OK...I've lived here more than 25 years and started writing reviews of the
best and worst things in this place I call home. All-in-all, Columbia is a great place
to live and not a bad place to visit. You might want to check
out the following sites to get a feel for this burg.
Oh...one more thing. I use a "hit counter" for my web page
that provides information on how visitors to this page (and my other pages) get
here. It is humbling to see that most of my visitors stumble across this page
looking for Thai food in a place called Columbia (which, in addition to
Columbia, MO, includes Columbia, SC, Columbia, SA, District of Columbia, the
neighborhood around Columbia University, etc.). So, if you are one of these lost
souls...I sincerely apologize in advance. However, you might want to read
further anyway. It's not beyond reason that something about this page will
prompt you to visit (e.g., you're driving cross-country on Interstate 70 and you
see a Columbia exit and you'll remember something you read here that will prime
you to stop for the night here rather than forge ahead to the Isle of Capri
Casino in Boonville).
For a town its size, Columbia has a large selection of restaurants and
food stores. There is a wide range of ethnic restaurants (including Thai,
Indian, Korean, Chinese, Japanese, and Middle Eastern), traditional
midwest-greasy-spoon places, and steak joints. There are also ethnic food
stores that stock imported goods that are hard to get in the mainstream
supermarkets. Below are a few of my (currently) favorite eateries.
The Close-by Lunch Places (downtown but
close to campus)
-
Addisons I really don't know why I eat there so much; I'm such a
creature of habit. They also charge Denis 25 cents for crushed red paper
which outrages all of us greatly. Still, we like the variety and friendly
service. Also, no relation to the adrenal gland disease of the
same name. As a matter of principle, eateries should not share names with
diseases. Who'd eat a place called Typhoid's or Elephantiasis's?? They
really shouldn't charge Denis for crushed red pepper . I should just get
over this indignation.
-
Bleu
a nearby place
to drink with nice atmosphere but food
is "eh" and too pricey for what you
get -Flat Branch Pub
and Brewing Now that the weather is nice again, it's
great to sit outside and eat at Flatbranch. The food is "eh" but the
atmosphere is good and every so often a handcrafted beer is nice to have.
-
Mississippi Fish Shack okay...fried, fried, fried...but the place
to go if you want fried fish, fowl or amphibians and southern style veggies
-
The Rome I eat there when I want a change of scene
from Addison's.
-Tin Can
extremely nearby place with big
menu with respect to beer and food. n.b. website is for the St. Louis
locations. The food is not that great but it is the closest place with table
service.
Favorite Barbecue Restaurants
"when in Rome"...this part of the world
is really good for barbecue...definitely check it out if your doctor says
it's ok
Chinese - House of Chow
Korean -
Kojaba Bar Korean Japanese BBQ
Japanese -
Osaka (but
Sake for lunch or drinks)
Thai -
Bangkok Gardens
Indian - Taj Mahal
Panasian - Jina Yoo's
(very pricey for dinner but lunch is
very reasonable)
Mexican -
Rio Grande
Italian - Nothing that good, sorry.
There are certainly places I regularly
frequent including
The Rome and
Bambino's but they are hard to recommend to
out-of-towners. There are also the
chains. Anyway, Columbia needs a good
Italian restaurant.
n.b. A few of the restaurants listed
above (House of Chow, Osaka, Kojaba, Jina Yoo's, Rio Grande) are in strip malls. Means
that it's less fun to go for a nice after dinner stroll from the restaurant.
For this reason, I prefer the downtown Columbia restaurants.
Big list of restaurants
My friends from both coasts think of me as stuck in the hinterlands,
devoid of culture and basic amenities. To them, St. Louis and Kansas City
are part of
the American outback and Columbia is the outback's outback. Well, it ain't
so bad and those of us who have made our home here feel pretty fondly about
the place. Although I'm always skeptical of rankings by magazines, the fact
that Columbia often pops up as a great place to live provides some
ammunition to shoot back at skeptics' assaults. In 2006,
Money magazine ranked Columbia in the top 100 "best places to live"
and
Forbes
magazine ranked Columbia at #16 in "best small places for business."
Outside magazine recently (July 2008) ranked Columbia, MO at #10 "best
places" (mainly for the bicycling I think) and as recently discussed
(2/3/09) on
CNBC,holding up reasonably well
during the current economic downturn.
For a town its size, Columbia boasts a good music scene (although many
top acts tend to perform mid-week; see music venues on left side of page).
A new musical event is
Roots and
Blues and Barbecue Festival that was inaugurated in 2007.
The 2008 (October 3
and 4) lineup included Tab Benoit, Buddy Guy, and Del McCoury to
name just a few. The 2009 Festival wil be held on September 25th and 26th. In recent years, the
True/False (Documentary) Film Festival (held in February) has become a
major cultural event for the town.
Getting to Columbia from Far Away
Columbia is a wonderful place
to live and work but convenient air travel is simply not to be had. Many members of
the community wish the university, other large employers, and the cities of
Columbia and Jefferson City would get it together and recognize how poor air
service compromises the region's cultural, intellectual, and commercial
interests. Unfortunately, they've lacked the vision and
will to be effective. In my opinion as a frequent air traveler and
resident kvetcher, the City of Columbia's
Airport Advisory Board
has failed to provide effective leadership on this persistent problem.13
As of mid-August (2008)there's once again air service to Columbia on a
Northwest affiliate via Memphis that offers flights three times a day. I've
been using it fairly regularly for flights to the east coast and the south
and it isn't too bad. Not sure
how I feel about Memphis as a hub yet though...kind of a depressing airport
and the luggage handlers don't seem very conscientious (they clearly let my
checked baggage get extremely wet when it was being transferred between
flights). Also, the gates for Columbia, MO are sometimes at the far end of one of
the terminals...it's a bit of a hike to connecting flights (or can be). Despite these minor complaints though,
it was pretty smooth and reliable and others that have used it recently
express a high level of satisfaction with the service. So far, so good. I'll
keep this updated.
Update (1/2/09): First, Happy New Year! Second, I just discovered
how quickly the last return flight of the day from MEM gets booked up; tried
to get tickets for travel dates in January and February and the last flight
of the day was booked up...making the return service unavailable for me
given my meeting schedules in DC. So, if you know you want to take this
flight, book early. Caveat aviator.
If you don't want to fly Northwest through Memphis,
your best bet is to fly to St. Louis
(STL)or Kansas City (MCI)
and either rent a car or take a ground shuttle run by a company called
MO-Xwhich
offers convenient service between the two airports and Columbia. The
distance between Columbia and STL is shorter than between the distance
between Columbia and MCI and the MO-X runs are more frequent to/from STL.
So, all other things being equal, choose STL. However, depending up the
route and carrier, flights from MCI are often less expensive so do your own due
diligence. If you get claustrophobic or bromidrophobic, hope
the van you're in isn't full; MO-X sometimes really packs them in and it can
be unpleasant. So pray for a light passenger load if taking the MO-X
shuttle. (On some occasions MO-X runs buses with much more comfortable seats
and more room.)
Places to Stay
The sad truth is, there is no great place to stay in Columbia except my
house and you probably can't get a reservation there as it books up real
quick. The good news is there are a lot of places to stay and most are
pretty reasonable even if uninspired. A few of the interesting B&Bs that I had listed
here in the past are gone although one place, Taylor
House, has reopened and, by all reports, is a great place to stay. Although I personally prefer the anonymity of
a chain, many people prefer the coziness and intimacy of a B&B and I
routinely recommend Taylor House to visitors to the community. (It is also
only a few blocks north of Casa Sher.) I also just read that another popular
Columbia B&B of yore, the
Gathering Place,
has recently reopened (July, 2008), so things are definitely looking up in the
B&B scene.
Also note that there's a very popular B&B in the nearby town of Rocheport,
the
School House B&B, that B&B aficionados are sure to enjoy. (Rocheport
also hosts the Yates House and
Amber House B&Bs.)
Radio Stations --Numerous
stations to suit a variety of musical tastes (and political and
religious bents). My three favorites are...
KBXR
KBIA KOPN
- With respect to more "small world" stuff, KOPN was founded
over 35 years ago with the support of folks like Lorenzo Milam (the "Johnny
Appleseed" of community radio) and Jeremy Lansman who founded KRAB-FM in
Seattle in the early 60's. One of my early "co-op jobs" at Antioch College
was at KRAB-FM in 1971 where I had opportunity to work for three months in
the center of the so-called KRAB Nebula. Milam's
Sex and Broadcastingserved as the bible
for developing grassroots community radio stations for many years and can
still be purchased at Amazon. Although KRAB-FM is no more, former outposts of the KRAB Nebula still thrive and KOPN is one.
Footnotes:
1Truly great distinctive pizzas (and
sandwiches aren't bad). Unfortunately, any pizza joint is a major challenge to
low-carb dieters who must carefully reflect upon what they're missing here.
2 This stalwart of downtown
Columbia is officially no more. It really is sad. For more than 15 years,
this was my favorite place to dine (and drink) in Columbia. When friends would
come in from out of town, this is where they would want to go. The fact that I
once had an item on the dessert menu named after me there is not the reason for
my enthusiastic endorsement; it's really good! Their wait staff was among
the best in town too.. The loss of the Strada Nova's bar is especially
great. No other drinking establishment in this town came close to the ambience
of the bar which was in the back...where it should be...with a rear door to slip
in and out without the hubbub of the dining crowd to pass through. This place
will be sorely missed. The closing of my alma mater, Antioch College, and
Trattoria Stada Nova in one summer was almost too much to bear. My hope is both will rise again some day.
3 Unlike less classy places like Aureole, Le
Cirque, or one of those increasing numbers of signature chef places (e.g.,
Emeril's or Puck's diasporic creations), there is a
"dog policy" there
so leave the pooch at home. A drive through the country on rural roads with the
convertible top down on a summer's day or evening is the best way to travel to
this spot on a rural stretch of the
Missouri River.
Sitting on a picnic table and watching the sun set over the Big Muddy while
eating Chim's fare is a local pleasure. However, be forewarned...it's a strange,
eclectic crowd. Also, eating outside in the summer in Missouri can be a
sweltering occasion.
4 This is a place for wings, beer, chili, etc. It warrants special
mention because dining there on any given night is a side of Columbia that I
would never see otherwise. Not good, not bad...but a parallel universe. Wings
are ok (though exalted by some).
5 Still, in my opinion, the best steak place in Columbia. Not related to CJ's
and, important, do not confuse the CiCi's...a chain pizza place. Unfortunately,
CC's original place downtown is now deserted but their place on Forum Boulevard (part of a strip mall which kinda sucks)
is still plugging along and the atmosphere
inside remains pleasant. I just hate to see more upper-end downtown dining
places disappear. Many of us like downtown and hate strip mall dining.
6 Best place to eat in the heart of downtown (while recognizing the
lungs of downtown are pretty damn close...it's a small town).
7 Read the linked Wikipedia entry. In the small world department, the
co-owner/manager, Rick Robertson, was a housemate of mine when I was a grad
student in Bloomington, IN and he was an undergraduate in the School of Music.
He was then known to us affectionately as "teen-age Rick" after an infamous
character in a 1960s underground comic
8 You know the thought experiment..."if you could only eat one food
for the rest of your life..."? Well, if someone were to ask me, "if you could
only eat at one Columbia restaurant for the rest of your life, what would it
be?" my answer, without a doubt, would be Murry's. Eclectic and broad menu,
great wait staff, consistent, open late, music, lots of ala carte dishes,
wonderful desserts. Only problem from my perspective is that it is not walking
distance from my office or my house. However, it's only a five minute car ride
(we Columbians are spoiled).
9I actually get quite a bit of hits on this page from people
looking for places to eat in Columbia but I was still surprised when I was
contacted by "Cherry Street's" owner asking me why I hadn't listed their
establishment. I noted that I typically don't go there and the few times I had
gone (albeit some time ago), I found the place "OK" but that I never really
enjoyed the place because it was too acoustically bright (i.e., loud) and just
never grabbed me. Well, since then I've been back several times and the
unfavorable acoustics have been effectively dampened, the food excellent, and
the atmosphere as nice as any place in this town. I'm glad I've been back and I
recommend this place as highly as any in our little town.
10 Best breakfast place but be forewarned, it
sometimes takes a long time for the food to be served; avoid if in a rush. Good
place to bring toddlers...non-tacky play area in the back.
11 Definitely unique if not bizarre. Best place to eat endangered species
while surrounded by the work of a vast number of taxidermists. It's worth a trip
just so you can say you've been there. It is a good half hour drive from
Downtown which, in these parts, is quite a haul.
12 You want to know how clean the place is and whether the employees
wash their hands after using the WC (or doing "whatever?"), this is the place for you!
13 About a year ago, I ran into an old acquaintance at a coffee
shop who spontaneously told me she was on a city-wide commission involved in
improving air transportation to/from Columbia. Note this committee is not the
Airport Advisory Board but a different committee tasked with future planning and
community improvement. Anyway...she told me that the Airport Advisory Board is,
by charter, totally impotent. So, I should not imply that the members of the
board are incompetent but, rather, that the committee is basically worthless
independent of the membership. I hope that clarifies things.