hard to keep up with all of them! So when I was asked if I wanted to participate in a Charleston Culinary Tour in exchange for a review on my blog, I jumped at the opportunity. 

There are 5 different possible tours one can take - Upper King Street (which is the one I chose), Downtown, Chefs' Kitchen, Mixology, and Chef's Showcase at the Farmer's Market. They also offer combination packages where you can add on a walking tour of Charleston or a carriage ride. 

I took Cameron as my plus one (because he likes to eat, too) and we were joined on our two by two couples, a family of 3, and a group of girls who played volleyball together in college. Our tour guide, Charlie, was very personable and knowledgeable, and I liked the fact that she had everyone go around and say where they were from at the beginning of the tour. 

Our first stop on the tour was HoM, which was also the meeting place for everyone. We were served a turkey burger, which had spinach and leeks, as well as brie, green goddess dressing, and green apples. It didn't really do it for me, but Cameron liked it. We also had calimari, but it was not your standard calimari with the marinara sauce. This version came with a sundried tomato and goat cheese sauce. They were pretty good. The winner of this stop was the Dixie Flatbread, which had pimento cheese, pork confit, carmelized onions, and bacon maple arugula. YUM. 

Second stop was a few doors down at Prohibition. Not only was the food amazing, but the atmosphere was definitely my favorite. I've only been to Prohibition once before at night for drinks. We were served shrimp & grits and the duck quesadilla. We also ordered two of their cocktails, but those are not included in the tour. Seen in the picture is the "Itty Bitty," which according to our tour guide, is voted on the of top drinks in Charleston. The duck quesadilla was easily one of my favorites on the tour. This is definitely a restaurant I want to go back to to try more of their food. 

Next we made our way to Rue de Jean, which we have been to a handful of times before. It's a tried and true place and if nothing else, they win the award for best smelling restaurant. We were served mussels, ratatouille, french fries, and warm crusty bread to dip in the leftover broth of the mussels (obviously the best part).  Looking at the menu just reminded me that I need to make truffled potato soup ASAP. 

We ended the tour with gelato at Paolo's. I chose the chocolate flavor, but wish I had chosen Nutella because it was much creamier. I never realized until we were in Paolo's that gelato has 1/3 of the fat that regular ice cream does. Good excuse to eat more gelato, right?

All in all we really enjoyed the tour and I am very interested in trying some of the other ones. If I could offer any constructive criticism it would be to change their menu offerings up a little bit. We were served pretty much the exact same things that Shelby was served on her tour the weekend before and same goes for Amy on her tour a few weeks ago. Looking at their posts, Prohibition seems to be the only placed that changed up their offerings. Even a girl on the tour with us who had participated in the same tour a year ago said she was served the same thing on her previous tour. That would be my only minor complaint!

Thanks again to Charleston Culinary Tours for providing us this opportunity! Can't wait to try another one!