We’re just over a week away from this year’s Capital Cocktail Classic, a tapas-and-drink pub crawl that is welcoming a new restaurant into the fold this year.
The popular annual fundraiser for Fund for the Arts lets ticketed guests enjoy special food and cocktail pairings at four downtown Charleston restaurants and bars during a three-hour stroll. Then, for a fun twist, they get to vote for their favorite dish and drink of the night.
New to this year’s lineup is Fife Street Brewing on Summers Street, which will join Capitol Street hotspots DT Prime, Ichiban/Bar 101 and Sam’s Uptown Café during the event from 4-7 p.m. next Saturday, Oct. 5.
I got to enjoy a special preview tasting of Fife Street’s pairing this year, which includes a delightful dish that is going to knock your socks off.
That would be the Fife Wedge Salad with intensely flavored blistered tomatoes, salty and crispy bits of Iberico guanciale, tart pickled onions and chunks of savory seasoned filet mignon bathed in the brewery’s house gorgonzola dressing.
That little gem will be paired with a Blood Orange Mule featuring their blood orange weissbier (wheat beer) mixed with vodka, ginger beer, lime and orange.
DT Prime returns with a Poke Tuna Watermelon Cube topped with toasted almonds on a bed of wakame seaweed. You’ll wash that down with a Watermelon Bourbon Cooler spiked with bourbon fresh lime juice, fresh watermelon juice, watermelon purée, Aperol and soda.
Ichiban/Bar 101 are teaming up with “Loaded Takeout” Eggrolls stuffed with house-made fried rice, Sapporo beer cheese and General Tso chicken with a sesame sweet chili dipping sauce. (I didn’t get to try these, but Fund for the Arts Executive Director Sarah Wright told me she could eat them all day, every day, and be a happy woman!)
A Razz Yuzu Chill made with vodka, saki, triple sec, yuzu, raspberry purée and a raspberry garnish will be served alongside.
Finally, Sam’s Uptown Café will serve up a Garlic and Parmesan-Crusted Crab Cake Slider with spicy guacamole, seasoned mayo, creole coleslaw and Japanese BBQ sauce, which will be paired with a drink made with Indigo gin, lavender syrup and lemon juice that they’re calling The Phoenix.
Early bird tickets for this year’s Capital Cocktail Classic are available for $50 through this Saturday and then increase to $60 until the day of the event, while supplies last. They may be purchased at https://bit.ly/4gbEvaQ. Proceeds from the event support the organization’s 11 member art groups throughout the Kanawha Valley.
Cagney's Cajun Chicken Pasta: The Dish that Will Never Die
Back by popular demand, here’s even more chatter about what is hands down the most reader-requested recipe I’ve ever seen: the former Cagney’s almighty Cajun Chicken Pasta.
Keep in mind this restaurant closed a couple of decades ago, but just the mere mention of it again last week stirred up a flurry of comments from readers wanting to share their memories of the beloved dish, tell me how they’ve tweaked it at home through the years or request that I send the original recipe their way once again.
“Mr. Keith, I always enjoy your articles, as I did with the most recent one concerning Graziano’s,” wrote Eddie Workman. “I work downtown and we all are glad they have decided to continue serving that great pizza. But in that same article you also mention one of my favorite dishes ever, Cagney’s Cajun Chicken Pasta, and the fact that you tracked it down and printed it in a 2016 column.”
He went on to tell me that he had saved that recipe for years, but recently lost it during a move.
“Is there any way you can dig that out and either email it to me or republish it? I miss it dearly and would greatly appreciate it.”
You got it, Eddie, it’s in your inbox! (And for all of you others who asked, I emailed it to you as well.) But he didn’t stop with just that one request.
“Another favorite was the Tomato Bisque recipe from the Blossom. It was also published in the newspaper and it was lost in the same move. If there is anyway it can be made available to me again, I will owe you forever. I have worked downtown for 35 years, so there have been lots of lunchtime favorites.”
And to round out his top three of all time: “I would add the white rice dish served at the long-ago-closed Delish on McFarland Street. It was a vegetable stir-fry (add chicken) with the BEST SAUCE EVER. I don’t know if there is any chance of tracking that one down somewhere, but it would be a worthy task if successful. But thanks for all you do. Keep up the good work.”
I don’t have either of those last two recipes, but Eddie’s request brought back fond memories of my 11 years working in the newsroom full time back from 1991-2002.
Delish was located only a half-block away from our office on Virginia Street, and I’m not exaggerating when I said we ordered takeout from there a minimum of three or four days a week. Sounds obsessive, I know, but it really was that good.
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Steven Keith is a food writer and restaurant critic known as “The Food Guy” who writes a weekly column for the Charleston Gazette-Mail and has appeared in several state, regional and national culinary publications. Follow him online at www.wvfoodguy.com or on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest. He can be reached at 304-380-6096 or at wvfoodguy@aol.com.