In January our tour took us to Savannah, GA and lucky for us we had an entire day off (which doesn't happen too often!) Our awesome bus driver Jeremy took anyone who wanted to, downtown to do some exploring.
If you haven't been, I must tell you that Savannah is a beautiful town with lots of old, picture worthy architecture and a ton of amazing eateries. So yeah, it was going to be a fun day.
I couldn't wait to get there from the moment I saw our tour schedule.
Paula Deen's restaurant, "Lady and Sons" was there and I wasn't going to miss out on all that buttery goodness.
The closer we got to our stay in Savannah, I started to do more research on the restaurants in town.
Both locals and visitors were raving about a place that (arguably) served up even better cooking than Paula Deen's...and that place was Mrs. Wilkes Dining Room.
A lot of people were praising Mrs. Wilkes, saying they had superior food to Lady and Sons and some of the best southern cooking around, period. Naturally upon reading these reviews, our plans changed and we decided to check out Mrs. Wilkes for lunch and then head to Paula Deen's for dinner. Ok kidding about dinner, but hey, i'd be up for the challenge!We set out on our walk, trusting our iPhones to get us there.
The weather was perfect and there were tons of cute houses and beautiful buildings to look at along the way.
On this adventure was a small, yet determined group of friends made up of Greg, Lisa, Meggie, Jenni and myself. After a bit of walking we finally found Mrs. Wilkes. It just kind of blended in with the surrounding houses. The type of place you could walk right past and miss if you're not paying attention.
Hungry and excited, we headed up to the front door. I like to remember it as a joyful skip, although I don't think it was. What I do know that is all of our dreams were crushed in an instant upon reading this sign...
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| "Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!" (Everybody deserves a vacation though!) |
Seriously? We were all pretty shocked...then came the sadness. We had been walking for hours to get there. Starving and tired, we didn't know what to do next. Alright maybe we were only walking for 15 or 20 minutes...but we were pretty hungry.
We sucked up this defeat, took a few pictures outside and decided to move this train somewhere else.
After a little discussion, we decided on Paula Deen's place, "Lady and Sons".
We had gotten pretty excited about Mrs. Wilkes, but the original plan was to go to Lady and Sons, so we were still pretty stoked. We all knew it would still be delicious and began our trek across town to get lunch.
After a lengthy walk, we spotted a brick building with red and white striped awnings.
The signs from a far appeared to read "Lady and Sons", but was it a mirage? I mean, we were on a long journey without food and water for quite some time.
As we got closer we were hit with the delicious smell of fried chicken and knew it was the real deal.
We finally made it! 
Business was booming in there...so much so that we had an hour wait to get seated!
We decided to walk around some and find a coffee shop to kill some time and grab a small snack before indulging in the buttery delight that was just one hour away.
We ended up in a fantastic place named Goose Feathers Cafe and Bakery. It was hard for us to not order an actual meal, but we really wanted to save space in our stomachs. I ended up grabbing a cup of cheese grits and I must say, they were amazing. Now i'm no grit conissuer, but these were absolutely the best i've ever had. Topped em with a little salt, fresh ground pepper, and hot sauce - they were perfection! I would have loved to stay in town another day or two so I could have eaten a full meal there, because everything on the menu seemed like it would be amazing...especially their dessert case! Next time i'm in Savannah, I will definitely be making a stop at Goose Feathers.
Anyway, let me get back on track here. After Goose Feathers we still had some time to kill so we walked a bit more and stumbled upon a place called "Planet Fun"...obviously had to stop in there.
If you're an 80's baby, you would LOVE this place! Upon entering, I was instantly transported back to my childhood. They had everything...Nintendo games, Atari, NINJA TURTLES (my favorite...bet you couldn't tell by the ALL CAPS) transformers and even beanie babies. The list could go on forever...I didn't want to leave...but after about 30 minutes we had to, because our table was ready!
(Some of us did end up going back to Planet Fun after we ate to really look around)
Lady and Sons is a three story, 200 year old renovated building...15,000sqft of deliciousness.
We walked in and spotted the buffet right away, but the hostess took us to the elevator since our table was on the 3rd floor. So we'd have to take a few trips downstairs to get our food...no big deal.
Wrong - there is a buffet on every floor. I should have known.
Once we sat down our courteous server gave each one of us a plate of this...
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| Paula's famous "Ho cake" and garlic cheese biscuit.
So amazingly delicious! They had both hot sauce and syrup for the "ho cake" and both tasted great. Don't even get me started on the garlic cheese biscuit. Mine was gone before you could say butter, although I didn't finish the ho cake. It was great when it was hot, but once it got cold it kinda lost it's luster...I needed to save room for the meal ahead.
This place had quite the extensive menu...really great stuff, but we all ended up going with the buffet. All you can eat variety, that's what i'm talking about!
So we made our way to the buffet and piled on our first plate.
I was too busy worrying about eating to take any more pictures, but luckily I found some online to kind of give you an idea of things. (Pictures really can't do this place justice though!)
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The buffet had pretty much everything I wanted, #1 being fried chicken. There was also amazing mac and cheese, and the best mashed potatoes i've ever had...must be the butter. The candied yams were also phenomenal. Enjoy the pics!
My actual plate was filled up much more than this...mashed potatoes and gravy everywhere!
Fried please.
Buffet of happiness
Cheese is a beautiful thing.
The sweet tea here...best i've ever had, hands down. SUPER sweet though...halfway through my 2nd glass I started to get the shakes, but it was soooOOoOoooo good!
After we stuffed our faces (and don't worry, more than one trip to the line was made) we sat there in our food comas only to be offered dessert! We had three choices...I believe it was peach cobbler, a chocolate cake brownie type thing, or banana pudding. I had the banana pudding and do not regret my decision. It was a small dessert that comes with the price of the buffet, but I don't know if I'd be able to eat anything bigger at this point (my body probably needed a break from the sugar party it was having anyway)
Absolutely delicious banana pudding...really great. I'm sure I could have managed to eat another just because it was that good.
It was hard to get up out of the booth, not gonna lie...but we knew we had to get moving before our bodies completely shut down. Here's a pic of the aftermath...
Well worth it! (Time to walk it off!)
Final Thoughts...
Lady and Sons has some delicious (and very rich) food! The staff was courteous and the menu was extensive. I hope to return there some day to order one of their dishes...the only problem will just choosing one! If Mrs.Wilkes makes better food than Lady and Sons, I don't know what i'll do with myself, because I couldn't imagine eating anything better than what I had.
The next time i'm in Savannah, i'll be hitting up both places to decide for myself, but either way, Lady and Sons was an incredible experience, so if you find yourself in Savannah I definitely recommend having lunch or dinner there...or both!
Thanks for reading! :)
