About a
week after returning from our Florida trip, Laurie’s sister Bonnie and her
husband Bill came to visit us in East Tennessee. We only spent one day at home before hitting
the road to the Atlantic coast. Our
goals were Charleston South Carolina and Carolina Beach North Carolina…
I don’t
usually miss my turns as badly as I did this time… I wasn’t paying attention
and once we crossed over the Smoky Mountains, I ended up continuing on I-40
instead of turning south on I-26 toward Charleston. When I realized my mistake, I looked at the
map and decided that I’d cut back over to I-26 via US Hwy. 74 and US Hwy. 64.
I hate
retracing our route and I usually look for a new way to go… In this case, my
choice of routes was fortuitous. So it
was off to Chimney Rock and Hendersonville North Carolina via the ‘back roads’.
It was
a very pretty and interesting drive… In addition, we discovered the ‘apple
country’ in the highlands of North Carolina.
There were orchards everywhere…with most accompanied by related cider
mills and retail outlets. Since we were
just beginning our adventure, we really couldn’t take advantage of our ‘discovery’,
but we made a mental note to make a special trip in September of 2016!
North
Carolina is ranked 7th among apple producing states. Henderson County accounts for about 85% of
the total crop for the state. What I didn’t
realize is that the State of Washington accounts for almost 64% of the US total
production. New York is second with
almost 10% and Michigan produces just a little over 5%. (Being from Michigan
originally, I was surprised at the numbers!)
I’d
done some research in an effort to find potential luncheon stops along our
route to Charleston. I’d expected to
stop a bit further along the route but my ‘detour’ caused us to end up around Columbia
South Carolina when it was time to stop…
I had
selected one possibility near the Interstate at Columbia. This is Real Mexico…’M x can’ estaurant. Despite the sign and the
building looking like a former convenience store, the parking lot was packed!
The
interior of Real Mexico was very casual, colorful and hectic! There was a lot going on…with lots of
business lunches and families too. A
crowd like this usually means one or two things… inexpensive food and/or top
notch quality food.
As is
the norm for most Mexican Restaurants, our waitress brought us a couple of
baskets of corn chips and salsa. The
chips were fairly ordinary but we all liked the salsa…not boring, but not too
spicy either.
Bonnie
went with the Pork Carnitas… Can you spell excellent!?
I
should have taken a photo of the menu so I could talk about the variety of
offerings at Real Mexico. The variety of
Mexican dishes at Real Mexico far surpasses what one normally sees in the ‘usual’
Mexican restaurant. The menus from this
restaurant that are posted on-line on the various review sites don’t include
this offering.
Bill
ordered the Chipotle Chicken Burrito. As
you can see, it was completely stuffed with chicken. Bill gave his lunch 2 thumbs up!
I
ordered the Fish Tacos plate… Beautiful and very good indeed! Of course I added a bit of heat before I
devoured my lunch…but that’s standard operating procedure for me.
When I
wrote this posting, I went on the Internet to see what others have thought
about this restaurant. First of all, all
major review sites have rated Real Mexico at 4 + “Stars”. If you combine the Excellent and Very Good vs.
the Poor or Terrible reviews from Trip Advisor and Yelp, the total positive
reviews total 302…and the negative reviews total only 11!
Laurie
loves quesadillas so she ordered this chicken, mushroom and bacon version. She loved it!
Good
food…far better than the typical Mexican fare…combined with really reasonable,
(actually budget), prices, equal a ‘real’ winner at Real Mexico! Our food bill for 4 of us only totaled $24.45!
Real
Mexico Restaurant is located just a short drive off of I-26 at 2421 Bush River
Drive in Columbia South Carolina. Phone:
803-750-8990. This restaurant doesn’t appear
to have a website. To read other reviews
about Real Mexico, just go to http://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g54184-d3923545-Reviews-Real_Mexico_Restaurant_Y_Tienda-Columbia_South_Carolina.html.
Just click on any of the photos to enlarge
them…
Thanks
for stopping by and having lunch with us!
Take
Care, Big Daddy Dave
I hate making driving errors like that but I believe everyone has done it. At least you saw a pretty area and had some delicious food.
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