Foodie for a week… sort of

This last week, I visited Beckley, West Virginia while on a business trip with my supervisor. On such trips, away from the comforts of home, it is easy to pig out on fast food and familiar national chains. My supervisor is much more into healthier eating and living, so she did not want to do that. So we decided to make it a challenge: try to avoid either kind of restaurant for all of our meals, Monday through Thursday. This basically left the “local cuisine” of Raleigh County. It hardly makes us either one of us a foodie, but I am happy to say we managed to succeed:

Monday lunch: Western Sizzlin (buffet)

Monday dinner: Calacino’s (brick-oven pizza)

Tuesday lunch: Pasquale’s (italian)

Tuesday dinner: Dobra Zupas (greek, among other things)

Wednesday lunch: Tamarack (short-order cook style food court)

Wednesday dinner: Secret Sandwich Society (sandwiches, duh)

Thursday lunch: Sam’s Hot Dog Stand (hot dogs, duh)

Thursday dinner: 3-0-4 Chophouse (finer dining)

There were a couple cheats, as Western Sizzlin is something of a chain, and my supervisor went to Subway for a salad when I went to the hot dog stand. But I’m still satisfied with the results of our challenge.

Verdict on the food? All of the lunch places were a bit underwhelming, although Tamarack’s food, judged on a food-court curve was really good and worth it. I loved Calacino’s pepperoni rolls and their pizza was decent but the service was rather slow and it reminded me of what pizza places near UF felt like. Dobra Zupas was very good as I had not had a pita wrap in quite a long time and the place was nice. SSS was good, won points for making most of their stuff locally and being creative with the dishes, and the place had a nice vibe, but the long drive negated those advantages. 3-0-4 was probably the nicest overall meal but fancier than I typically care for (and if I had to guess was the place people in Beckley took their clients or dates in order to impress them).