Friday the 13th

David & I decided a little dining excursion was just what we needed to shake the gloom off our rainy Georgia Friday so we headed up to Aiken for Stromboli at Ferando's. They were packed and though our food only warranted a "good" rather than it's usual "really good" we think it was probably due to the deluge of customers who like us came in out of the rain. Also I thing that Pizza really is their strong suit. Service gets an A+ for effort tonight... our young waiter (who had a certain Sean Astin look about him) was personable and attentive even though he looked so overwhelmed we feared his head might actually pop off. The rain let up and we went in search of further adventures..... and ended up at The White Elephant for coffee and dessert. Downtown Augusta just doesn't seem to be very lively at night and there were only a few people in the restaurant. We sat at the bar and had a nice chat with Jai the owner. She'd been stood up by a reservation for 20 but in spite of her dissapointment she was still very good company. I had the bananas foster which is a unique take on the classic in a torte form. It was exceptional and I will absolutely order it again! As we suspected with our previous mention of the coffee we just didn't catch it at the right time the first go-round but this time it was fresh, hot and excellent. We asked for a small taste of the Garlic Dressing that we love so much - I swear I could drink the stuff! I'm trying to make my own version which I thought was pretty good but after tasting the real thing again I am not even in the same league (back to the drawing board)! The combo of stromboli, bananas foster and garlic was pretty bizarre and we decided to make it even more eclectic by tasting some of Jai's Mom's hot sauce - it was hot, sweet and yummy stuff! So much so that we bought a jar to take home - autographed by the Lady herself! Maybe it'll inspire me on some of the 4 lbs of turkey breast I still need to find a recipe for.....

On The Road Again

Creole Red New Orleans "Style" Restaurant 409 West Congress Street Savannah, Georgia "Historic Savannah's ONLY New Orleans Style Restaurant" for good reason. Why could Katrina not have take a slightly eastern course and washed away Creole Red's? I would personally push the plunger that set off the explosives to bring a levy full of water down on Creole Red's. FEMA should be notified as this is definitely a hazard to national security. Are you getting the picture that I didn't like Creole Red's? Well, actually, I sort of liked Creole Red's - my colon however had other opinions. And it is not by accident that I used the plural on "opinions" - Creole Red's was a repeat offender. The first clue should have come when we sat down (all alone in the entire restaurant) and saw that the "New Orleans Style" included Texas Pete hot sauce. Ummm.... For one, Texas Pete hot sauce is from North Carolina - not really New Orleans or even Texas for that matter. How about Crystal or even Tabasco? With no one else in the restaurant, it was amazing that it took almost 45 minutes (I know because we watched the entire Savannah TV news while waiting) for our food to arrive. I ordered a very standard Crawfish Etoufee, while Diane had the gumbo. I guess Diane didn't realize that she had ordered the "bone in" gumbo - Fish bones... we can only hope. Perhaps the Creole Red folks were trying some voodoo thing with the chicken bones, it was hard to tell. For what it was worth, my etoufee was not... well... bad. Good would not be a word I would describe it with either. How about, "It didn't outright suck". Yep, that just about sums it up. Even someone in Fodor's got the repeat offender status from eating at Red's! The ambiance was... notable - and not in a good way. The blaring televisions were only trumped by the extremely wasted woman who came in with her "old man". They went to the back for a while... to do... who knows. Two younger guys came in and sat down across the restaurant from us. They seemed nice - in an upscale drug dealer kind of way. The wasted woman came out from the back and started talking to the two young guys. In order to get her to leave them alone, they passed her some - "go away" token. Sadly for the young drug dealers, it did not work. She felt obligated to sit and chat with them in exchange for their "kindness" - even reluctantly dragging her "old man" over to thank them. Diane and I had choked our meals down so I planned a quick get away in order to avoid the gun play that I thought was about to happen. Mercifully for the drug dealer guys - and the two of us as well - the lady left to go enjoy her token. I don't think that we'll be going back.