12 Restaurants in 12 Months

Last year, while everyone else made resolutions to try Jillian Michaels' work out tapes, tone their abs, and stop reaching for the staff room doughnuts, Dan and I made a vow of a different sort:

Try (at least) 12 new restaurants in 12 months

Lazy? Yes. Fattening? Uh-huh. Best resolution ever?

Oh, yeah.

Not that it was a hard one or anything, but we nailed this resolution. I believe you've already heard about these three places:

Pescados at Church Street

* Food: Creative seafood and killer mojitos

* Decor: King Tritan meets Miami Vice

* Memorable quality: creamy avacado tart for dessert!

Lehja
* Food: Upscale Indian

* Decor: Domino magazine and a belly dancer have a love child

* Memorable quality: best. naan. ever.

Amuse

* Food: Artsy and creative
* Decor: Art museum chic with a splash of The Jetsons' retro-mod

* Memorable quality: Celebrating our 5th anniversary there

And for anyone interested, here are a few more, broken down superlative style.

Most creative: Sprout, who used old vinyl album covers to hold their menus.

Ignore this terrible picture of me, and check out the Carly Simon album for the menu:

They served healthy, local food, like this mushroom tarte.

Biggest Tree-huggers: Urban Farmhouse, a granola coffee shop that had organic everything, right down to the potato chips

Best brunch: The Black Sheep's rhubarb french toast, that had lavender marscarpone on top.

It didn't last long enough for me to take a picture of the dish.

Most frequented: A tie between Cafe Ole, which became our go-to Mexican place during the summer for the mango, fish tacos and The Mill, which is an American place three blocks away from our house

Best drinks: Xtra's Cafe, which made a mean bellini

We went to this restaurant with two other couples. Yes, my friends and I look like we're trying to be a lame "look-how-sex-and-the-city-we-are" in this photo, but I had to get a picture for the blog of those delicious drinks. I'm such a Carrie.

Totally kidding.

Best make-over: Tarrant's, which used to be an old-fashioned drugstore. I can't believe I forgot to take a picture of the gorgeous stained glass windows it still has

Most old-fashioned: The Courthouse Grille, for its sweet, nostalgic decor to fit with the 100 year old building and the good ole homemade pimiento cheese on everything.

Oldest crowd: Little Venice, the Italian restaurant we went to on NYE since I had a gift certificate. It had amazing tiramisu, and the oldest crowd I've ever seen. Seriously, it was like it was bingo night at an assisted living facility.

Our extra credit restaurants were:

Most haunted: The Pink House in Savannah. See this post.

Best place to feed and be fed: The Crab Shack on Tybee Island, where we fed alligators . See this post.

Most fattening: Amen in Charleston, which served us deep-fried green tomatoes. Can I get an "Amen"?

That was one delicious year.