Rhett Butler was right when he said that. Charleston is a place I feel at home. This was my fourth visit to Charleston, and all I really wanted to do was wander it's streets and feel the stones of history rattling under my feet. No set agenda, just a lovely wander in perfect weather. Except, I always have an agenda when it comes to food!!
We left Savannah early so we could arrive in Charleston in time for our reservations at a restaurant on Sullivan's Island. Obstinate Daughter is run by two-time James Beard nominee Chef Jacques Larson. It's also an american South Michelin recommended restaurant. I couldn't pass up that opportunity!! And who am I if not an obstinate daughter?!?
"The Obstinate Daughter is a Southern restaurant that is influenced by French, Italian and Spanish cuisine with a wood fired oven, plancha and island kitchen range. Pizza, pasta, small plates and a raw bar are the focus of the menu. Changing seasonally, the menu also is rooted by the burgeoning farms and fishermen in the Lowcountry who all supply us with the superior products that make our region so special." (from their website)
Chill vibe. Interior is coordinated and definitely Charleston casual.
Open kitchen so you can watch them work. The kitchen and front staff
had a great rapport. It was fun to watch them.
Service was impeccable!
Country pate. A pork pate with bread and OD pickles. This was a starter. It was huge!!
Dutchboy didn't like it. Reminded him of Liverwurst. I enjoyed it.
I opted for The Old Danger pizza. It's one of their most popular pizzas topped with
pancetta, farm egg, scallion, white sauce, mozzarella, parmesan and black pepper.
(Dutchboy got the Miss Carolina with red and green tomatoes, mozzarella, fresh basil and olive oil
but I didn't get a picture of it!)
Downstairs is the ice cream shop, run by the same chef. It's fantastic!
Beardcat's Sweet Shop has the smoothest gelato I've had outside of Italy. I went for the
Coffee Gelato and the Sweet Cream olive oil gelato. The lady kindly poured the delicious
olive oil over all of it. It was DIVINE. If you haven't tried olive oil over ice cream, don't be afraid.
It's that salty, sweet hit that it needs. Plus the oil thickens with the cold and becomes this
super creamy, fatty, mouth feel that makes the ice cream even more pleasant.
After the meal and the ice cream, a walk was very necessary. We were going to walk around the Sullivan Island lighthouse but it's just hideously ugly. So we drove around looking at beautiful houses until we stumbled on Fort Moultrie. Like every other National Parks Service site, it was closed due to the shutdown. But it had lovely beach access with a view of the Ravenel Bridge and Charleston across the harbor.
After walking for quite awhile, we decided to drive to our hotel in Mount Pleasant and settle in for the evening. We had to rest up for another day of walking!
The next morning started with a drive across the Ravenel Bridge into Charleston. Dutchboy remembered a spot near the harbor that had poffertjes and he had to have some!
Fueled by sugar and carbs, we headed to the harbor were I TOOK NO PICTURES. WHAT!?!?!? How is that possible? No photos of the harbor, a couple of photos from East Bay Street, but nothing of the Battery! Rainbow Row was a Rainbow no! So many missed photos, but I was just enjoying the walk, the Halloween decorations and talking with Dutchboy. To be fair, White Point Garden and The Battery were closed off for construction.
One house did stop us dead in our tracks. Pun intended.
After all that raucous Halloween brouhaha, we kept walking looking at the beautiful houses that we could never afford and wondering what happened that they seemed to be under major renovations. But during this long walk back to the parking garage, we happened upon the Gibbes Museum of Art. In all our wanderings in past visits we had never noticed this museum! How is that possible?! And what should be on exhibition but the etchings of Rembrandt on loan from Rembrandt House Museum, Amsterdam! Dutcbhoy's mother took me to Rembrandthuis years ago, so I had likely seen them before, but this was our opportunity to get a taste of the Netherlands. We weren't about to miss it!
The museum is beautiful! Inside and Out!
The exhibition featured etchings, small and perfect! The museum provided
magnifying glasses to help you see the details.
Lovely!
Once again, I must confess I was so into looking at art, being in that beautiful building, that I forgot I had a phone. Isn't is lovely to touch grass and forget about the digital world for awhile? Except that I do this little thing where I share my experience with people. *facepalm*
Anyway, on to the outside world. It's Charleston. There's art all around you, all the time.
Since we had dinner reservations, we had to head back to Mount Pleasant. German food was on the menu! And I hadn't even had lunch! Unfortunately, we ended up stuck in a traffic jam on that beautiful Arthur Ravenel, Jr. Bridge.
At least I got this cool photo.
And this photo that I took to reassure myself that although I was suspended over water
on bridge that was bouncing terribly, those supports are massive. They would hold.
Right?!?
Turns out it was a fender bender on the far side of the bridge. Luckily, we still had an hour and a half before dinner, so i could try a beer! We opted for a place called Two Blokes Brewing.
We picked our spot at the bar
And I picked out my beer flight!
Umlaut, First Blood, Spilt Milk, Put Your Face in It
I really loved everything I tried.
I followed that with a glass of Oktoberfest
The original art work. Drawn by the owners, bar flies, local artists...they're all great.
Beers finished, it was time to head to Nick's German Kitchen. German ? In Charleston?? See, here's the thing. There are a lot of amazing restaurants in Charleston. Husk (love it, three month wait to get in), Poogan's Porch (been there, done that), FIG (been there, done that), Slightly North of Broad (ditto), Lenoir (ditto), Hominy Grill (HATED IT. Worst shrimp & grits EVER). But there is ALWAYS something you haven't tried. For me, this time, it was Nick's. I love German food and German beer. This place had amazing reviews. We found it those reviews are well deserved! (please excuse the rainbow lights in the photos. The candle holders were sending prisms everywhere).
Not Paulaner, they were out. HofBrau Oktoberfest. Ahhh.
Kartoffelpuffer.
Potato Pancakes with applesauce and salad.
I had the Jagerschnitzel.
Breaded pork schnitzel, mushroom sauce and spaetzle
Dutchboy had Chicken Spaetzle.
Spaetzle, caramelized onion, gouda, grilled chicken.
I couldn't resist the schwarzwälder kirschtorte met sahne.
That's Black Forest Cake to us English speaking folks. It was...okay.
A bit dry and rather flavorless. Luckily I still had a bit of beer so the evening ended
on a very pleasant note.
THe next morning was another gorgeous day, but it was also the day we were heading home. But you can't go to charleston without a visit to the Angel Oak, The Angel Oak is estimated to be between 400-500 years old, 66 feet (20 meters) high with a circumference of 28 feet (8.5 meters) and it's branches cover 17,200 square feet (1,600 meters). For Dutchboy and I, this isn't a tourist attraction, it's a pilgrimage to a sacred site. If there is a God, this is the place on Earth where you can still feel him.
It's unfortunate that not everyone feels the same way about the Angel Oak. They have now fenced it off, and have hired security staff to keep people from climbing, leaning and damaging this old sentinel. We left feeling slightly sad that this special site was just another selfie opportunity. So what do you do? Go to the beach. This time it's Folly Beach. The drive from Charleston to Folly Beach is worth the trip. But so is a long walk on the beach, and down the pier. And with last wave to the Atlantic, it was time to head back to the embrace of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
*Needle Scratch* Wait! I forgot about the one last stop for lunch! It was beer week in Charleston! I wanted to end with lunch a brewery. It was CRAZY busy at my first and second choices, but when I feared all hope was lost, we came upon Edmund's Oast Exchange. We found a table outdoors, and I ordered a couple of 4 ounce pours to try, (the Alsatian Pilsner and the Festbier) before settling on Toucan's Feather, a dry Irish stout. With the beer figured out, I opted for the Artisan burger with bacon jam, mustard, onion and jalapeno, and Dutchboy got a vegetarian red curry. Both were excellent!
I didn't know precisely what time it was, but the sun was setting fast on this vacation. It was time to go home. I was happy to have lost track of the days and the time, happy to reset and find that the person who was so stressed about work for so long hadn't erased who I really was on the inside. That's the magic thing about travel, it shows us who we are and forces us confront who we want to be. If you're lucky, you find a place that is comfortable and pulls you back. Dutchboy says those places are "where you leave your suitcase". Charleston is one of those places. Rhett and I? We understand.
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