The food resolution continues!

After three straight days of eating at amazing Savannah restaurants, Dan and I had to roll out of the car when we returned home. It's definitely time to get back to eating healthy next week! In fact, I'm thinking of picking up Jamie Oliver's The Food Revolution so that I'll have some new healthy dinner ideas to make. Basically, this girl needs to detox her system because every Savannah dish has butter as the secret ingredient. But until then, forget The Food Revolution. Nope, instead, I give you:

The Food Resolution!

Our New Year's resolution was to try 12 new restaurants in 12 months. Here are two of our most memorable ones from Savannah:

The Olde Pink House

The atmosphere: Haute and haunted

I wanted to go to one restaurant that was classic Savannah, and this grand 18th century house (Savannah's oldest one) fit the bill. It originally was owned by a family who kept painting it with white plaster, however the red bricks would show through making the house appear pink. Later, when it was turned into a tavern and restaurant, the owners gave up and painted it the shade of "blush" errr... "bashful" err "pepto bismal" it is today. Oh, and supposedly it's haunted with the ghost of the original owner, which is very Savannah. In this city, haunted houses are like Starbucks... you can find one on every corner.

Anyway, the inside was gorgeous in a fancy way, all chandeliers and silk curtains. Where's a string of pearls when a girl needs one?

The food:

* I tried the famous BLT salad I heard about on Best Thing I Ever Ate. Two fried green tomatoes + honey smoked bacon + pickled tomatoes + ridiculously fattening dressing = one of the best salads I've ever eaten indeed :)

* The rest of the meal was equally Southern and fried and fattening and delicious. Dan devoured a plate of scallop linguine, and I had a creamy shrimp and grits meal. And you already know about the chocolate cake for dessert... Verdict: I was a little worried this place would feel like a tourist trap, resting on their pretty decor and interesting history and churning out subpar food. Luckily, the food was ah-maz-ing! It was such a special, memorable meal to have on my thirtieth. Then, the next day Dan and I drove to Tybee Island outside Savannah and ate The Crab Shack, the exact opposite of the Olde Pink House...

The Crab Shack

The atmosphere: Laid back, right down to the lazy alligators When Dan and I first walked up to The Crab Shack, we strolled over a bridge and took a campy picture with this guy:

Then, we saw this sign:

Thinking it was a hoax to be funny, we looked down from the platform into a small lagoon and saw twelve alligators all draped over one another. They were were so motionless that we still assumed they were fake rubber ones like the first guy that I had taken the picture with.

But then one of the gators moved his head ever so slightly, freaking Dan out so badly that he almost tripped over his own feet jerking backwards! I couldn't stop laughing when he dead-panned to me as I snapped a picture, "If you drop that camera in there, I am NOT helping you fish it back!"

Once Dan had recovered, we decided to eat outdoors, which had a view of the bay and a leafy canopy of leaves from the nearby cypress trees.

The whole place had a "you're in a treehouse vibe." I loved the apple baskets they used for lanterns.

The food:

Dan and I shared an enormous platter of boiled crab legs, crawfish, and shrimp to crack and peel ourselves. The below pictures show our reactions better than a blog post can:

Oh, and after we were stuffed, we decided to spend the three bucks to feed our scaly friends. We attached bits of rubbery alligator treats to the fishing poles outside the lagoon:

That finally got the alligators in motion!

I almost started a gator fight with my treat! They're actually kind of cute...

Verdict: Fresh seafood, outdoor setting, feeding alligators... what's not to love?

Sigh... the food vacation is over. But damn if it wasn't great while it lasted!

The Olde Pink House picture via here, inside from here, and the BLT salad photo is from here