the stately homes of Charleston SC - and fine Fish

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Rather than stay up all night last night Sat., as I had a 7 hr trip to Athens, Georgia from Charleston, South Carolina, this is from the Hound on the way to Athens GA at 10am Sunday mornin’ – not comin’ down like Kris Kristofferson. It is a thoroughly dismal morning and it is steady rain on the interstate – don’t ask me which number – on the way to stops in Orangeburg SC, Columbia SC, then to Augusta and Athens GA. It was a great decision to stay out of town right at the Greyhound station again as the Clarion Inn was right next door – not to mention it was generally $40 more to stay downtown – and I would have been up for the cabfare to get down there and back anyway. The Clarion cost $80 – and the cabfare each way was $13 on the meter – call it $14. When I got off the bus, although going directly next door to the Clarion, asked a cabbie sitting there how much to downtown and he said $25-30! (did he sense I was from outta town maybe??). The girl at the desk rightly said about $12 or so and gave me a couple of cheap local companies to call.

I had an in-room coffee and checked a couple of things on the Net and generally rested up a bit from the rather brutal 6am wakeup call in Savannah for the 7am bus to Charleston (which was only 2h30m). That is effectively the same one I am on now which goes all the way in a rather dogleg route to Atlanta. Headed off downtown ard noon, having rung local company Gullah Tours to make sure I could get on one of their mini tours. This was mentioned in the Rough Guide and sounded pretty good, as it turned out to be. Gullah is the local Creole-based dialect and the driver/guide Alphonso gave us some introduction to aspects of it. It was a smallish minibus with about 15 people on it, most of them black. The tour was a little over 2 hrs and was good value for the $18 – call it $20 – we all paid Alphonso at the end (you don’t have to pay if it’s no good). It was a good introduction to the downtown area of Charleston. Apart from King St, which is full of relatively upmarket retail fashion, antique shops and some galleries and restaurants, this is virtually all prime local residential real estate. Many pix of that will accompany this blog. One of the major figures in Charleston’s early history was a senator/mover and shaker called Calhoun – a street is named after him but because he was such a racist the local Gullah version of his name is more Kill-hoon.

The tour particularly focussed on the work of local blacksmith/wrought iron worker Philip Simmons. He died 3 years or so ago but was classified a living National Treasure when he was alive. He mostly did rather distinctive wrought iron gates with a tightly curved rolls in the traditional style rather than the more open modern style. If you have them on your property you certainly take them with you – a number were pointed out to us on the tour. We also paid a short visit to his old house – a small humble place down the back of the main house – his mother in law moved in so what could be he do but move into a smaller place down back? His later work was done by 2 of his cousins on his design. You could buy small pieces – a simple but quite worked black bracket with gilding on one end of a protruding piece which you could use to hang a towel off etc was $55 and I was almost considering it as a flat piece for my luggage. Larger more twisted works were around $150-200. But instead bought a small black and white card of one of his gate designs for $2.

When the tour finished at about 3.15pm decided I would simply wander around and look at the pretty amazing houses in the downtown residential area. Which as you will see as per visual digest highlights I did for the next 3 hours. Half of them seemed to be for sale by agencies like Sotheby’s etc and accdg to one flyer I picked up for a typical 2 storey, around $1M. would be your general price. There was a very pretty church graveyard which was also really nice, with daffodils and jonquils out in flower.I walked right down to the sea/harbourfront but it was rather windy down there so just wandered back towards King St and the restaurant du jour.

I had seen this earlier and knew it was mentioned in the Rough Guide as a “small upscale place” and suggested the fish dishes were simply described as “trout” or “salmon”. Those days are gone and the menu has ‘normal’ descriptions. As it was Food and Wine event special weekend in Charleston thought I had better book rather than do my usual solo walk-in.

Rather than start with wine, one of their cocktails (only $8) sounded so bizarre I had to have it. And wouldn’t you have a Yokozuna too? – described as Yamazaki 12yo single malt (those crazy Japs) with ginger cognac (??), yuzu marmalade and pineapple. It really was quite drinkable – not sure I would have 2 in a row though! Anyway the first course was Capers Island steamed clams with kaffir lime and cilantro (i.e. coriander) broth. This was only $8 and was of superb flavour (I definitely used the spoon), and was not at all overly salty as these often are. Although the restaurant has some French associations, it certainly seemed to be doing its own version of Asian fusion. One fish dish I asked about had a base of green curry which sounded a bit strong to me. However I had one of the specials of the day ($23), butter poached trigger fish - superbly cooked, with mustard greens and oyster mushrooms, and lobster bisque as a base (which was however a little salty but otherwise superb). I had a glass of King Estate (Oregon) Acrobat pinot gris – but ultimately decided that pinot gris does not really spin my boat. Given the quality of the first two courses – and they were smallish so that you could have 3 courses – I had to try one of their desserts. This matched them in terms of quality in its own way. It was a small muffin like fig/applecake ($7) with a little roasted banana goat cheese icecream (said the menu) on top, with some crunchy honeyed figs and walnuts scattered around the plate.

Overall every separate element of this meal was superb - you usually get one part which falls down, but not here. As you know I have been on somewhat of a gourmet road trip starting in SFO then across the Southern US in the last 5 weeks. That really started in Dallas (Stefan Pyles') where I had my best previous meal. However my dinner at Fish tonight equalled it in terms of quality and culinary technique of each course which is the real mark of a quality restaurant. I complimented the front of house girls on the way out. I was standing out the front taking a picture and waiting for my cab back to the burbs when a guy in a jacket approached me about what I was taking a picture of. I told him I had just eaten a superb meal there and he whipped out his card (he was the MD or something of the general operation which included Fish). He asked me if I was a blogger and said kind of (travel but food obsessed!) and he asked me to send him a link. As some of the dumbies on Tripadvisor had blagged the service etc (I must say that a lot of people there complain about the service only in a me me kind of way - it's the food you should come for) decided that giving it a big high 5 on Tripadvisor would do the restaurant more good than this minority interest blog! I was only in Charleston one night and struck it lucky!. And fairly reasonably priced too – this cost me $70 incl. a 20% tip - my meal in Dallas cost me just over $100, as did the Pink House in Savannah.

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Photos

Philip Porcher House
on Magazine St, Charleston

(ironman) Simmons house
his little cottage down the back

Simmons gates
now very valuable

a Charleston house
one of many more

American Theatre, Charleston
(on King St) seems still open sometimes?

Riviera Theatre
also on King St

Charleston churches
Unitarian on L, St Johns Lutheran on R

12 Franklin St entry
house called Carolopolis

Cooper-O'Connor hse 1855
some had historical detail signs

a curved front...
just to be different?

Comments

[Huddo]

High 5 blog wraps.
Hi Mike, Stately homes, has been invented for this location! I have not been to Charleston, seen some grandeur in The South, however your pic's say it all, impressive. Philip Simmons a National Treasure, how hard would that be to accomplish. Glad to hear you corrected the standing of Fish, that will make their day/month. Love the "Pumpkin" coach, that person should be very busy! Love Huddo and girls.