Weekend in Charleston
My Mom took my sister and me to Charleston, SC for a little weekend get-away. We had wonderful food while we were there. Here are the highlights:
We started our restaurant tour with Fish on King Street. This is there house bread, it's essentially a doughnut with soy-chili dipping sauce. Very tasty.
We went the multi-appetizer route. This was my starter of dim sum (from left to right: shrimp spring roll, fried tofu, duck confit steamed bun, and crab wanton).
Mom's crab cakes; they were a real stand-out, perfectly cooked and nicely seasoned.
This soup, the Curried Crab Soup, (my sister's choice) was the best thing we had at Fish. It was spicy, complex and very delicious!
Sorry for the poor photograph. I shut off my flash for all of the photos so as not to disturb my fellow diners... This was my second appetizer the cheese plate. It was served with crusty bread and a fruit compote. From left to right the cheeses were a port salut fondue, a goat cheese spring roll, and a hard cheese that reminded me of an aged gouda (but I can't recall the name).
Mom's second choice: the fried calamari with sweet chili sauce. They were super crunchy and nicely seasoned.
My sister's second choice: the duck confit croque madam. It was decadent and delicious, but really needed the citrus salad that came with it!
For dessert, the ginger lime cheesecake creme caramel (yes, really)! Delicious, although the cookie crust was a little tough.
Mom's dessert: king cake, an almond puff pastry dessert. Our server told us if we found the whole almond hidden in the dessert we "won". We did find the almond and received glasses of champagne and the desserts on the house.
My sister's dessert: warm banana cake with peanut butter and honey yogurt sorbet. Yummy, but the yogurt sorbet was overwhelmingly tangy. We ended up eating around it.
For our Saturday meals we had brunch at Hominy Grill. It's always a delicious choice. We had regular breakfast fare (and some off the beaten path) eggs, bacon, sausage, biscuits, grits, she-crab soup, and a fried green tomato sandwich.
For Saturday dinner we ate at Peninsula Grill. It was a lovely meal with lots of great seafood and truly impeccable service. The standouts of the evening were the lobster and corn chowder, the seafood special which was a pan-seared sheepshead fish, and all of the desserts (coconut cake, chocolate extravaganza and the ginger creme brulee). People make a big deal out of the coconut cake, and having tried it, I can honestly say it's one of the best desserts I have ever had. If you go, you definitely need to order it.
For Sunday brunch we ate at the Boathouse at Breach Inlet on Isle of Palms. The boathouse eggs benedict substitutes crab cakes for the Canadian bacon. Yum!
