Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives: The Glass Onion and The Sea Biscuit Cafe

Michael and I love to try new restaurants and when we are on trips we are always on the look out for places that were featured on the TV show Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives.  We have eaten at several and they have never steered us wrong.  No matter where we have been or what type of food they serve, we have always had amazing meals when we visit places from the show.  

Charleston has several of them but The Glass Onion is the one that I picked to visit for lunch before we headed home.  They have a great website and the description of their "soul food" sounded awesome.  Their website states that their menu is full of southern style choices heavily influenced by New Orleans and the Low Country and they use as many local ingredients as possible from farmers and fishermen.  This place was nothing short of amazing.  Seriously it could not have been any better....OK maybe the deviled eggs could have been...

Located in part of a strip mall, the store front beside them was empty and boarded up, this would not be a place that you would think to stop just in passing...but boy would you be missing out!

We went at an odd time like 3:30, in between regular meal times, so they were not busy and we didn't have to wait at all.

Kellan and I with a picture of an onion :)

 One of the foods featured on the show was the Smoked Pork Loin Po' Boy and the video is located here.  Michael ordered this with a side of mashed sweet potatoes.  I am not a huge fan of sweet potatoes but these were so good I believe I could easily eat them everyday.  He also got a side of deviled eggs...they weren't really either of our favorites, but everything else was phenomenal.

Fried crispy chicken legs was another food item featured on the show but since their menu changes it wasn't an option on the day that we were there.  The link to the video from the show were the owner is making those is here if you want to check it out.  I got their fried chicken sandwich with a side of mashed potatoes and both were wonderful.  So that we could try both of them we halved our sandwiches and shared.

Don't worry we both shared with Kellan.

As if our meal wasn't enough we had to order dessert because they are all homemade and had way too many good choices.  We went with the strawberry cobbler and I do believe it is in the running for one of the best foods I have ever eaten in my life.  I'm not exaggerating...it was extraordinarily wonderful.  

We sat at the table under the "Guy Ate Here" sign :)  If you are in the Charleston area please eat here...you will be blown away.

Another restaurant that we tried was the Sea Biscuit Cafe.  It is not a Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives restaurant but I still wanted to mention it because it was really good as well.  The whole family ate here for breakfast on our last day.  My brother-in-law Shannon found it online and said that it had good reviews so we decided to try it out.

It is a really small place with just a few tables but the food was really good.

They use fresh, local produce and my veggie omelet was delicious.

Michael really enjoyed his banana pancakes, eggs, bacon, and corned beef hash.  We would highly recommend this place too if you are over in the Isle of Palms area in Mt. Pleasant, SC.  Great find Uncle Shannon! :)

Day 10 Portland: Last Day :(

I'm back!  After an unintentional few weeks of no blogging...I'm finally back.  We have been really busy around here and I will have a future post or two to show what we have been up to.  Before I get to that, this is my last post on our Oregon trip! 

 

 

Our first stop on our last day was at the Byways Cafe for breakfast.  This was a restaurant featured on the TV show Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives.  Here is the clip from the show.

 

 



 

This was THE BEST breakfast scramble.  It was SO DELICIOUS.

Michael had to get the corned beef hash that was featured on the show.

And we shared a blue corn pancake that was also featured on the show.  It was really good too.

Kellan was really loving this orange wedge and then suddenly got very mad at it.  We're not sure what happened.

The Byways Cafe is located in the Pearl District...it was one of the nicest neighborhoods.

Next we explored the Oregon Historical Society in the Cultural District along with other science, art, and history museums.

Old church in the Cultural District

We had lunch at Blueplate, another restaurant featured on Diners, Drive Ins, and Dives.

This is a clip from when Blueplate was featured on the show.

When we were there the daily special was meatloaf.  I got the sandwich...

and Michael got the meal.

They are also an old fashioned soda shop so we of course had to try one of their many flavors, the Hawaiian sunset, with pineapple, coconut, and strawberry.  It was phenomenal.  Seriously, I could have downed 10 of these...and still wanted more!

We also tried the Tooted Fruit...it was OK but no where near as awesome as the first one we tried.

This was our bill :)  No sales tax is just so nice...

 

Next I insisted that we find Moonstruck Chocolates, a famous chocolatier in Portland.  Apparently Oprah LOVES them :)



 

Kellan peeking into the chocolate case.

 

Political chocolates :)  Michael had to get an elephant.

 

This is how many of each type of chocolate had been sold.  I was pretty impressed with how close they were considering Portland is an extremely liberal city.  Michael was disgusted.

 

Our Moonstruck purchases...they were all delicious...especially my peanut butter filled ghost :)

 

I don't think I mentioned that tragedy struck after all of the moving from hotel to hotel and all of the packing and unpacking.  My big red suitcase had just had it and the zipper finally gave in and broke.  Not to mention it was stuffed with all of the things that we bought along the way.  This was my new big pink suitcase that we bought...then I had to wheel the huge empty thing all around downtown until we went back to the hotel.

 

 



We had our last dinner at Jake's.  This is a Portland landmark and has been serving seafood for over 110 years.  It is now owned by the McCormick and Schmicks restaurant chain.  Jake's Famous Crawfish was the first restaurant in their chain.   We always take Kellan out to dinner with us but this time we had our big bulky stroller in the middle of this really nice restaurant.  I cannot go on enough about how nice and helpful the staff were and how accommodating they were to parents with a young child.  Michael told the manager that we would wait outside until our table was ready, to keep from taking up so much room in the waiting area.  The manager insisted that we stay inside and told us that he would keep our stroller for us once we were able to sit down.  Everyone was so friendly and helpful.

 

 

Michael and I both got the crab stuffed salmon...it was sooo good

 

A waiter (not even our waiter) came over from another table and gave Kellan his own stuffed Jake's Crawfish.  He also showed us a picture of his son that is a little younger than Kellan.  I cannot tell you how many people stopped by our table to talk to Kellan...he was definitely the center of attention. 

 

 

We of course had to get dessert...I'm pretty sure this was the biggest dessert on the menu.  It was a chocolate bag, filled with white chocolate, raspberries, blackberries and blueberries.

 

On our way back to the hotel, Kellan was serenaded by a street performer.  He got his own personal show.

 

 

He wasn't sure what to think so he just stared...at least he didn't cry...

 That FINALLY wraps up our trip!  We definitely saw a lot and covered a lot of ground in our time on the West coast.  Oregon is an awesome state and I highly recommend it for vacations.  Kellan was such a great little traveler and we can't wait to take him on our next adventure...whatever it may be!

 

He did an amazing job on both of our flights coming home.  He slept in his car seat, looked at books, and basically entertained himself.  We got really lucky with flying Southwest because if the flight is not full, babies get their own seat for free.  Kellan was able to have his own seat with his car seat in every single one of our flights!  Both flights out there and both flights on our return trip home...at no extra charge.  Not to mention all of the bags that we had also flew free...we LOVE Southwest!

Happy Birthday To Me!

My 31st birthday was Sunday, July 22!  I had not really planned on doing very much since it felt like we had just gotten back from vacation and Kellan had been invited to a 1st birthday party on Sunday afternoon.  Michael suggested that we go somewhere on Friday, stay the night, and come back late Saturday.  I told him I would think about it and decide where I wanted to go.  By the time he got home from work on Friday, the thought of packing again, after it seemed like we had just unpacked from Florida, was so unappealing I told him that I thought we should just stay home.  This is very unlike me because I love to go check out new places...but it tells how MUCH I really did not want to pack up everything all over again, even for just one night.

Instead of going somewhere and staying overnight, we decided to spend all day Saturday in Richmond marking through some places on our list of things that we have been wanting to do.

This is our list that we are continuously adding to:

 

1.  Wilton House Museum

2.  Agecroft Hall

3.  Museum of Edgar Alan Poe

4.  Science Museum

5.  Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

6.  Walk around the Capital grounds and 6th Street Market

7.  The Civil War Museum

8.  The Children Museum (when Kellan gets a little older)

9.  Hollywood Cemetery

10.  Virginia Historical Society

11.  Canal Walk

12.  Byrd Theatre

13.  Former White House

14.  Valentine Museum

15.  Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens

16.  Weezie's Kitchen (restaurant in Carytown)

11.  Maymont Park

12.  The Museum of the Confederacy

13.  Virginia Holocaust Museum

14.  The Jefferson Hotel

15.  Dot's Back Inn (Diner's Drive-Ins and Dives)

16.  Village Cafe (Diner's Drive-In and Dives)

17.  Carytown

18.  Landmark Theatre

Michael and I have already visited Maymont Park, the Museum of the Confederacy, Carytown, and the Landmark Theatre on previous visits but we were able to get to a few more this weekend.

Our first stop was Dot's Back Inn for lunch.  This was one of the restaurants featured on the Food Network TV show, Diner's, Drive-Ins, and Dives.  It is a restaurant definitely off the beaten path and its not really somewhere you would find unless someone had told you about it.  It is not that big of a place and not fancy by any means but our food was phenomenal.  We will surely be back to try other things from the menu.

Next, we headed to the Virginia Holocaust Museum.  On the way we passed the Farmer's Market in downtown and decided to stop and walk around there first. It was overcast and a little misty so there weren't a lot of vendors out but we still found a few interesting things.

We bought some Strawberry Basil Lemonade from this little boy's lemonade stand :)

We bought a book for mommy and a book for Kellan from a used book stand...I love a book stand, new or used!

After leaving the Farmer's Market we went to the Virginia Holocaust Museum.  The Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. is one of the most interesting museums I've ever been to so I had been wanting to check this one out.  They both have such sad stories to tell but definitely stories that everyone should hear and photos and videos to see.  This museum shared the general history of the Holocaust but also information about survivors of the Holocaust that settled in Virginia.

Next we stopped by The Jefferson Hotel.  It is one of a few hotels in the nation that has a 5 Star AND 5 Diamond rating.  It opened in 1895 and has had 12 presidents, Charlie Chaplin, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, and many other celebrities as guests. 

What I found most interesting is that when the hotel opened alligators used to live in the main lobby in a moat that surrounds a statue of Thomas Jefferson.  Guests would bring pet alligators home to Richmond from their vacations to Florida.  When the alligators outgrew their homes, they brought them to the Jefferson to live.  Throughout the hotel and gift shop is an alligator theme.  Including this alligator statue at the front entrance. 

 

I didn't take any pictures on the inside because there was a baby shower, several groups having afternoon tea, and a wedding reception all going on in every area that we wandered into!  I felt a little too much like a creepy photographer.  So if you want to see photos of the inside look here and click on photo tour.  The grand staircase is a must see...we'll have to try again when we aren't in town on a weekend!

For dinner, I picked The Black Sheep because its description is "Southern, Eclectic."   I love southern food and I like different so this was a perfect choice for me.   After we got there we found out that this restaurant was featured on the TV show Man versus Food.  They are known for their sandwiches but we ordered an appetizer, a bowl of soup, and two entrees.  I would definitely go back and try a sandwich on another visit.

We had a window seat :)

"Oh gosh, decisions, decisions..."

Kellan eating his dinner

Oyster gumbo and Squash fritters with tomato jam

These acorn salt and pepper shakers reminded me of Raleigh The City of Oaks :)

Michael's lamb kabobs

My grilled peaches and pork chop

The plan was to head to Carytown Cupcakes for dessert but they sold out for the day!  We headed to Frostings in Short Pump instead to try out their cupcakes!  We each chose 3 and brought 1/2 dozen home with us.

Frostings was on Cupcake Wars on the Food Network...it was a TV show restaurant kind of day!

Peanut Butter Cup, S'more, Vanilla/Vanilla, Cookies N' Cream, and 2 Red Velvet

And of course we made a stop at Whole Foods before heading home!

And as if I needed any more sweets I brought home a strawberry rhubarb pie.  I've always wanted to try this type of pie and when I saw it at Whole Foods, on sale in July, I just had to get it!  Soooo good...definitely worth the 10 pounds I will probably gain. 

It was a great day-before-my-birthday filled with good food and fun adventures!  I guess I have to now officially say that I am "in my 30's."  30 itself just seemed like a buffer zone but now I'm really in there!