A Serious Man and Budget Food & Drink in Columbia

As I mentioned in a post earlier this week, I went to see A Serious Man on Tuesday at The Nickelodeon. It is a film by the Coen brothers about a man named Larry Gopnik trying to find balance in a personal world that seems to be crumbling all around him. His wife announces she's leaving him for a pompous-ass friend of theirs, one of his college students is trying to bribe him for a better grade or will sue him for defamation, his live-in brother has a nasty sebaceous-cyst problem and is not only malingering but also has a gambling problem, and his children are whiny little adolescent brats. He seeks out the help of 3 very different rabbis to try to help him sort out his problems.

I thought the film was quite entertaining and clever. Although, I appreciate the brothers' comedies like The Big Lebowski and Raising Arizona a bit more than this one.

My favorite scene of the movie comes when Larry is on the phone with the Columbia Record Club--(you remember the one, where you sign up to receive some free albums, but then end up getting sent a lot of crap you don't want and have to send back or get charged for it)--trying to resolve a dispute over a membership his son set up unbeknownst to him. Larry keeps repeating the line, "But I did nothing," over and over...symbolic of how he has done nothing to "deserve" what is happening in his life, but conversely has done nothing to change it. A very clever scene indeed.

The movie is worth watching. It also reminds me of American Beauty--same basic plot--man gets screwed in his personal life; learns life has to be actively participated in to be enjoyed...

image via here

While at The Nickelodeon, I picked up Volume 1, Issue 1 of Columbia's Super Budget newsletter. For those who may not know, Super Budget Columbia has a website and Facebook page as well, which give us poor Columbians lists of places to eat, drink and be entertained for cheap. I for one appreciate a deal, especially a sweet deal like eating good food or drinking alcoholic beverages on the cheap, so I decided I'd share some of my favorite most recent Super Budget finds with you:

Food First:

Mondays are Pizza Nights!
Free pizza at Kelly's Pub during Monday Night Football
$1 large slices at The Whig until midnight
$1 large slices and $.40 wings at Village Idiot* until 10 pm
(The Whig and Village Idiot pizza are 2 of my absolute favorites in Columbia)

Tuesdays are Taco Nights!
$.50 tacos at The Whig-see my precious post about this
$1 tacos at Utopia
or, if you want more pizza, $1.25 large slices at Pizza Man, (my 3rd favorite pizza in Columbia!)

Wednesdays
$1 large slices during Happy Hour only at The Whig

Saturdays
$1 Mean Bean Burritos after 6 pm at El Burrito

Drinks:
Mondays
$2 well liquor at The Whig

Tuesdays
$1 Bud and Bud Light bottles at Village Idiot*

Wednesdays
$2 drafts all night at The Whig
$2 drafts all night at Delaney's

Thursdays
$5 Wine Tasting at WineStyles, 5-7 pm ($5 refunded with purchase of 2 bottles of wine)

Fridays
FREE Wine Tasting 4:30-6:30 at Simply Savory

Saturdays
$1 Wine Tasting, 2-5 pm at The Gourmet Shop

Sundays
$2 import bottles all day and night at Village Idiot*

Entertainment:
FREE admission for Richland and Lexington county residents to the Riverbanks Zoo
every Friday through February 26, 2010!

*Offers good at the Village Idiot in 5 Points ONLY

Know of any other cheap or free food/drink/entertainment in Columbia? Please share!

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Taco Tuesday

If you have never been to The Whig at 1200 Main Street in downtown Columbia, you must go. They have a drink and/or food special almost every night of the week: my favorites are $1 pizza slice and $2 liquor drink Mondays and $.50 Taco Tuesdays. This particular Tuesday, we were celebrating my sister-in-law, Liz's, birthday, so I was feeling especially festive and ravenous. (Happy birthday Liz!)

The food at The Whig is amazing--the pizza is possibly the closest to NY pizza you can get in Columbia*, and the tacos remind me of the Old El Paso kind mom used to make...a bit Americanized, but soooo good!

If the food isn't enough to make you want to try this treasure, then imagine that the bar is underground...beacuse it is. You enter on the corner of Gervais and Main Streets, but must walk down a good flight of stairs to get to the entrance below street level. It is dark, dank, and very big-city feeling, without even having to try too hard. I'm not quite sure of the history of the building, but it seems that The Whig is now located in a former bank basement, as there is a room in the bar that was the former bank vault. Patrons can actually sit in the vault where there are now vintage (old) sofas and decor that make the room feel incredibly like a cross between a room in the old hotel from The Shining and a 1940's hunting lodge. (See below).





According to someone who works there, the small skulls are from pygmy deer, once native to Germany...I think jackalope...you decide for yourself.

In short, The Whig is one of my favorite places in Columbia right now. Not only is it an extremely affordable place to eat 2 of my favortie foods, but the ambience, (or lack thereof), feels so un-Columbia that I think I'm in a bigger city for a while.
*If you know of a better NY style pizza in Columbia, please let me know! What is your favorite pizza in Cola-town?

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