It's quite easy to eat well in Charleston, SC

[justagirl]

(this is too long for one post, so Part 1:)

I got there Tuesday afternoon. After a run, relax, and shower I ventured out to dinner. About three blocks from the hotel is a nice street along the river called East Bay. I ended up on this street every day I was there. After a little shopping I stopped into Blossom. http://www.magnolias-blossom-cypress.com/ I had an excellent Rioja with my Carolina Crab Cake with flame roasted corn relish and house made mustard butter. Yum. For my entree I had FETTUCCINI “FRUTTI DI MARE” cold water mussels and scallops, local shrimp, shellfish marinara. Very good, fresh and hot. This place also had pizzas that looked great. Like every other place, it also had a beautiful courtyard.

I noticed all the restaurants use very fresh produce and seafood/meats and as local as they can get. Very nice to see.

As you can see from the web address, Blossom is in a restaurant group with Magnolia's and Cypress. I didn't get a chance to eat at Cypress but would fly back to Charleston in a heart beat just to have dinner there. A very very cool place with three stories of red wine stored, exposed as a wall. Bam and I did go in there to get a drink since we were told we'd love the wall of wine and just to check the place out. It's very impressive. I had a great 'martini' there that was so good I wanted 10 more. It was made with Stoli Vanil, a lavender infused simple syrup and fresh lemon juice. Bam had a glass of the Duckhorn Merlot. If we were not meeting friends for dinner after I would have blown off our reservation (called of course) and stayed at Cypress for dinner.

We had drinks at Grille 225 a couple times. They have this great rooftop bar with an excellent view of the city. We also frequented this cool cigar bar that had a nice selection of wines by the bottle. The people there were so fun and friendly we just kept going back.

So the third restaurant in the previously mentioned group is Magnolia. When Bam got to Charleston to join me we had dinner here. Excellent service. Actually, the service in all of Charleston was most excellent. Magnolia's menu is a little different. They have an "Uptown" section and a "Lowcountry" section of more classic dishes. We started with FRIED GREEN TOMATOES
with white cheddar and caramelized onion grits, country ham, and tomato chutney. The ham was salty as expected but this dish worked so well. Then I had the wedge salad and bam had the Blue Crab Bisque that was so thick and wonderful. For entrees Bam had the SAUTEED MAHI MAHI
with roasted corn risotto, fresh picked spinach, and blue crab remoulade. Just ok, Mahi a little over cooked and just not as exciting as everything else we had there but still, not bad by any means. I had Benne Seed Crusted Yellow Fin Tuna, cooked perfectly rare, with with black-eyed pea cakes, sweet corn puree, fried okra, and green tomato relish. The relish was so tangy and different it was kind of shocking at first but added a great element to the dish. This was so good I was trying to eat it all even though I was so full it hurt. That good. I don't even remember what we drank here but we had a bottle of something.

http://www.39ruedejean.com/ Rue de Jean was excellent as well. This french restaurant also boasts of sushi which I thought was strange. The waitress said that when Japan wanted to become more 'worldly' they sent their chefs to France to learn to cook and by default the French chefs learned sushi. We started with a sashimi special dish. It was creative and at first interesting but didn't really do anything for us. The chef did use this citrus oil on the fish which added a nice layer of flavor but then he had these fried fennel pieces which were too crunchy and bitter. After this we shared some mussels in a garlic broth. VERY garlic-y and wonderful. The fries were very good too. After this we shared the fried goat cheese salad and we still got entrees. Wow did we eat! My entree (CAVATELLI PASTA WITH SEARED SCALLOPS sun-dried tomatoes, mushrooms, arugula and lemon-garlic cream sauce) was so wonderful. Bam had the coq au vin, also very good. Needless to say we couldn't finish our entrees once again. We had a glass of wine with the initial sashimi app and a bottle of wine with dinner. I have no clue what that was though.
I really liked this place but it was so LOUD in there you really couldn't think. Very very loud.

To be continued....

[justagirl]

Continued:

82 Queen was across from the hotel. http://www.82queen.com/ I checked it out for dinner Wednesday night then while I was in my class Bam got in Thursday and ended up there for lunch. So before we left we actually went together and ended up staying in the courtyard for hours. When I went for dinner I had the Award winning She Crab Soup, excellent, and Lobster, Sea Scallops & Jumbo Shrimp Asparagus-Goat Cheese Raviolis, Artichokes, Saffron Cream for my entree. As you can tell I ate plenty of creamy sauces, lots of seafood and plenty of pasta. When Bam and I went for lunch I had to have the She Crab Soup again and he had the buttermilk fried okra with Basil Marinara, Shaved Parmesan that was excellent. I had the grouper over creamy grits for lunch and he had an excellent salmon special. For once I think his entree was better. We had a nice Hess Chardonnay with lunch and enjoyed the courtyard. As we were winding up lunch, a friend of Bam's came by with his wife and daughter and we had another bottle of wine in the beautiful courtyard.

Finally, our last meal in Charleston was at S.N.O.B. (http://www.mavericksouthernkitchens.com/snob/) with Bam's friend and his wife. So many people kept telling me to skip SNOB and go to a half dozen other places instead. But when we told Bam's buddy we were going to SNOB they wanted to join us and said it was a great place. So we went, myself with hesitation (especially since I had to leave Cypress to go there). I was pleasantly surprised at how great it was. The four of us had three bottles of wine and several courses of great, inventive dishes. I started with a bay scallops special that was totally something you'd see Scott Boswell create. Yum. Bam had the gnocchi. We then shared a carmelized pear salad that was also on the special menu. For entrees I had the triggerfish and bam had the lamb. Both of these were out of this world good.
We had apple pie ala mode and Grand Marnier for dessert. We learned at Rue de Jean that Charleston consumes more Grand Marnier than any place outside of France. So at Rue de Jean we had some and we had more last night. I for one love Grand Marnier and hadn't had it in a long time, so I really enjoyed it.

Sorry about the length of this report, not that I'm even sure ya'll care about the dining in Charleston, but the food, service, the city as a whole was so wonderful I wanted to share. If you're looking for a quaint weekend get-a-way, it's definitely a great option. A romantic walking city.

[Admin]

Comprehensive, first-person dining reports are always welcome, even if lengthy. The character limit is not to discourage long-windedness, but to foil spammers, who often post messages with hundreds of links. I have merged your two threads for continuity. Great report.

[Yvette]

Great report, I hope you kept notes somewhere on your computer for future reference. I hope to get back to Charleston someday. We were suppossed to go last year, but another trip came up instead.

[Gourmondo]

Great report, it's a place I've had on "the list" for years, but haven't made it there yet.

[bam bam]

JAG,

We are going back, if for only one night to dine at Cypress. The menu looks awesome.

My thoughts on the various dining escapades:

1) Each place we ate at was fairly unique and different. The dinners seemed to get progressively better, particularly S.N.O.B which I loved. Although I wonder if my view isn't colored by the depressed expectations.

2) At Rue 39 Jean, we saw the strangest man date ever. This 26 year old kid who looked like he should have been in Depeche Mode or some 80s art fag type band dining with this 40-ish bald black guy. Sometimes, JAG and I like to makeup stories about people in the restaurant. This one was a total head scratcher.

3) One of the things I decided I like about JAG is that her and I can sit down at a place we've never been to and sort of order enough disparate items to get a real good feel for the place. For instance, my Mahi Mahi at Magnolia was just ok. But based on the app, the soup and salad and JAG's entree I felt comfortable giving the place decent marks. And the other thing I like about JAG is that she's hot. And she knows how to hit that little spot on the back of my neck when giving me a sensual massage and I could go on and on.

4) JAG failed to tell you about Friday's lunch at Fleet Landing. I think it's because we got into a little bit of a lovers quarrel there but it was pretty forgettable. I ordered the crab dip in a faint hope that it wouldn't be what I envisioned. Unfortunately, it was probably worse. The sad part was there was some jumbo lump in there. Too bad it was mixed with mayonnaise and some light spices. JAG's mahi mahi tacos were pretty terrible. I ordered the flank steak salad which was actually good.

[justagirl]

I also forgot to mention our breakfast at Toast. Only because I'm embarrassed at how much I ate that morning then proceeded to take a nap. But it was good. And the coffee was most excellent. It was the only time all week I actually got protein at breakfast, something I desperately need to function.

The lover's quarrel at Fleet was actually good, made the rest of the trip better IMO. Bam's rare flank steak salad and the wine were also good, but the view of being on the water was most excellent. Even if I was roasting in the hot sun.

[justagirl]

Charleston is so quaint and cute and Bam kept talking about living there. So I asked him "If you bought a coffee table in Charleston, would hilarity ensue?" He said no....but once he went to the Pharmacy, I had to disagree. The right wing nut (and I can say that because I am one) who runs the place was HILARIOUS! Once she found out that Bam is a lawyer, so stopped talking to him and just talked to me. Hilarious. I think I love that woman.