We are blogging: Colonnade, Columbus, Crabs

This past week must have been busy, because we completely forgot to blog! Either that, or nothing interesting happened. However, this past weekend has given us lots to share.

Friday night we were invited to the Colonnade by out friends Carl and Cayenne (pictured). You may remember our dinner at Mary Mac's Tea Room. The Colonnade is the less fancy answer to Mary Mac's old-time styling. They have similar menus (heavy on the fried) and abundant sides, but the Colonnade's sides are slightly stranger, and that's a good thing.

For example, our table mate Thomas ordered the pear salad.

This is the pear salad. 2 pear halves from a can, a sprinkling of shredded cheddar cheese from a bag, and a generous (to put it lightly) serving of mayonnaise (Duke's?) on the side.

The strangest part of it all: in combination, this salad actually wasn't that bad!

Cayenne ordered one of the special sides: a bing cherry jello-salad (also with a large dolop of mayo). You can't make it out in the picture, but inside the jello is one whole cherry (its on the left). We forgot to ask what this was like, but after being pleasantly surprised by the pear salad, I'd wager this humble dish offers a complexity that belies its appearance.

Here's the fried chicken. Perfectly breaded and cooked, though I prefer my fried chicken with more seasoning.

The real winner for Alex and I was the fried chicken liver appetizer. We enjoyed Farm Burger's chicken livers, but the breading overwhelmed the livers. The Colonnade had a perfect breading to liver ratio and some interesting sauces on the side that enhanced the liver flavor. Colonnade, we will be back!

The next day, we drove to Columbus, GA to celebrate my dear friend Wild's birthday. Wild's is one of my oldest college friends, and I was thrilled to finally see his hometown.

Columbus, for the record, is wonderful. Alex and I were pleasantly surprised with the beauty of this town of about 200,000 people.