This past weekend we had some friends in town and were looking for a great spot downtown for dinner on Saturday night.  We were thinking somewhere Upper King, and Hunter suggested going to The Grocery, where we loved our dinner last year for Lauren’s 30th birth-week.  So we made a later reservation, to make time for a lazy beach day and late lunch, and headed downtown at 8:30pm for dinner.

There are a few things I love about The Grocery: 1. The menu is always changing depending on what’s in season, and 2. The menu ranges from small plates to family style plates, so you can always find something to eat, depending on how hungry you are.

Since we had a late lunch at Hometeam, we all chose to get a few smaller plates and share them.  We got an assortment of dishes: Roasted & fried okra, sweet corn pudding, shrimp with pancetta salad, yellowfin tuna crudo, wagyu steak tartare, and crispy eggplant (plus dessert, but we’ll get there in a minute).

Dude.  The food was so good. I had the okra and yellowfin.  The bowl of okra had both roasted and fried pieces with some cheese on top.  We all knew that I’d love that dish…  The yellowfin was unlike any fish dish I’d ever had.  It had lime, peanuts, avocado, chili, cucumber and crispy rice.  Normally this combination would probably scare me, but I was feeling crazy and loved it.  When you got a little of each in a bite, it was AWESOME.  I’ll also give a shout out to the corn pudding that Hunter got — also delicious.

Although we were all pretty full, we were pumped about dessert.  Last year we got a few desserts, but easily the favorite was corn ice cream with fresh blackberries and candied bacon.   Yes, corn ice cream.  When we heard it was on the menu again, we were sold.  John and Lindsey shared it as well.

Needless to say, we’ll definitely be back within the year.  If you haven’t been yet, definitely go, order a few plates, and share with everyone!