Description: In celebration of almost every trip I’ve ever been on, I always plan a nice steak dinner to check out the local "moo" scene. I posted on my Facebook page for suggestions, and got a few recommendations for TBonz.
Reservations aren’t allowed for small parties, so when we decided to head into the heart of downtown Charleston on a rainy Friday evening around 6 p.m., I was sure we’d have a fair wait ahead of us. I don’t know if the weather was a factor, but our wait time ended up being a short one – 20 minutes. While we waited, we checked out the menu so when we were seated, we could order right away.
The ambience of TBonz is a little bit western bar combined with a little bit bistro combined with a little bit of a sports bar feel. There are whimsical decorations – like a bucking bronco statue at the door – to keep the young’uns entertained, the brick walls give it a comfy feel and the flat-screen TVs throughout that are strategically placed delighted all of the World Series followers that were there for the evening. Some of the lucky few earned tables next to the windows that open out onto Market Street, allowing you to watch the tourists – and the horse-drawn carriages – go by.
The menu was pretty varied, but as the name suggests, was loaded with steak and fish and ribs. It was a meat-etarian menu if there ever was one. However, what looked mouth-watering in print didn’t entirely live up in person. The food was certainly edible, mediocre, even, for the $25 each that we spent. However, it didn’t make my taste buds go "wow" or anything. It was a perfectly fine steak dinner that I could’ve eaten in any Outback or Logan’s across the country. What I wanted was a quaint steak in the quaint town of Charleston, without the "quaint" (read: expensive) price tag to go with it. There were other recommendations we could’ve followed, that would have followed with a $100 dinner bill. I preferred spending that money in the Market.
The best part of TBonz is the sweet shop next door, Kaminsky’s, which I detail in another review, but you can order the deserts from your table rather than getting up and waiting for another table there.
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