So…Savannah and Charleston. Two beautiful cities that SHOULD be foodie heavens, right?

Wrong. At least when said foodie likes “hip,” local, unique restaurants with cool sandwiches, salads, etc, while her family likes more mainstream fare. I’m not hating on my family’s palates by any means, but I was a little disappointed by the food part of our trip. I even picked out restaurants beforehand that I thought would appeal to everyone. I did this for two reasons:

1. I’m a menu freak. I like to look at menus ahead of time and usually I have a pretty good idea of what I want to order before I step foot in the restaurant. For me, looking up a menu online is like opening your Christmas presents early. Not that I’ve done that or anything (seriously!)…but I think the general feeling is the same.
2. I don’t know about other families, but with mine, choosing a place to eat on the fly is THE biggest vacation buzz killer. In my family, no one likes making a decision, so we stand around on the sidewalk, picking at our fingernails until someone gets fed up enough to finally shout out a decision. I wanted to avoid this at all costs.

I failed on both accounts. Whoops.

We didn’t go to ONE place I had picked out, which is honestly whatever, but this unfortunately led to some disappointing eats.

Exhibit A: Mellow Mushroom for lunch in Savannah on Friday. I have nothing against Mellow Mushroom, but it’s a chain! I wanted to eat somewhere indigenous to Savannah!
Exhibit B: Bernie’s Raw Bar or Irish Pub…something to that effect. This place was GROSS. The burger place I wanted to try had closed early for the 4th, so we picked the first place we passed on River St. Why did we do this? I ended up getting a club sandwich and a side of cabbage in liquid mayo (supposedly coleslaw). The club was icky – fake deli meat, yucky white Texas toast…bleh. I sound like a food prima donna here, but it was seriously blah. The only thing I can say for Bernie’s is that they gave my mom a seriously divine tomato slice on her hamburger.

Other Savannah eats included: Wild Wings (Dad’s wing fix), Sam Snead’s Tavern (Ahi Tuna Salad – my first tuna steak. Pretty good, but the salad was really overdressed. I like salmon better), and Tubby’s. Tubby’s was actually a really cool restaurant, but we ate there during brunch time so the menu was a little limited, seafood wise.

The one memorable foodie moment of Savannah was a visit to one of those cool self-serve frozen yogurt shops. I got peanut butter yogurt and topped it with mini chocolate chips, cinnamon toast crunch, blueberries and a few blackberries. A culinary work of art, right? It was so good that I didn’t remember to take a picture of it until halfway through it’s annihilation.

Savannah was gorgeous. I loved all of the mini parks in each block and there was SO much history throughout the city! The trees in Savannah were my favorite part – the Spanish moss was so pretty (but apparently filled with chiggers. Don’t take the moss home, folks). SCAD was also really cool, but the tour around the college and city made me realize how much I love UGA and Athens. I can’t see myself anywhere else!

On Saturday, we drove up to Charleston for the day. SO gorgeous. There were TONS of cafes, bakeries and cool places to shop. I think Charleston is the city of baked goods. And praline pecans. I have NEVER had so many free samples of pralines in my life. And I worked at Bruster’s for 2 years.

Anyways, the first place we went to was Baked. Olivia talked about it on her blog and I made a special point to find it, like any creepy blogger should. My mom, sister and I picked out a Deep Chocolate Brownie and a Baked bar to share.

Confession: I’ve NEVER had a real, homemade brownie before…only the boxed kind. Those are all well and good, but HOLY CRAP, the brownie from Baked was heaven. I think I died a little inside after each bite. I finally learned what a fudgy brownie was like, as opposed to a cakey brownie. I mean, look at this masterpiece!

It GLISTENED. It was like Edward Cullen’s abs in the sunlight.

……….

Perhaps that was not the best simile to use to describe a brownie, depending on your feelings for Twilight. Anyways, the Baked bar was equally delicious. It had a mysterious, addicting, luscious creamy filling that took the bar to the next level.

A beauty, right? Except my thumb looks like some kind of gross flesh slug. Bad angle.

Confession#2: I also tracked down Cupcake. I couldn’t help myself! Olivia made it sound so cute! Cupcake was definitely cute and smelled divine. I didn’t get anything since I was filled up with brownie and mysterious Baked bar cream, but it was cool to see the shop.

We ate lunch at East Bay St. Meeting House. I’m not sure where this place stands compared to the rest of the restaurants/cafes in Charleston, but it was my favorite “on the fly” choice. The cafe was small, but since the weather was nice (I mean REALLY nice…the weather was great the entire weekend) the doors were left open to let in the breeze. I ordered a smoked salmon panini with capers and cream cheese.

Can I just say that smoked salmon and capers were made for each other? The salmon was buttery (not butter-buttery, smooth and yummy buttery) and the capers had a perfect briney bite. And when is cream cheese ever wrong? (Never) The bread was uber crunchy, which was good and bad…bad because it cut the roof of my mouth (like Cap’n Crunch does…you remember, right?).

Aside from the food, however, I had fun on the trip. Savannah and Charleston are beautiful cities with so much history and atmosphere…hopefully I’ll get to visit again soon!

And I’ll leave you with this flattering shot of my dad…he was looking at Ft. Sumter.