Saturday, March 23, 2013
Savannah
- Eats
- Café Florie, 1715 Barnard Street, Savannah. Soul Food. http://travel.nytimes.com/2012/07/01/travel/restaurant-report-cafe-florie-in-savannah.html
- Our first stop, Angel’s, was sold out for the day. The folks there recommended the recently reopened Wall’s, but gave us the wrong address (it’s at 515 East York Lane, not 212, guys). (Open Thu-Sat.) I stepped into a nearby art gallery, and the owner, William Armstrong, sent us out of the historic district, through a low-income, decidedly nonhistoric section of the city where we finally found Randy’s Bar-B-Q, a stand-alone brick cube where the teenager working the takeout window had a one-phrase vocabulary: “What chu got?” A proper response is “Half-slab of ribs” ($10). They come meaty and smoky and slathered in a sauce that any uptight no-fun barbecue elitist would say was too sweet.
- For breakfast, the Firefly Cafe (321 Habersham Street, 912-234-1971) is on a quiet corner on Troup Square. Sit under the oaks and enjoy a plate of blueberry corn pancakes ($6.95) or shrimp and grits ($10.95)
- Vinnie Van Go-Go's (317 West Bryan Street, 912-233-6394) is a popular indoor-outdoor pizza joint ($11 for a large cheese)
- Don't miss the homemade goodies like pralines or gophers — pecan clusters covered with caramel and chocolate, $1.50 to $2 each — at Savannah Candy Kitchen, (318 West St. Julian Street, 912-201-9501) or Cafe Gelatohhh!'s 24 flavors of Italian-style ice cream (202 West St. Julian Street, 912-234.2344; $3.42 for a small cone)
- On Tybee, AJ's Dockside Restaurant (1315 Chatham Avenue, 912-786-9533) is tucked into a quiet waterfront corner on the island's south side. Try the shrimp and grits ($7.95) or artichoke dip ($6.95) appetizers, followed with a bowl of crab stew ($7.95) or scored flounder ($25.95). Arrive early for dinner
- Dress up a bit (no flip-flops) for the froufrou milieu of Elizabeth on 37th (105 East 37th Street, 912-236-5547; www.elizabethon37th.net), a Lowcountry restaurant housed in an early 20th-century mansion where the décor may be prissy but the food is anything but. The revered Elizabeth Terry is no longer the chef, but critics still run out of superlatives trying to describe the seafood-rich menu and what is arguably Savannah's quintessential dining experience. You won't go wrong with the shrimp and grits with red-eye gravy, traditionally made from leftover coffee ($13.95), Bluffton oysters served three ways, including raw with tomato-cilantro ice ($14.95), or snapper with a chewy crust of shredded potato and asiago cheese ($30.95)
- Crab is most rewarding when it is pure and unadulterated, served in a pile on newspaper with a can of beer and a blunt instrument for whacking at the shell. That, plus some boiled potatoes and corn, is what you will find at Desposito's (1 Macceo Drive, 912-897-9963), an unadorned shack in Thunderbolt, a onetime fishing village on the outskirts of town. Dinner for two, plus $2 Budweisers, is about $40
- Masada Café (2301 West Bay Street, 912-236-9499), a buffet annex to the United House of Prayer for All People. The church has several locations in Savannah; this one is a mission of sorts, catering to the poor, but the inexpensive, revolving buffet of soul food classics like fried chicken and macaroni and cheese has gained a following among food critics and locals
- Drinks
- Boar’s Head Grill & Tavern. Music
- Bar crawl
- Begin at the American Legion Post 135, south of Forsyth Park (1108 Bull Street, 912-233-9277; www.americanlegionpost135.com), a surprisingly shimmery, mirrored space where the clientele is a mix of age and vocation, and where the British bartender might hold forth on Savannah's Anglophile side
- Proceed to the Crystal Beer Parlor (301 West Jones Street, 912-443-9200, www.crystalbeerparlor.net). On the outside, it's as anonymous as a speakeasy, which it was, but inside, its high-backed booths and Tiffany lamps are more ice cream than booze. A full menu is available
- Wind up at Planters Tavern (23 Abercorn Street, 912-232-4286), a noisy, low-ceilinged bar in the basement of the high-dollar Olde Pink House, a dignified restaurant in a 1771 house. With a fireplace on either end of the room, live music and boisterous locals, it's the place to be. A warning: they don't do juleps
- Activities
- Spanish-moss-draped, monument-filled squares and the historic houses that surround them just beg for some guidance. Solution: be your own tour guide by printing out the city’s exhaustive but useful 111-page official tour guide manual — or, as I did, sending it to your Kindle — from savannahga.gov. Only hitches: it’s a lot to carry around (unless you go the Kindle route) and your tour guide can still start sounding monotonous after an hour, even though it’s you.
- Savannah's layout — an inviting grid of wide streets interspersed with 24 public squares filled with oaks and statues — makes the city a wonderful place to get around by bicycle. You can rent a bike ($20 a day) at Bicycle Link (408 Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, 912-233-9401; www.bicyclelinksav.com)
- Forsyth Park, at Bull and Gaston Streets, is Savannah's most sublime in-town escape. The 30 acres shaded by oaks- and magnolias hold a huge 19th-century fountain of trumpeting mermen and spouting swans, two well-equipped playgrounds — one for little kids and one for older children — and vast lawns
- The River Street pedestrian district, with a constant stream of water taxis, riverboats, container ships and entertaining shops and restaurants, should be on any itinerary
- Ghost tours are a Savannah mainstay. Shannon Scott says he has documented hundreds of Savannians' personal encounters with local ghosts and voodoo. He and Chris Soucy operate Sixth Sense Tours (888-374-4678, www.savannahghosttour.com; 7 and 9:30 p.m.; $18, $10 for ages 10 to 15, $5 under 10)
- Their shorter more family-friendly walk is America's Most Haunted City the Tour ($12., $8 for ages 8 to 11, $5 under 8). This 75-to-90-minute tour includes the 1797 Hampton-Lillibridge House, which was moved to its current location by Jim Williams, the protagonist of “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.” He believed that one of the house's ghosts was an 18th-century resident of Savannah, Rene Asche Rondolier, who was said to have been lynched after being accused of murdering two girls at what is now Colonial Park Cemetery.
- Old Savannah Tours (912-234-8128, www.oldsavannahtours.com) offers a 90-minute Ghostly Nights tour starting at 7 p.m. ($20, $10 under age ages 6 to 11, under 6 free) aboard an open-air trolley. The company also has daytime trolley tours through town ($23, $10 for ages 5 to 12, under 5 free). You're given a map and can climb on or off throughout the historic district
- tour of the splendid Mercer Williams House on Monterey Square ($12.50 tickets at the Carriage House Shop, 430 Whitaker Street, 912-236-6352; www.mercerhouse.com). It was built in the 1860s for the great-grandfather of the songwriter Johnny Mercer and restored by Jim Williams, the antiques dealer memorialized in a now-classic book, “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.” The stern guide won't dwell on the three murder trials of Mr. Williams, who was acquitted, and guests aren't allowed on the second floor, where Mr. Williams's sister, Dorothy Kingery, still lives. But the guide will offer plenty of detail about the formal courtyard, the nap-ready veranda, the Continental rococo and the Edwardian Murano glass.
- Starland, now filled with galleries and studios. Start at desot O row Gallery (2427 De Soto Avenue, 912-220-0939; www.desotorow.com), a gallery run by current and recent art students, where a recent exhibition featured painted big-box radios and a mirrored mannequin by the local artist Ryan V. Brennan. Next, make your way up to Maldoror's (2418 De Soto Avenue, 912-443-5355; www.maldorors.com), a frame shop with the aura of a Victorian curio cabinet and a print collection to match. Rounding the corner, you'll come to Back in the Day (2403 Bull Street, 912-495-9292; www.backinthedaybakery.com), an old-fashioned bakery that inspires fervent loyalty among locals. Pick up one of the sandwiches, like the Madras curry chicken on ciabatta ($6.95), and maybe a cupcake ($2 to $3.50) for lunch
- Few cemeteries are more stately and picnic-perfect than Bonaventure Cemetery (330 Bonaventure Road), with its 250-year-old live oaks draped with Spanish moss as if perpetually decorated for Halloween. The cemetery, where Conrad Aiken, Johnny Mercer and other notable residents are buried, looks out over the intracoastal waterway, and is a gathering spot for anglers as well as mourners
# posted by billklee @ 07:33 
