During my mini culinary tour of Charleston, I was craving something sweet after a meal. There were a few places left to try on the 101 Most Unique Places to Dine in WV list, so I decided to kill two birds with one stone - dessert AND a restaurant I've never been to before.

I headed to Shuckers for a quick dessert. Shuckers is a seafood restaurant with other typical American fare. But I called about dessert. After asking which desserts were made in-house, I decided upon the cannoli.

I went in to pick up my single cannoli that I had called in; they thought I was crazy. I waited a few minutes while they finished making it, paid for it, and I was on my way.

The cannoli is good. I prefer more plain ones without the chocolate syrup or powered sugar. This one also had a good amount of cinnamon. But, overall, not bad.

Grade: B

Chef Ohlinger, the authority on farm-to-table dining in West Virginia, has opened his newest restaurant: Hill & Hollow in the Seneca Center. The previous chef/owner of both Richwood Grill and Solera is continuing the farm-to-fork dining theme with a focus on global cuisine using local ingredients at the new restaurant.

Who knew so many Hurricane establishments would grace the 101 Most Unique Places to Dine in WV list? Color me surprised, too. But here we are in Hurricane to try FireSide Grille. The restaurant, which opened in 2011, features new and traditional American fare - burgers, salads, sandwiches, steaks and chicken.

I initially thought this place was a chain restaurant because a standalone building, with nice finishes and branding is not a super common occurrence. The interior has brick work, cool hanging lights and some exposed industrial work inside.

I ordered the "Mega Mini Sliders," which is three slides with cheese, lettuce, tomato and onion served on mini pretzel buns and mini dill pickles. I also got a side of their beer and cheese soup.

The sliders are kinda tough to eat because the meat is less of a patty and more of a ball that a tower of veggies has been built upon. Once I unhinged my jaw, these are decent. The pretzel bun was a bit tough, and the meat could have used a dash more seasoning. But, I'm nitpicking. They were good. And the soup was pretty good, too.

Grade: B

My neverending quest to try all the restaurants on the 101 Most Unique Places to Dine in WV list has taken me to Tunnelton. Despite the fact that Preston County borders Monongalia County, this restaurant was quite a bit more out of the way than I anticipated.

Company's Comin' is old-fashioned country food. They serve breakfast all day and buckwheat cakes yearround. They're open 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday, 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Sunday and closed Monday and Tuesday. Also, they are cash only.

After seeing the entire dining space taken up, we made our way to a long bar area and made ourselves comfortable. I wasn't totally sure if we were allowed to do that since no one acknowledged us for a bit, but finally, we were brought drinks. And a booth opened up so we slid on over there.


The menu is small. Breakfast has eggs, buckwheat cakes, bacon, sausage, etc. For lunch, a chicken sandwich, hotdog, wings are the main options. I went for a chicken sandwich with a side of onion rings. And you know what? It was actually really tasty. The chicken was really crisp, the bun was buttered and grilled, and the veggies were fresh.

Afterward, I ordered an apple dumpling. YUM. You wanna talk about comfort food - a hot from the oven apple dumpling topped with vanilla ice cream hits the spot.

There's nothing outstanding about this restaurant, but it's comfortable and familiar. If you're in the area, stop in.



Grade: B

In a very ... odd series of events, I ended up going to dinner in Uniontown. Meloni's Restaurant is an old-school, hometown Italian joint that is apparently quite popular.

Think white checkered plastic tablecloths, red baskets full of bread and a very, very packed dining room. I'm sure every hometown has a restaurant like this.

I started out with a house salad, which came with beets. I could totally get used to that.

Then, my entree arrived: stuffed shells. It's hard to mess this up... but this was not my favorite. It was dry, somehow. The cheese inside was not stringy or gooey. Instead, it was maybe cooked too high too long and it was dried out, which totally threw off the texture and with it, a lot of flavor. The red sauce was just OK - could use a dash more seasoning. The other meal at the table was rigatoni - a huge portion.

Overall thoughts: Old-school, mediocre food. It's a local thing, so people probably love it. They've probably been eating it forever, so it continues to thrive with an older population. But if I were to get Italian in Uniontown again, there's no doubt I would head to Caporella's.

Grade: C