Spotlight on: Savannah, GA

Savannah, Georgia is a great weekend getaway. It offers great food, great history and a beach for those interested. For our first trip, we spent most of our time exploring all the great food of Savannah.

Holiday Inn Express - Savannah Historic District

I loved this hotel. It was centrally located – right across the street from the River Walk. It is a gorgeous hotel with a beautiful lobby and bar. We had a great King Corner room with a couch, two really nice arm chairs, a desk and a wet bar.  The Front Desk was really friendly and helpful. The only negative was that the Valet Parking was a little slow.

Elizabeth on 37th

 Elizabeth on 37th is in a historic mansion. The decor inside was appropriate to the period. We ordered the seven course tasting menu. The service was impeccable. The wine list was a bit on the high side. The wine list was a bit on the high side for the price point of the entrees. Overall,  the menu attempted to innovative and really pushed toward interesting new flavor combinations.

Riverfront

The Riverfront was super cute with a good mix of restaurants and shops. The Peanut Shop was a fantastic snack shop. They live up to their name with more types of flavored peanuts, peanut brittle and peanut butter than we have ever seen. The River Walk also had a nice little market with local crafts, sunglasses and purses as well as an Art Fair.

Foody Tour

 Savannah Movie Tours hosts a Foody Tour that visits and samples food from six different Savannah restaurants:

The Distillery – A great bar with over 20 craft beers on tap. We sampled their slider with French fries and a remoulade dipping sauce and a couple beers.

Harris Baking Company – It was a little weird to go from burgers and beer to pastry but the apple tart was very good. It lived up to our pastry expectations: flaky, sweet and sticky.


Farmers’ Market – It was a small market with a good selection of local produce. Due to a miscommunication, the much hyped tomato sandwich was replaced by a disappointing piece of watermelon.


Angel's BBQ – This was a really cool spot because we would have never found it on our own. It was a tiny hole in the wall in an alley behind a church. The pulled pork was great.

Lady and Sons  – This is Paula Dean’s restaurant. This was the perfect way to experience it. We were in and out in a matter of minutes with no need to wait for hours in the morning for a reservation. We sampled the fried chicken and cheesy meatloaf. The meatloaf was the real star due to it spicy cheese sauce.

Leopold's Ice Cream Parlor  – We ended the tour with a sweet treat. We tried the signature flavors: Rum Bisque and Lemon Custard. The lemon custard flavor was good. The flavor would have been more custard-like. It was not as good as Glenn was hoping. Angie found the Rum Bisque to be outstanding. It was smooth and sweet with a little bit of crunch. Fantastic!

Chef Joe Randall’s Cooking School

 This cooking school had been featured in Rachel Ray magazine. A small house houses a kitchen with  twenty seats around a counter. Chef Randall had a great personality. It was interesting because nothing was pre-made so he made a four course meal for 20 people right in front of us. Because of that, expect about an hour and a half wait for the first course. The crab cakes were great and the best that I had ever had. The second course was fried green tomatoes over Bibb lettuce with a buttermilk dressing. The buttermilk dressing was really good. Third course was baked chicken with fried corn and red rice.  Dessert was a pecan and peach tart. Overall it was a really fun experience.

Have you been to Savannah? What was your favorite experience?