jphilg
09-02-2003, 07:24 AM
I posted this on the end of the Charleston thread from last week, but I thought it might get lost there, and I know that I generally like reading about other peoples' food experiences, so....I am self-bumping.
Thank you all again for the great suggestions....I will add my reviews to the list for people planning a future trip:
Friday night: Flight delayed such that we cannot make our connection, which was the last flight to Charleston that night. Darn budget fare. We go home and eat Italian.
Saturday: We make it to the airport for a 7 am flight and discover that federal regulations prohibit our crew from flying until 9, because the rain delays from last night kept them from getting in on time. Again, we are going to miss our connection, but manage to route ourselves through Houston(!) and arrive in Charleston at 3 pm. We shake off the fact that we've already lost a day, and decide to explore. Much fun is had on King Street, which is full of interesting boutiques. Some areas are a little mall-ified, but there were plenty of unique spots as well. And a Le Creuset outlet. Grace, I thought of you as I carefully looked at the capacity of each dutch oven......
We strolled through the Battery in the evening, dressed for dinner, and went down to Magnolia's for our reservation.
Magnolia's was....good. It has a lovely ambience; there are some pink tones that just make everyone in there look radiant. We had a nice dinner, but 3 of the 4 dishes we tried were sort of so-so. The best of the bunch was the parmesan fried oyster appetizer, served with grits and the most amazing collards I have ever tried. Suddenly this Yankee understands the appeal. The crab bisque, though, was sort of over-creamy and over-thick, and the crab tasted fishy instead of sweet. For our entrees, I had the shellfish over grits, which is sort of an interpretation of shrimp and grits, and it was good, but so rich that even a hearty eater like myself was sort of burnt out after 3 or 4 bites. DH had veal served with, you guessed it, grits, and it was jsut sort of lacking. It didn't have that "great dish" thing where the taste is better than the sum of its parts. We also felt that the service was a little lacking; we were given a table in the kitchen's path, and told that there was nothing else available even if we wanted to wait. And our server had us in and out in under an hour, which is just not the way we like to eat when we are trying to have a Big Night Out. Overall, it was a nice enough night, but we didn't feel that it lived up to its reputation.
The next morning, we ventured over to Hominy Grill . Charming, charming, charming! I am so glad that we made the effort; it is slightly off the beaten track for the tourist set. I had ethereally light cinnamon french toast with pecan butter and an apple sauce that was essentially the richest apple butter known to man. Yum. DH had shrimp and grits, which were much more balanced than Magnolia's version. We also got some of their house-made sausage, and biscuit that reminded me of the kind that my southern great grandmother's cook used to make for me when I was a kid. The tables are set with homemade jams and the service is the friendliest I have experienced in a long time, while still being efficient and professional.
Off to the beach for a while....we ventured out to Isle of Palms, which was as nice as any public beach will be on labor day weekend. I loved it for about 3 hours, and then we'd had enough.
After a shower and a nap, we set off for a snack (yeah, we eat a lot on vacation). Kaminsky's is a place right on Market Street to which one of my colleagues, a Charleston native, had directed us. They have coffee, cocktails, and desserts....and their pastry case is filled with just the kind of things I would bake if I had the time/metabolism. Various cheesecakes, layercakes, poundcakes tempted us, but we settled on a Butterfinger milkshake and a slice of Tollhouse pie. Mmm.
We then strolled and poked around some more until our table at The Peninsula Grill was available. (We wanted to try again for a Big Night Out, and this place also came highly recommended) Oh my goodness. This has to be in the top 10 meals I have had this year. We took our time, ordering one course at a time, and had such a wonderful night...for those of you planning a trip soon, I HIGHLY recommend Peninsula Grill for a special night (definitely over Magnolia's. It is slightly more expensive, but significantly more wonderful, in my limited experience.) We couldn't decide if we wanted to just eat from the huge, varied, and delicous-looking appetizer menu, or if we wanted entrees, so we ended up with sort of a poor nutritional balance but all kinds of deliciousness. We started with the fois gras, served with a miniture biscuit with barbequed duck and peach preserves, and and the Lobster 3 Ways, which had a lobster ravioli, a chunk of lobster tempura (!died and gone to heaven) and lobster tail tournados in a basil beurre blanc. Both plates were fantastic. Next we ordered fried oysters with a mango sauce ans some sort of rasish slaw. I loved the flavor combination of this one; they were served sort of like oysters on the half shell and the salad had the acidity of a mignonette. DH thought the oysters were better at Magnolia's. Along with that, we tried the trio of soups: tomato-melon gazpacho with a mini crab sandwich, sweet onion soup with duck confit, and lobster-corn chowder. Each of these was fabulous. Finally we ordered entrees because, well, we were in the middle of a food-and-wine debauchery moment and we didn't want it to stop! I had benne-crusted (that would be sesame crusted to those of us north of the Mason-Dixon line) New Zealand Lamb that was served with asparagus and wild mushroom mashed potatoes; DH had hogfish on lobster mashed potatoes with a vin blanc sauce (I wondered if they meant beurre blanc....it was defintely a beurre blanc, and I think all beurre blac has white wine in it....anyone, anyone?). Both were delicious. We were happy, although too full to try the much-heraled coconut cake. Sigh. Next time.
This morning we slept in late, missing our chance for one
Thank you all again for the great suggestions....I will add my reviews to the list for people planning a future trip:
Friday night: Flight delayed such that we cannot make our connection, which was the last flight to Charleston that night. Darn budget fare. We go home and eat Italian.
Saturday: We make it to the airport for a 7 am flight and discover that federal regulations prohibit our crew from flying until 9, because the rain delays from last night kept them from getting in on time. Again, we are going to miss our connection, but manage to route ourselves through Houston(!) and arrive in Charleston at 3 pm. We shake off the fact that we've already lost a day, and decide to explore. Much fun is had on King Street, which is full of interesting boutiques. Some areas are a little mall-ified, but there were plenty of unique spots as well. And a Le Creuset outlet. Grace, I thought of you as I carefully looked at the capacity of each dutch oven......
We strolled through the Battery in the evening, dressed for dinner, and went down to Magnolia's for our reservation.
Magnolia's was....good. It has a lovely ambience; there are some pink tones that just make everyone in there look radiant. We had a nice dinner, but 3 of the 4 dishes we tried were sort of so-so. The best of the bunch was the parmesan fried oyster appetizer, served with grits and the most amazing collards I have ever tried. Suddenly this Yankee understands the appeal. The crab bisque, though, was sort of over-creamy and over-thick, and the crab tasted fishy instead of sweet. For our entrees, I had the shellfish over grits, which is sort of an interpretation of shrimp and grits, and it was good, but so rich that even a hearty eater like myself was sort of burnt out after 3 or 4 bites. DH had veal served with, you guessed it, grits, and it was jsut sort of lacking. It didn't have that "great dish" thing where the taste is better than the sum of its parts. We also felt that the service was a little lacking; we were given a table in the kitchen's path, and told that there was nothing else available even if we wanted to wait. And our server had us in and out in under an hour, which is just not the way we like to eat when we are trying to have a Big Night Out. Overall, it was a nice enough night, but we didn't feel that it lived up to its reputation.
The next morning, we ventured over to Hominy Grill . Charming, charming, charming! I am so glad that we made the effort; it is slightly off the beaten track for the tourist set. I had ethereally light cinnamon french toast with pecan butter and an apple sauce that was essentially the richest apple butter known to man. Yum. DH had shrimp and grits, which were much more balanced than Magnolia's version. We also got some of their house-made sausage, and biscuit that reminded me of the kind that my southern great grandmother's cook used to make for me when I was a kid. The tables are set with homemade jams and the service is the friendliest I have experienced in a long time, while still being efficient and professional.
Off to the beach for a while....we ventured out to Isle of Palms, which was as nice as any public beach will be on labor day weekend. I loved it for about 3 hours, and then we'd had enough.
After a shower and a nap, we set off for a snack (yeah, we eat a lot on vacation). Kaminsky's is a place right on Market Street to which one of my colleagues, a Charleston native, had directed us. They have coffee, cocktails, and desserts....and their pastry case is filled with just the kind of things I would bake if I had the time/metabolism. Various cheesecakes, layercakes, poundcakes tempted us, but we settled on a Butterfinger milkshake and a slice of Tollhouse pie. Mmm.
We then strolled and poked around some more until our table at The Peninsula Grill was available. (We wanted to try again for a Big Night Out, and this place also came highly recommended) Oh my goodness. This has to be in the top 10 meals I have had this year. We took our time, ordering one course at a time, and had such a wonderful night...for those of you planning a trip soon, I HIGHLY recommend Peninsula Grill for a special night (definitely over Magnolia's. It is slightly more expensive, but significantly more wonderful, in my limited experience.) We couldn't decide if we wanted to just eat from the huge, varied, and delicous-looking appetizer menu, or if we wanted entrees, so we ended up with sort of a poor nutritional balance but all kinds of deliciousness. We started with the fois gras, served with a miniture biscuit with barbequed duck and peach preserves, and and the Lobster 3 Ways, which had a lobster ravioli, a chunk of lobster tempura (!died and gone to heaven) and lobster tail tournados in a basil beurre blanc. Both plates were fantastic. Next we ordered fried oysters with a mango sauce ans some sort of rasish slaw. I loved the flavor combination of this one; they were served sort of like oysters on the half shell and the salad had the acidity of a mignonette. DH thought the oysters were better at Magnolia's. Along with that, we tried the trio of soups: tomato-melon gazpacho with a mini crab sandwich, sweet onion soup with duck confit, and lobster-corn chowder. Each of these was fabulous. Finally we ordered entrees because, well, we were in the middle of a food-and-wine debauchery moment and we didn't want it to stop! I had benne-crusted (that would be sesame crusted to those of us north of the Mason-Dixon line) New Zealand Lamb that was served with asparagus and wild mushroom mashed potatoes; DH had hogfish on lobster mashed potatoes with a vin blanc sauce (I wondered if they meant beurre blanc....it was defintely a beurre blanc, and I think all beurre blac has white wine in it....anyone, anyone?). Both were delicious. We were happy, although too full to try the much-heraled coconut cake. Sigh. Next time.
This morning we slept in late, missing our chance for one