(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The Augusta Press.)
EDGEFIELD, S.C. – In my imagination, I’d be dining al fresco on a white-painted farm porch, candles lit while meadow grasses and wildflowers gently waved in the breeze.
Very pretty, but the reality is just as farm fresh and a little more elegant. Christine’s Farm to Fork sits on downtown Edgefield’s Main Street, just past its square. It’s a brick storefront—a former bank—and the old drive through is home to Christine’s Patio, where music is often played on weekend nights.
On this Saturday, Christine wasn’t at the restaurant and music wasn’t planned, but my family and I—there to celebrate my brother’s birthday—were happy to sit inside the pretty restaurant with its dark wood accents, light walls with vibrant paintings, and white-cloth-covered tables. There’s a long, pale-wood bar and a fireplace featuring a seating area with zebra-fabric sofas that my daughter immediately wanted to climb on.
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The birthday boy wanted the soup of the day, a shrimp and sausage gumbo, along with Christine’s crab cakes—but everyone else must have too, because sadly, they were already sold out.
There was a lot more to select from though. Specials that day included a duck fried rice—with some of my favorite words, duck and fried rice—and a blackened salmon with another favorite word, risotto. Vegetable specials were Japanese eggplant French fries, bell pepper stuffed with ratatouille, and stuffed jalapeno poppers.
The main menu includes an array of appetizers, such as an Asian-style chicken topped with wasabi and sesame seeds, ahi tuna with seaweed salad, or fried squash with remoulade sauce. Along with the soup of the day, there are four salad options: house, Greek, spinach, and beet and walnut. Three prime cuts of steak are offered in the form of filet mignon, New York strip or ribeye. Entrees feature a balance of 10 seafood and meat options, including a pork chop, shrimp and grits, fresh fish of the day, chicken marsala, and a shrimp Christine; most come with a side, but a generous list of sides, such as cream spinach or mac and cheese, can also be added.
Specialty cocktails and a list of wines rounded out the menus.
Although there is a kids menu with chicken tenders, grilled cheese or noodles, my daughter adamantly wanted the salmon; I knew I had to jump at the chance to try the duck fried rice; and my husband, Sean, chose a beef he thought my daughter would also enjoy, the Korean barbeque beef. I could have predicted it, but my brothers both ordered the shrimp and grits, and my sister-in-law joined Sean in choosing the Korean beef.
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Our sweet waitress visited our table regularly to check on us, answer questions and offer suggestions too while we were perusing the menu—for example, she jumped in when she overheard us discussing the difference between the on-menu salmon and the special. Then, after we’d ordered, she slid a couple baskets of fat biscuits onto the table, with two condiments: “This one is a strawberry butter and this is an apple butter,” she explained.
My daughter immediately began spreading the strawberry butter onto her biscuit as though it were frosting, and I was tempted to join her; it was sweet and fresh and packed with strawberry flavor, almost like a buttercream icing. The apple butter was fine, but perhaps a bit cinnamony for our tastes.
We’d also ordered a baby spinach salad to share since our meals didn’t come with many veggies, and I handed my daughter an apple from home to snack on too (she preferred more strawberry butter). The salad was a study in sharp flavors, with the spinach and quartered yellow tomatoes serving as a mere base. Each bite was different; in one, I might get earthy blue cheese; a tart balsamic vinegar that almost brought tears to my eyes; chewy browned bacon; toasted walnuts; or crisp onion that was almost hot in flavor.
The entrees were a bit mixed. Sadly, the Korean beef was incredibly salty. It was perhaps meant to be eaten with the appropriately bland glass noodles, but those were a bit overcooked.
But I loved the duck fried rice. It was a classic fried rice with a twist: bits of tangerine peel and a sauce gave lovely bitter and sweet notes to the soy-sauce-based rice. Then there was the duck, beautiful large pieces of the dark meat that were cooked just right.
My daughter’s salmon, however, was the star: It was perfectly tender and delicately seasoned so it wasn’t too spicy for her palate, and paired with a creamy parmesan risotto where you could taste notes of what I guessed was white wine. She ate heartily, and my husband and I snuck bites when we could.
We were a bit giddy after that, and decided to order three desserts too. The apple cobbler and the bread pudding were a bit too similar in texture and a bit bland—note too that it’s an extra $2 to add a scoop of ice cream. The best was, once again, my daughter’s: a creamy classic cheesecake that was sweet but not too sweet, striped with a blackberry sauce and plump tart fresh blackberries.
Christine’s may be a bit of a drive from Augusta, but overall, I liked its real farm-to-table vibe and the fact that it’s a local restaurant run by a local family. Then, as we walked out under the stars, a cloud of little birds circled again and again, high in the sky above us. It was a perfect way to end the night—and even better than what I imagined.
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Make Your Reservation
Christine’s Farm to Fork
206 Main St., Edgefield
christinesfarmtofork.com
Entrée cost: $18 to 48
Danielle Wong Moores is a local freelance writer who’ll never turn down a shrimp cocktail, sushi or cheese dip. Her greatest food influences are her mom and writers MFK Fisher and Amanda Hesser. Her Dine and Dish column runs the second and fourth Fridays in The Augusta Press.
