If I had lots of money..

… I would quit my job and move to Charleston 🙂

I love this city and am so glad I’ve had two opportunities to visit it in less than a year!  With our weekend mostly focused on wedding events, we had only a handful of hours to spend enjoying the Charleston area.  We considered going to the beach, but we decided that we really just love the downtown area and decided to head back there.  While our venture out started out in areas we visited last time but when we made it to the water, we continued south along the water to a park and then back north past lots of beautiful homes.  It was a beautiful day with a great breeze along the water.  Here are a handful of my favorite pictures from the day 🙂

 

There’s just something so timeless about Charleston… Can’t wait to go back one day.

Re-Baked

This weekend, after our late lunch at Southend Brewery, the Husband and I decided to head back to the hotel to get ready for the wedding.  However, I had to stop back at Baked to try another sweet treat.  While I enjoyed my cupcake in September, this time around my friend Jaclyn recommended I try out a sweet & salty treat.

As I often am when walking into a bakery, I was overwhelmed by all of the choices 🙂 First, I checked out what they had in their cases…

Muffins and scones…

Tarts and pastries…

Whoopie pies…

Brownies…

And cookies…

I also remembered that they had cakes out on their big table in the center of the bakery.  I remembered the Citrus Cake as being one I wanted in September.

I was intrigued by the Green Tea Cake…

And I debated about whether to get the Sweet & Salty cake…

I decided that a slice of cake would probably be too much, especially with us attending a wedding that night.  So, I decided to grab one of the Sweet & Salty brownies.  I took it to go to enjoy later in the weekend.  With a few additional snapshots of the bakery, we headed back to the parking garage and back to the hotel to get ready.

     

On Sunday, I did get around to eating the brownie :-)  The description was that it had cocoa, caramel, and sea salt in/on it.  

I actually was a bit disappointed with the brownie 😦 It wasn’t bad, but it was just fine.  Perhaps I built it up in my mind too much, but it just didn’t meet the sweet & salty combo I was looking for.  Next time, I’m getting that Citrus Cake!

A Return to Southend Brewery

This past weekend, the Husband and I headed back east to one of our favorite southern cities, Charleston, for our friends’ wedding.  It was a wedding filled weekend which left us just Saturday afternoon to explore the city again and to have a quick meal.  We spent the morning and early afternoon exploring the downtown area, venturing into areas we hadn’t visited last time (post coming soon!) and as the heat and humidity wore us down, we decided to stop for something to drink and potentially lunch.

As we made our way back to Bay Street (where a good number of restaurants are), we thought back to our last visit and the many restaurants we visited.  We decided to head back to Southend Brewery since we recalled enjoying our dinner there the last time.

We were given the option to sit outside, but since we stopped in specifically to get out from the heat and humidity, we welcomed the air conditioned restaurant.  Once our waitress arrived, we ordered a Sweet Tea (for me), an Arnold Palmer (iced tea/lemonade for the Husband), and two waters.  I don’t think I’ve ever consumed my water as quickly as I did that day! It’s funny how quickly we’ve adjusted to living in the desert and how much the humidity affects us now 🙂 The Husband and I were both in the mood for salads and decided to each get one and then also order a favorite side.  The Husband ordered the “The Brutus” Caesar Salad – a caesar salad topped with pico de gallo and spicy caesar dressing.  He asked for a recommendation on what meat or seafood to add to it and he went with the grilled chicken.  The salad hit the spot for him.

I ordered the House Baby Mixed Greens with asiago, spiced pecans, and a white balsamic vinaigrette on the side.  This salad was perfect, except that it had a ridiculous amount of cheese (and that’s saying a lot coming from me!).  With nearly every bite, I was shaking cheese off of my fork.  Once I got around a majority of it, though, I really did like it.   

The last time we visited, the Husband and I each ordered a side of the Smoked Gouda Mac n Cheese.  I remembered not enjoying it as much as the Husband but I decided to give it another shot.  I’m glad I did.  It was creamy and a great splurge next to the salad.  We forgot how large the sides were and probably would have done just fine sharing one (especially because the salads were bigger than expected).

Overall, we’re glad we got a chance to have a quick meal in downtown Charleston (the rest of the meals we had were included at our hotel or were wedding events).  The salad and mac n cheese hit the spot, as did the sweet tea, and we enjoyed chatting with our waitress who just recently moved to Charleston from Chicago (a location we’re visiting in just a few weeks!).

Vickery’s

On Monday, on our way out of Charleston heading back to Charlotte, we took a recommendation from a local to try out Vickery’s on Shem Creek.

The weather was gorgeous and we wanted to take advantage of the great water views we were told about so we sat out on the deck.  Other than some crazy wind which required us to keep an eye on our table’s umbrella, it was perfect outside!

Shem Creek has lots of fisherman boats (or shrimp boats) to fish all of the amazing shrimp we’d had all weekend!

In the distance, you could see the bridge that takes you to the historical area of Charleston.

The Husband ordered a Spaten Oktoberfest while I decided to stick with water for the first time this weekend 🙂

Loving the shrimp I had the night before and craving some pasta, I went with the Shrimp Penne with tomatoes, portabella mushrooms, and parmesan.  Although annoyed that the shrimp had their tail shells still on (I hate when that happens in pasta dishes), this was amazing!  Shrimp has won a spot in my menu again 🙂 I’ll just need to get it locally and fresh!

The Husband went with the Crabcake sandwich.  While the crab was fresh, I think the Husband was disappointed with the amount of filler 😦

When I saw the dessert menu, even though I wasn’t hungry, I knew I had to order the Lemon Raspberry Cheesecake.  This is specifically my favorite birthday treat and since I didn’t have cake on my birthday (other than my cupcake at Baked 🙂  ), I had to order this!

The Husband split it with me and it was great! It tasted homemade… Clearly we enjoyed it… 🙂

Vickery’s was a great way to end our Charleston vacation.  I’m so happy that we were finally able to make it to Charleston and I look forward to going back!