The two of us and Mary's friend Xander went to delightful Cru Café in Charleston upon advice from our very helpful concierge at the John Rutledge.

Located in a small house near the historic market, it has about a dozen tables and is reportedly always packed so reservations are a must.

Executive Chef and owner John Zucker is a Cordon Bleu graduate and trained with Wolfgang Puck at Spago in Las Vegas. His menu is eclectic - what he calls gourmet comfort food. Lunch consists of a variety of sandwiches, salads, and soups while dinner adds pasta, beef, poultry, and seafood entrees.

Prices are incredibly reasonable for this caliber of cuisine with all the sandwiches under $10 and the most of the dinner entrees hovering within a buck or two of $20.

Sitting in a blessedly nicely air conditioned old house, we had a sweet and tart cold cucumber soup, creamy four cheese mac n' cheese, a shrimp BLT with thick strips of bacon, chimichangas with two salsas and a Black Forest ham sandwich on a well dressed baguette. We were thoroughly pleased with all of it, and Xander, who was brought up in a family of serious cooks, intends to return and soon seeing as how he lives there now and all. We wish we would go with him.