Two weeks ago, Matt and I took a little trip to Charleston, South Carolina. We’d never been before so when we saw Norah Jones was going to be there, we booked a trip.
It was a nice, little get-away. Charleston was clean and quiet and cute. And, the weather was PERFECT – I basically packed my usual wardrobe!
FOOD: 167 Raw
This was collectively our favorite meal. One of Matt’s friends had recommended it, and it did not disappoint. The restaurant is TINY – we sat at the counter overlooking the tiny kitchen. The 10-Hour Pork Carnitas Taco was the best thing we ate on our trip.
FOOD: Moe’s Crosstown Tavern
Decent burger… not quite as good as Charcoal’s in NOLA… but good. I had the BLT Burger with fresh mozzarella, pesto mayo, and a fried tomato – which I politely removed from the second half of my burger. This was my second favorite meal…. even with the questionable fried (red) tomato.
FOOD: Rodney Scott’s BBQ
This was Matt’s second favorite meal. He had seen Rodney Scott on Top Chef – Charleston. The restaurant itself was nice. (I loved the painted brick and hexagon tiles.) We got there right when they opened at 11am and – as there should be with a reputable BBQ stop – there was a line waiting outside the door. I thought my whole hog pulled pork sandwich was a little peppery for my taste. And, a little…. wet. Not saucy, it was just a very wet, dry rub…. I compared it to something I may make in my crockpot. Matt was impressed, though, so maybe my BBQ appreciation just hadn’t woken up yet.
HOTEL: Grand Bohemian Hotel
I would definitely stay there again. Good location – within walking distance of everything downtown. Nice sized room, nice bedding, nice bathroom, colorful artwork throughout the hotel. They did ‘forget’ to clean our room….. When we mentioned it to the front desk, the guy working seemed almost surprised that we wanted our bed made/towels switched out. We told him not to worry about the bed, but did ask for clean towels. When we came back – we had clean towels, but they left the pile of dirty towels (which someone had to step across in order to arrange the clean towels on the shelf under the sink). No matter – the nice bed more than made up for the towel issue.
SHOPPING: Mr. K’s Used Books
Hands down, the most organized used book store we’ve ever been in. And, their prices were actually USED bookstore prices. It might be worth another trip back to Charleston just to visit this store.
SHOPPING: Charleston City Market
(Mostly) open-air shopping sheds that divide Market Street. Some vendors are a little hokey, but there were some decent stalls, too. I bought a stamped pineapple print in a barn-wood frame and fell in love with some painted tin ceiling tiles. I was sure I would “need” a sweetgrass basket (which was discussed at length in our Fodor’s book) but I just didn’t love the colors….
We also did a Gray Line city tour (with a monotone older driver who droned on and on for as long as one breath would allow, then he’d take another deep breath and do it again), visited Fort Sumter (combining history and military – two things I’m sorry to confess I have little interest in), we walked miles up and down adorable Charleston streets (ogling over the adorable privacy doors at the street that open to sprawling front porches and the ‘real’ front door), and scoped out some Forrest Gump filming sites in Beaumont.
Definitely a good 3-day trip – any more than that and you’d probably start to run out of things to do….