Charleston Eats: Nimbo Pizza

A new pizza place near MUSC opened up yesterday, owned by the same people that own Halo. It adds some much needed variety to the eating scene near the hospital that’s also within a reasonable walking distance.

Just down the block from Halo is Nimbo Pizza (not much of a website yet, but they only just opened). It’s got a fun space theme going on inside the place, with framed NASA Space Tourism posters and other sci-fi movie posters hung on the walls.

Nimbo Pizza space wall
Nimbo Pizza space wall
Nimbo Pizza posters
Nimbo Pizza posters
Nimbo Pizza posters
Nimbo Pizza posters
Nimbo Pizza sticker pole
Nimbo Pizza sticker pole

There’s a pretty extensive menu of pizzas, sandwiches and salads with creative space names like the Interstellar Italian, Total Eclipse of the Parm, Meaty Meteor, Mars Margherita and the like. You can see them all on a couple of very colourful chalkboards above the ordering counter.

Nimbo Pizza menu board
Nimbo Pizza menu board
Nimbo Pizza menu board
Nimbo Pizza menu board

I went for the 10″ Meaty Meteor pizza today. Pretty good pizza. Thin, crispy crust that’s not too floppy and not too chewy.

Nimbo Pizza Meaty Meteor
Nimbo Pizza Meaty Meteor

Half of it made for a decent sized lunch portion, although I could have easily finished off the whole thing. Didn’t want to have to fight off a food coma while sitting at my desk for the rest of the afternoon though.

Good pizza and a nice short walk from work. If you’re on a tight schedule, you can call in an order so that it will be ready when  you get there. There’s also an option on the website to put in an order online too.

Will definitely be going back on those days when I don’t feel like cafeteria food.

Charleston Eats: Lotus Vietnamese Cuisine

Pho Bo from Lotus Vietnamese Cuisine in Park Circle.

Pho Bo
Pho Bo

A nice beef broth with rice noodles and thin slices of sirloin. Could have  used some more noodles though.

If it wasn’t for the cilantro in the broth, it would have been excellent. Those of you who actually enjoy the taste of cilantro would probably like this a lot.

Charleston Eats: 843 Korean BBQ & Sushi House

843 Korean BBQ & Sushi House has been open for a little bit under a year now, and today we got around to trying it out.

There was a bit of a wait to get into the Korean BBQ side of the restaurant, but not too long.

This was the first Korean restaurant I’ve seen in the Charleston area with grills in the table since Kim’s in West Ashley (although by the time I had started going there in the early-mid 2000s, they weren’t being used anymore).

Having a grill in the table and cooking your own food there is definitely an experience.

Grill surface
Grill surface in the middle of the table

They offer an all-you-can-eat option which comes out just marginally less expensive than ordering off the menu. Everyone at the table has to order it though and there ends up being a whole lot of food. Something to consider if you’re in a group with big appetites.

The japchae came out first, Delicious combination of rice noodles, zucchini, carrots, green onions flavoured nicely with sesame oil. Very tasty.

Japchae
Japchae

Then the Korean BBQ came out all at once: bulgogi, chicken, pork belly, and the banchan

Korean BBQ
Korean BBQ

The waiter fired up the grill for us, and we placed the meat onto the hot surface. Everything is thinly sliced, so the cooking only takes a couple of minutes on each side. You can make lettuce wraps with everything if you choose, or just eat. The bulgogi was the winner for both of us.

Banchan was yummy, with several different kinds of kimchi and this odd dish of peanuts and small fish.

Peanuts and fish
Peanuts and fish

Wasn’t a big fan of this one.

Overall, 843 Korean is definitely worth a visit. Can be a bit on the spendy side, but very delicious and fun. Definitely will be going back again.

Trying out Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee

During the stop at Falmouth, Jamaica on our cruise last month, I picked up a couple pounds of Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee. It has a reputation for being one of the best coffees in the world, and also pretty pricey. At $88.10/kg ($40/lb), it’s probably the most expensive coffee I’ve purchased so far. Not sure how much it would be purchased in the US though. Next time I’m out wandering around, I’ll have to look for some.

A bag of Jamaica Blue Mountain coffee beans
A bag of Jamaica Blue Mountain coffee beans

Inside the burlap bag, the coffee beans were encased in a sealed gold foil pouch. The beans themselves don’t look too unusual, and have a nice roasted coffee aroma to them.

Jamaica Blue Mountain coffee beans
Jamaica Blue Mountain coffee beans

Put a few scoops into my grinder (a Hario hand grinder) set to a medium-ish grind.

Ground Jamaica Blue Mountain beans
Ground Jamaica Blue Mountain beans

First thing I noticed was that these beans had quite a bit less chaff than other beans I’ve ground. Nice aroma of freshly ground beans. Into the Aeropress they went.

Ready to brew in the Aeropress
Ready to brew in the Aeropress

My regular Aeropress method is inverted, add water (just off the boil) to the top, stir, 60-90s brew time, press.

Brewed coffee
Brewed coffee

Normally I press into a mug that has a bit of chocolate milk in it (heated up in the microwave first). For this first brew, I went straight up black, so I just topped off the mug with hot water.

Brewed coffee ready for drinking
Brewed coffee ready for drinking

I’m far from a coffee snob and my coffee palate isn’t very refined so I can’t offer any tasting notes or anything like that. I can say that I ended up with a very nice, mild and tasty mug of coffee without much of the bitterness or strange after taste I get with some other coffees.

Maybe later I’ll try some taste testing to compare with some other coffees that I usually drink.

Quickie breakfast: Breakfast burrito

The inspiration for this came from a post on Imgur for a breakfast burrito.  Make a bunch of burritos, individually wrap them in parchment paper and freeze.

I thought it was a pretty good idea, so I experimented with a small batch this evening. With most burritos you see in restaurants, the idea seems to be “wrap a tortilla around as much stuff as possible”, but since the eventual goal is for something that’s quick to heat and eat in the morning, I made mine smaller.

  • 4 eggs, scrambled
  • 3 sausage links (mild Italian was all I had on hand, so I used those)
  • cheddar cheese, grated
  • ~12″ tortillas (slightly smaller ones would work just as well)

I let the burrito fillings cool down in the fridge for about 15 minutes. I figured the tortilla would probably end up getting soggy and mushy after being wrapped around hot steamy filling.

Place a few spoonfuls of each item on the lower part of the tortilla. Fold the left and right sides in, and roll up from the bottom (you can head over to Chipotle or somewhere like that to watch how they stuff/fold/roll burritos).

This was enough to make about 6 small hand sized burritos each large enough to fit into a sandwich bag. 30 seconds in the microwave was enough to warm these burritos up and get the cheese melty. I didn’t wrap or freeze any of these. Next iteration I’ll make a larger batch of everything and wrap/freeze those.

Simple, not a lot of ingredients to prepare. Future versions will be different, using whatever I happen to have on hand. Once we’re settled in the new house, I could see myself making a batch of a couple dozen of these at a time and stashing them in the freezer to eat whenever we need.