Last time I reviewed a West Columbia upstart, the place went out of business. It wasn’t my fault: I’d been gentle — I dare say overly so — but mediocrity is what it is, and anyway the proprietors of that now-defunct mistake seemed to be playing restaurant rather than running one.
I won’t elaborate on the blogospheric beating I took at the hands of that café’s chef after his kitchen went belly-up. I’ll admit freely, however, that upon entering a newer West Cola eatery, @116 State, and seeing the mishmash of tables and chairs in the modest dining room — then studying the menu, which struck me as perhaps too ambitious — my initial thought was, “Oh no, not again.”
How delightful to be proven wrong.
@116 is housed in a narrow space formerly occupied by a counter-service coffee shop, and while the rear of the place has since been transformed to include a pleasantly appointed bar, little else of the overall appearance has changed since the last tenants cleared out.
And yet this is an actual, honest-to-goodness, wait staff-and-specials restaurant, not a glorified espresso stand. The menu features a range of reasonably priced tapas dishes, as well as soups, salads and pizzas. Several wines are available by the bottle or the glass, and while you won’t find anything in the way of draft beer, the bottle list is sufficient. @116 also boasts a White Russian bar, which I’ll get to in due time, though first we ought to eat something.
Mrs. Trencherman and I ordered just two tapas items — the Chorizo Potato Croquettes ($6) and the Empanada of the Day ($7) — then shared a flatbread pizza. We probably should have tried a soup and/or salad as well, but faced with the modern American tapas dilemma — “How much is too much?” vs. “How much is enough?” — we played it safe. That’s not to say we left hungry, only that we might have enjoyed ourselves more, perhaps sharing the Smoked Tomato Bisque, which I suspect is quite a good deal at $5 a bowl.
But anyway — next time.
Contrary to the menu description, the chorizo of the Chorizo Potato Croquette was not integrated into the croquettes themselves but sat alongside them. No matter: the four hushpuppy-sized potato fritters were delicate and fluffy inside, perfectly crisp out, and worked well with either the saffron aioli or the raisin-y sweet “tomato jam,” which struck me as really closer to a chutney. The chorizo, so you know, was plenty piquant and thoroughly satisfying by itself.
Unlike the reasonably sized croquettes, the empanadas are enormous and come two to a plate. The night we visited they were stuffed to the crimp with flaky chunks of amberjack, black beans, corn and perhaps a smidge of cumin. The overall flavor was mild, but the enveloping pastry nicely complemented the accompanying Minted Sour Cream. Mrs. T., being something of an empañada devotee and likely the better judge, was impressed. I’m inclined to try them again, though maybe with a livelier filling.
But then came the pizza, which, alongside everything else, made the case for a bigger table. The Chef’s Pie ($8) features goat cheese, smoked provolone, Serrano ham, pepperoni and garlic. Like the other pies, one of which (Clem’s Pie; $7) is built almost entirely around the oft-misunderstood anchovy, the Chef’s Pie is exceptionally thin and crispy. It also comes sauced with Romesco rather than tomato sauce — and this to a brightly sweet, “Would it be piggish of me to order another?” effect.
I didn’t double down, but only because we still needed to try the White Russians.
Now an entire drink list devoted to variations on the Caucasian might seem a tad, well, indulgent, but as desserts go, you could do worse than a little vodka, Kahlua and cream. So it was I sampled the Colorado Bulldog ($5), which tops the aforementioned spirits, etc., with an ample spritz of cola, cutting the dairy thickness enough that you could realistically drink two of these things and not disgust yourself.
Mrs. T., for her part, ordered something frou-frou off the specialty cocktail list. The Tiramisu Tini ($6) combined liqueurs I don’t even remember with drizzles of chocolate in a chilled martini glass. Her pleasure upon the arrival of this long-stemmed concoction did surprise me, as she typically prefers sturdy beers and complicated wines to sugary nonsense, but what can I say? @116 State defied both our expectations, and made us rethink a few possibilities.