I set my alarm last night for 8:00 a.m. so I could get in an early run/workout prior to our food crawl extravaganza down at Soda City today. I was surprised that I actually woke up prior to the alarm being that I was up until 1:00 a.m. binge watching “The Killing” on Netflix. If you’ve never seen it I recommend you do.

I got in my 3 miles, pumped some iron, relaxed in the massage chair for 10 minutes (one of the perks of being a Black Card Member at Planet Fitness) and then headed home to wait for Kelly to pick me up so we could head downtown.

Now, I’ve been to Soda City many times but I’ve never eaten my way through it like today. Some of you are probably thinking “What is Soda City?” It is an open air market in downtown Columbia on Saturday’s that stretches about 4 blocks down main street. There are a ton of food vendors as well as artisans selling their wares. It is a must if you are in the downtown area on a Saturday between 9 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.. And if you are a dog owner feel free to bring them along. There were 1/2 as many dogs as there were people.

Of course being a Kirby, the first priority was to find coffee! I went with the tried and true, one of my favorites, a cup from Curiosity Coffee Bar.

Now being Kelly wanted coffee with a flavor profile we walked over to Drip on Main. She was kinda disappointed being the coffee was lukewarm before she even added any cream to it. I was suprised being I have had their coffee before and it was very good. Their baked goods, even though we didn’t eat any this time are delicious, especially the scones.

With coffee in hand we began to crawl but before any food caught my eye a jewelry vendor called The Indigo Bee Co. did. I have been looking for a bracelet for a while now but nothing has excited me. I really like to support local artisans whenever I can, especially because my Donna is a local artist herself. Be sure to check out her page on instagram, it’s listed under her business name Evergreen Mosaic. Plug…plug… 😉 Back to the bracelet. I tried it on but it was a little too big, so the artist, Emily Brereton, told me if I’d be around for a bit she could make me another one a little smaller. Talk about good customer service! She sized my wrist and I told her I’d be back. 3 food trucks and 2 coffee shops later we returned. The new bracelet fit perfect and at only $15 it was at great buy!

Now for the food! Soda City is like a mecca for food trucks. A one stop shop if you will. From Tex-Mex to Venezuelan, there is a food truck for you.

Now we didn’t actually eat here but I wanted to shout it out due to it being just so damn cool. The Grand just opened December of last year and I can’t wait to eat & play there. The reason why I say play is because they have a 7 lane bowling alley, lounge area for playing board games, indoor shuffleboard as well as an outdoor space with a bocce court. Is is referred to as a “boutique” bowling alley, bar and restaurant. We’d like to bring Yuri being she loves to bowl.

The first stop on our crawl was The Belgian Waffle Truck.

Kelly got a sweet waffle with a strawberry compote and whip cream. Unfortunately, the whip cream tasted like it came from a can. The compote was good though.

I went with the breakfast sandwich, which is an egg, sausage patty, and gravy on waffles. The sausage tasted like it was a store bought frozen patty but the gravy was quite good. Overall it was tasty sandwich.

Next stop The Wurst Wagon. Now Donna would have appreciated this food cart. If you closed your eyes and inhaled, you would swear you were in NY standing in front of a Sabrett dirty water dog stand. We actually closed them down being we took their last 2 sausages. There was a snap when you bit through the sausage casing, so we knew they were home made. It came with a side of potato salad and sauerkraut. We loved the potato salad! It was vinegar based and had dill in it, which Kelly was particularly impressed with. It kind of reminded me of a german potato salad. The sauerkraut was delish too. We both gave The Wurst Wagon 2 big thumbs up!

Now for something sweet. What to pick, so many choices. You can never go wrong with donuts right? Next stop, The Donut Guy”. Kelly picked the maple bacon mini donuts and got herself an iced coffee. The donuts were light and airy, kind of reminded me of a zeppoli but I just wish the bacon was more incorporated into the donut instead of just being sprinkled on the top. Being the glaze was very thin the bacon couldn’t really adhere to the Donut and just collected at the bottom of the tray. All in all it was good but I felt the flavors didn’t really explode in my mouth when I took a bite.

Even though our dad wasn’t with us today Kelly made sure he could reap the rewards of our crawl. Being our dad is a good ole’ southern boy we got him some yellow stone ground grits compliments of The Congaree Milling Co. Kelly said dad likes yellow grits better than white so yellow it was.

Now dad has a huge sweet tooth so we knew we had to get him a dessert too. Dad’s rule of thumb is if it’s heavy (weighs alot) the dessert is good. Kelly picked out a blackberry pie compliments of Divine Pies Bakery. I picked it up first to make sure it lived up to dad’s standards, it did, so we got it. I will have to get back to you on the taste because I didn’t try it but it sure did look divine!

One last thing that was a must to add to the list bring home to dad were boiled peanuts. I happen to like them and Donna can’t seem to understand why. She’ll say to me “Do you really like those or are you just trying to impress your dad?” Yes Donna, I really like those, along with collards, pork rinds and hash.

This has been the most interesting crawl so far being we got to sample food from several different vendors. Beautiful weather, day off from work, yummy foods and spending the morning with my big sis….life is good my friends 🙂