The Times says: Go to Charleston, diners

New York Times reviewer Sam Sifton has always had an uncommon respect for the food of our Southland. When the Panthers were in the Super Bowl (seems so long ago now, doesn't it?), then-food editor Sifty was one of the few journalists who called me about Carolina food who had looked beyond the usual it's-all-barbecue cliches. He called about chicken bog -- how many people outside the Carolinas have ever even heard of it?

So I'm happy to see his report on a dining visit to Charleston: "Charleston, with fewer than 125,000 residents, is one of the great eating towns of the American South, on par with New Orleans for quality if nowhere near it for size or variety." Hear, hear, Mr. Sifton. I'll raise a julep cup to that.

For his review, he went specifically to look at the work of Sean Brock at the new restaurant Husk, and looked in at Brock's other post, McCrady's. I've been to McCrady's, where Brock was originally playing with applying molecular gastronomy to Southern ingredients, turning out things like nitrogen-frozen peanut ice cream and country ham cotton candy. At Huck, he's settled down but gone all-Southern and all-local, with a lot of ingredients grown on his own farm.

If you're heading down toward Charleston for the spring, take a look at Sifton's piece. Really, you'd have to work at it to find a bad meal in Charleston these days.