Tybee/Savannah report back

[Brit on a Trip]

My thanks again to those who replied to my thread some weeks back, asking for casual dining recs. Here’s how we did:-

Dinner 1 – North Beach Grill. We shared a starter of popcorn crawfish with a nice spicy dip. Good opener. I then had jerk pork which came with traditional “rice & peas”, sugar snap peas, candied plantain and cubes of pineapple. Great flavours. Excellent dish. The other side of the table had Ropa Vieja – a Cuban pot roast with the beef cubed and cooked with peppers and onions. It tastes similar to chilli but the flavouring is more complex with notes that we couldn’t quite identify. It comes with rice, the plantain and pineapple. Mrs Brit reckons that this is probably the best single dish she’d had in our two week trip to that date. I finish with a banana and chocolate chip cheesecake. It needed more banana. And, throughout the evening, a five piece bluegrass was playing. Good food, favourite music, beach, love of my life - an evening doesnt get much better.

Dinner 2 – Crab Shack. “Local institution” or “tourist trap”? Who cares? Great fun and we were tourists after all. We both have the Low Country Boil. Loved it.

Dinner 3 – AJ’s. Relatively light meal. Crawfish sandwich for Mrs Brit which was OK, but only OK. Shrimp Po’boy for me, with potato salad. Another OK dish

Dinner 4 – Sundae Café. Great little bistro in a small row of shops – you’d miss it if you weren’t looking for it. Herself starts with a roasted corn and crab bisque – creamy, crabby, slightly spicy. Very nice. To follow is a “Napoleon” – a stack of fried green tomatoes, portabello mushroom and roasted red pepper, topped with puff pastry and a balsamic glaze. It came with a butter bean succotash and sweet potato & bourbon soufflé which was topped with fried shreds of sweet potato. Good dish. I started with a seafood cheesecake which incorporated scallop, crab and smoked Gouda, served hot on salad leaves. It should have been packed with flavour but wasn’t and it managed to be overly heavy as well as bland. My main was a double pork chop, topped with apple “chutney” (which was suitably tangy) accompanied by a corn and blue cheese bread pudding and the succotosh. This was, indeed, packed with flavour but a slight disappointment that corn should appear in both sides. All that said, I’d thoroughly recommend this place.

Breakfast on Tybee – in the interests of research, we ate at the much vaunted Breakfast Club one day, and the Sunrise Café, opposite, the next. In truth, I do not understand the hype about the Breakfast Club. Sunrise has a far more varied menu; food quality is similar and, if anything, prices are cheaper.

Lunch at Mrs Wilkes Dining Room – what a fun place and what a variety of food. Our memory may not have caught everything that was laid out on the table but the meal certainly included stew (most folk thought it lamb), fried chicken (wonderful – succulent and very tasty) and pork BBQ (too sweet). Accompaniments included squash, sweet potato, creamed corn, swede, collard greens, mashed potato and gravy, biscuits, rice (plain and red), green beans, butterbeans, black eye beans, okra & bean stew, beets cucumber, carrot salad. Oh yes, and banana pudding for dessert. Iced tea or water is also served. A southern feast for $15.

Lunch at Sticky Fingers – near the mall. I had the pork sandwich, fries and coleslaw. Nice sandwich. Herself had a brisket sandwich, apparently a very new menu item, which she enjoyed. We liked the idea of the range of sauces on the table. The mustard based South Carolina one worked with both sandwiches.