Charleston SC Homes For Sale

Description: The greatest thing about Al di La is that it so generously overdelivers on its promises. The modest but warm and inviting dining room, the giant chalkboard that features a moderately-priced wine list scrawled on it along with a daily "Italian Lesson," and the warmly-lit community table next door create the perfect setting for John Marshall’s interpretation of Northern Italian favorites such as the shoelace-shaped pasta "Stracciatella Spoletina" from Charleston’s sister festival city Spoleto, and the best fettucine Bolognese I’ve ever tasted. The other side of the restaurant, which holds the community table, will soon be turned into a baraco (Italian wine bar) with a newly-installed hardwood oven brought over from Italy. The best part of Al di La is that Chef Marshall simply "gets it" — and it shines through at every second in this little trattoria.

Amuse

Description: Amuse has defined the local tapas scene since its opening in 2004 and is loved by the local food critics. Holly Herrick of the Post and Courier rated Amuse as one of her top five restaurants for 2005. Due to popular demand, the menu recently expanded to include the owner's Italian family recipes. Diners can now enjoy great selections from either the Mediterranean tapas menu or full course dinners from the Italian side (featuring homemade pastas, gravies, breads, and desserts.) Five-dollar wine flights served every day from 5 to 7 p.m., serving dinner Tues.-Sat. until 10 p.m

Description: Pies, slices, calzones, and salads. Dough made from scratch, fresh sauce made daily.

Bada Bing

Description: Pizza New York style pizza and pasta. Eat in, take out, or delivery.

Bax's Bistro

Description: Saganaki, sandwiches, gyros, souvlaki, pasta, calzones, strombolis, plus the best buy-one-get-one-free pizza deal.

Bear E Patch Cafe

Description: Omelets, deli sandwiches, and nightly specials.

Bessingers

Description: This paragon of old-style "Lowcountry" barbecue since 1946 offers a buffet of old-style favorites along with a full menu of barbecue delights in a large, ranch-themed restaurant on Hwy. 17. The "secret" recipes among the competitive family members are very subtly different, but the big piles of tender smoked pork are what will attract any carnivorous, gluttonous Southerner — or any tourist interested in one of the South’s most contentious dishes.

Bluerose Cafe

Description: Unique breakfast entrees, gourmet salads, and sandwiches.

Bobby Hartin's Sports Grill

Description: Fantasy football grand central, with more TV screens than a Best Buy showroom. Angus burgers, wraps, wings, and appetizers abound at this sports grill. If you’re looking for a TV screen, just glance anywhere around you. We lost count at 40. Try the "Lunch Box," a shot of amaretto dropped in beer and O.J., and look for $4 Jäger and $3.50 flavored vodkas daily.

Cisco's Cafe

Crab Shack

Description: If you want to throw yourself into being a tourist in your own town, the Crab Shack is the place to do it. Big steamer dishes of crab legs, oysters, corn, shrimp, sausage, and potatoes are the most fun way to go, but when local oysters are in season, they can also be found here. Naturally, the menu offers plenty of fried and grilled options, but we like the messy stuff that requires a little work and danger. Cold beer and cocktails are abundant as well, and the bartenders at the downtown location know how to entertain visitors and treat the locals right at the same time.

D.D. Pecker's Wing Shack

Description: A newly-opened neighborhood bar and grill on West Ashley featuring a full menu of wings and chicken dishes, salads, sandwiches, and snacks. Live music weekly.

El Dorado

Description: Combination platters, margaritas, and the El Dorado Supremo.

Firehouse Bar & Grill

Description: A large, imposing facility for the serious drinkers, pool hustlers, goodtimers, and carnivorous music lovers. This massive steakhouse sprawls from a dining area across a big music hall and bar area toward spacious pool area (four tables). Music-wise, the joint features a mix of local and regional bands doing rock standard, Top-40 covers, and originals, DJ’s, and trivia hosts. Air hockey, 12 draught beers, 12 plasma TVs around bar, karaoke, PGA Championship Golf, plenty of plush seating, the spicy "Firehouse Shot" (Cuervo Gold and Tabasco), late-night menu available.

Gene's Haufbrau

Description: A genuine bar with hundreds of beers and excellent bar food.

George's Sports Bar & Grill

Description: Lunch and Dinner This hard-core sports bar in West Ashley, owned by local character Georgie the Greek, prides itself on serving good Greek food and solid daily specials. Lots of video games surround the mostly black interior of the restaurant, but the Greek chicken, spanakopita, and tzatziki are delicious and especially well-suited to takeout, particularly for those who work close to the Savannah Highway location.

Iacofono Deli

Description: John Iacofano graduated from Johnson & Wales and opened this little deli in the South Windermere shopping center near Starbucks. His sandwiches and classic Italian entrées far surpass any expectations he sets with the humble storefront dining room. The prices are reasonable, and the take-home options — fresh pastas, sauces, and meats — are life-savers for the busy person who would like to eat with a little style.

In Good Taste

Description: Gourmet shop specializing in fine cheese, chocolates, coffee, and tea. Wine accessories and classes too.

Jason's Deli

Description: The mother of all delis. Free ice cream.

Jersey Mike's

Description: Real Jersey subs

Kim's Restaurant

Manny's

Description: Manny’s in West Ashley is an old-time favorite, serving up pizzas, great hummus, and Greek classics in a boisterous dining room surrounded by televisions. It’s a classic spot for watching the game. Any game, really — there’s a TV at every booth so no one has to negotiate what to watch. Just fight over the important things, like pizza toppings and who gets the most tzatziki on his gyro.

The Map Room

Description: A newly-opened music venue and pub in the Village Square shopping center on Sam Ritt. featuring a full lunch and dinner menu and live rock and pop music three-to-four nights a week.

Marie Laveau's

Description: Exceptional New Orleans cuisine occasionally mixed with Lowcountry style. Breakfast, Lunch, Brunch and Dinner.

Mia's Cafe

Description: Mia’s is the newest creation of Thierry and Kathy Goulard, and it’s totally worth the trip past West Ashley’s auto mile to enjoy their bistro fare in a cute little dining room that serves a meat-and-three at lunch. Dinner’s the thing, though, with delicious braised lamb shank, piles and piles of beef tartare, and an avocado and crab meat salad that will make you think that there is hope for you to go back on Atkins — that is, until you taste the bread, shoestring potatoes, and decadently sweet desserts.

Middleton Place Restaurant

Description: Traditional Lowcountry fare in a historical plantation setting.

Moe's Southwest Grill

Description: Moe’s Southwest Grill is the modern-day Taco Bell — but so, so much better. The updated Southwestern dishes offer much more variety and nutritional value, and the movie-themed dining room is more entertaining, but at the core, they share the same philosophy: people will eat cheap Mexican food until they are stuffed and the owners are rich. Moe’s went from one location to four in a flash, so we’d say the idea works.

Nirlep Indian Restaurant

Description: Authentic Indian cuisine.

Normandy Farm Artisan Bakery

Description: Breakfast and Lunch Bagel Nation is the biggest heartbreak of the no-carb diet revolution. The damn things are just great, and the sandwich combos offer a variety of options for fattening-but-fun bagel concoctions. From the savory "everything" with onions, garlic, rye, and sesame seeds, to the candy-like "Frazzle," which is encrusted with coarse sugar and cinnamon, these huge, chewy carb-bombs always satisfy — no matter how far we’ll have to jog to burn them off.

Olympik Restaurant and Bakery

Description: Greek and Med. cuisine — dosas, kebabs, and gyros.

Patrick's Pub

Description: A "community pub" and dance club in West Ashley featuring weekly karaoke, movie nights, drag shows, and occasional live music.

Penachio's Seafood & Italian

Red Orchids

Description: Lunch and Dinner Red Orchids serves up good ol’ Chinese favorites in a dining room that makes you feel like you’ve actually gone out to dinner. The food is dependably good, with all the takeout standbys we like best mixed in with some interesting dishes. They are all prepared a notch above typical Chinese restaurant quality, which matches the room well without making you feel like you’ve taken on a big dinner out.

Rococo German Bakery

Description: German specialties, artisan breads, cakes, tortes, and pastries.

Señor Tequila

Description: Authentic Mexican cuisine.

Sunfire Grill & Bistro

Description: Steak and seafood café featuring casual gourmet.

Taste of India

Description: Lunch and Dinner Tucked away in a nondescript brown building a few yards from the Coburg Cow sits the Lowcountry’s best passport to Northern India. Taste of India’s freshly-prepared daily lunch buffet (it offers menu service at both meals) can serve as a wonderful introduction to curries, biryanies, mutters, and nans (breads) for Indian cuisine neophytes. Brunch on Sundays features some Southern Indian specialties, too, like the potato-filled pancake dosa, made from scratch right in front of you. Several international and domestic beers are served, if the mango lhasa isn’t enough to put you into a Ghandi-like trance.

TBonz

Description: Steaks, potatoes and cold beer.

Trayce's First String

Description: This modern, multi-purpose sports bar and game room recently celebrated its first anniversary. On the fancier end of sports bars, Trayce’s features a roomy, sparkling main bar room of stainless steel and glass with high tables, plenty of elbow room at the tidy bar, comfortable benches, and an adjacent fun room filled with old and new-style games. Three large plasma TVs and in front of a sizeable aquarium, glass shelved filled with athletic figurines and paraphernalia. Six pool tables ($1 a game), air hockey, shuffleboard, two dart lanes, Golden Tee, Turkey Hunting (video), megatouch Trivia, Galaga, Ms. PacMan, etc … live music five nights a week in the front foyer by the projected TV screen. Eight beers on tap.

Triangle Char and Bar

Voodoo

Description: This "snazzy on the cheap" restaurant and bar in West Ashley has captured camp and whimsy in equal measure. The red walls, thrift-store style furniture, and gold lamé curtains give patrons a "to hell with it, give me a Singapore Sling," kind of attitude. That’s perfect, because there’s a long list of tropical drinks, complete with three different kinds of liquor, fancy glasses, umbrellas, and even flames. The menu is casual but exotic enough to be interesting with great duck tacos, tasty hummus, and a pupu platter that is lots of fun, with a little grill in the middle to heat up your chicken kabobs. Be careful, though — one good cocktail from the picture menu may make your situation a little dangerous.

Wally Gator's

Description: A loud and boisterous spot where West Ashley celebrates the end of a work day. Located in the far end of the Olde Town center on Savannah Highway, this cool old tavern gets things going during happy hour and stays good ’n’ rowdy through the night. Wally Gator’s attracts a wide range of customers, both young and old, but keeps a working class vibe from week to week. Open from lunch ‘til 2 a.m. everyday, happy hour offers cheap domestics pulled from an antique ice chest "centerpiece" behind the horseshoe-shaped bar, curse words and laughter fly in every direction, 8 TV’s in the dining room, 8 TV’s in the bar area, 8 beers on tap, greasy menus featuring various wings and fried fare, one widescreen TV, two pool tables, two video poker games, Golden Tee, weekly backgammon and dominos nights, live music every week.

West Ashley Bait & Tackle

Description: Opened in late-2005 by co-owners T. Andrew Hollowell and Yates Dew (formerly of the Music Farm), this new neighborhood hangout really picks up where the old neighborhood hangout left off … but with more live bluegrass throughout the week. Located near the corner of Magnolia Road and Highway 61, the building with the turquoise exterior is doing great — a feat that original owner, the late C.W. "Smitty" Smith, would have been proud of.

West Wings

Description: Wings and sports plus nachos, sandwiches, wraps, and burgers.

Ye Olde Fashioned