Savannah - Part Three - Deep Fried Ecstasy

I confess, I'm a foodie! I love all things Food Network and I especially love Paula Deen. When we made plans to come to Savannah I was salivating at the opportunity to dine at this southern landmark, this mecca of deep fried ecstasy.


As I said in my earlier post, my dear friends daughter was able to wrangle us the much prised reservations. And after a long day of walking the city we headed back to our hotel for a bit of a nap before dinner. We needed to be fortified for the experience of entering the inner sanctum of all things southern.


After a very short walk, it was raining, but just a light spring shower and we had a large umbrella so we arrived dry and cool after our short walk from our hotel. We found ourselves standing in front of the sanctuary of fried chicken and black eyed peas.


My mouth is watering just thinking about the food.


The Lady & Son's

Earlier in the day we stopped into the Paula Deen Store (right next door to the restaurant) to do a bit of shopping. I picked up two cookbooks. One is the traditional "Lady & Son's" Cookbook the second one is more of a journal type thing. The DD and I look forward to filing it with our own recipes as well as shared memories of our time in the kitchen.

This for me is one of the things that I like about Paula, she never fails to share about her expediences as she cooked with her grandmother Paul in the kitchen and I love watching her get side by side with her boys as well.

and look y'all, all the cookbooks in the store were personally autographed by her!

But I digress.......

Back to dinner.

At 4:30 on the dot our names were called out in a loud voice. My excitement grew, I was actually at "Paula's" notice how I refer to the restaurant by her first name, this infers that there is a personal one on one relationship, like I really know her. But you see when you watch her on television you really get the sense that you are pulled up to her kitchen counter just hanging out while she cooks.

I keep getting distracted...my exuberance, excitement, anticipation....I was just "eat up with it"

Where was I, oh yea were in the elevator....

The elevator doors open and the aromas filled the air. The atmosphere was one of friendly homeyness. The hostess ushered us to our table and we took our seats.

The decor was simple and inviting. Our table was set with a lovely plain white doily and silverware.

As soon as we sat down a young girl promptly came up to the table and began out meal with a hot off the griddle hoe cake, we were given the instructions that there was a maple syrup dressing available right on the table if we wished.

Not wanting to miss out on one moment of the experience I grabbed the syrup and poured a generous helping over my hot hoe cake. Now I am certain that this maple syrup is not the low calorie artificially flavored syrup that resides in my pantry.

I took one bite and it was wonderful.

This same sweet smiling faced young woman then came by with a huge basket filled to overflowing with hot fresh from the oven cheese biscuit. She placed one on my plate as well. I took a tiny bit, not wanting to spoil my appetite for the main event. It was light and fluffy with just the right amount of cheese as well as buttery and melt in your mouth. Oh my stars, y'all it was too good!

On Sunday's the Lady and Son's only serves a buffet, so after savoring our hoe cakes and cheese biscuits we made our way up to the buffet.

Where to start????

Crispy slightly spicy fried chicken perfectly cooked, tender BBQ with an amazing sauce with an even bigger kick to it, baked chicken (which I passed on, I mean come on people when there is friend chicken in the house who in the right mind would opt for baked chicken....not me).

There were black eyed peas, butter beans with ham, the creamiest mashed potatoes I have ever put in my mouth, gravy, rice, corn bread stuffing, collard greens, candies yams, mac & cheese. Now let me say a word about the mac & cheese. It was super cheese and fluffy all at the same time. Oh and I forgot the creamed corn and the green beans and new potatoes.

And yes I took a picture of my dinner!

The meal we had was one for the books. I have to tell ya that there was not one thing on the buffet that was a disappointment. I am not a real fan of collard greens but I vowed to at least sample a tiny bite of most everything. The greens were really good. The only thing I did not try were the candies yams. Off to the side of the buffet was a small and rarely visited salad bar. In my wildest imagination can I ever picture myself visiting "Paula's" for a salad. That just isn't happening.

Our servers name was Nic. He was a personable young man with a friendly conversational way. I asked him how many times a day he got his picture taken, and he just smiled and said that it as "a lot".

After we had both visited the buffet....twice...our wonderful Nic brought out the tray of deserts.

Our selection are fresh from the oven Peach Cobbler, Paula's Famous Gooey Butter Cake and Banana Pudding with real Whipped Cream.

Maybe it was because we are exceptional people (LOL), maybe it was because he liked the way we looked, maybe it was because he wanted a big tip but rather than force us to choose between all this deliciousness, he simply placed one dish of each on the table and told us to enjoy the third option on him. Maybe Nic was an angel sent from heaven to guard my sanity as having to choose between banana pudding and peach cobble might just have sent me over the edge after the free range we had experienced at the buffet.



Gooey Butter Cake....very good

Peach Cobbler.... super yummy

Banana Pudding....over the top, too good, to die for, slap your momma good!

I thought it probably was not appropriate to pick up the little bowls and lick them out, but I thought about it!

Y'all, I have to tell ya the meal was wonderful. Even if we had had to wait in line, and I am truly thankful that we didn't, but even if we had to wait in line it would have been worth it.

Amazingly after all that wonderful food we were actually able to stand up from the table to have our picture taken with our wonderful sever Nic.

Isn't he handsome, Nick I mean, the hubs is cute and all but Nic won my heart when he averted a possible desert crisis.

And yes we left him a big tip!

Well that it our evening at Paula's.

It really was as Paula would say "Best Dishes"

Best meal I have had in forever.....

If you are ever in Savannah and you have an opportunity to stop in on a Sunday afternoon don't miss it, and go early because they close at 5:00 PM on Sundays.

Have Mercy it was GOOOD!

Blessings

Robin

Stay tuned for ......Savannah - Part Four coming to a blogroll near you.

Just a hint of what is to come. There is Bonaventure Cemetery, Tybee Island and a bit of Georgia History and quite possible the best picture I took during out entire stay.

(edit - I forgot to mention my review of Uncle Bubba's Oyster House)

OK

Now I'm Done