Charleston Chew

Lilly and I have started a sorta tradition of taking the weekend after New Years and heading off in search of excellent southern food. You can see me above with the soul food sign. This gives me complete credibility to talk about southern food. This tradition is only sort of a tradition because we've only done it once before when we took a trip to Savannah in 2012 and I'm a bit disingenuous because we look for good food all year.  This year, however, we went to Charleston SC. It was by far one of our best food stops to date and will be hard to top if the tradition continues. Here is a sampling of some of best bites we had. 

Here is a fantastic buttermilk fried quail and cornbread from Glass Onion just outside of downtown Charleston on the Savannah Highway. 

Local clams and house made sausage at Two Boroughs Larder near the upper king neighborhood in Charleston proper. And of course it's washed down with SC's own Blenheim ginger beer. 

The real highlight however was our dinner at Husk in downtown Charleston. We had been hearing a lot of hype about this place, but found that it even exceeded the hype. It really was the best southern-style meal we've had. Above is our sampling as it arrived at our table. Below I'll mention each plate.

Peanut glazed spare ribs.

 Fried gulf oysters with bib lettuce and heirloom tomatoes.

 Local SC blades edge oysters with creme fraiche and NC sturgeon caviar.

 Shrimp and grits with spicy pigs ear.

 Hands down the best fried green tomatoes we've ever had. Served with pimento cheese and cured ham.

We also did some touristy stuff. 

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Checked out the river!

 We heard from a lot of locals that the best bathroom in town was in City Hall. This was strange because we never asked for bathroom advice. The Charlestonians were very proud of this lavatory. So we had to go and take a picture. We'll let you be the judge.

Lilly outside the house where general Washington stayed on a visit at the end of the 18th century. 

On shore near the battle site that began the civil war. I kept reminding Lilly that Gov. Ramsay of MN after hearing that Ft. Sumter had been attacked volunteered our state to be the first union troops in the war. It felt like coming home. 

A visit to the dental history museum. It's that small box building behind me. Mostly 19th century foot powered drills and other upsetting implements. NO PICTURES ALLOWED!!!!!

 A pillar taken from the giants causeway in Ireland. Why? We don't want to know.

A fine tradition done right.