River House Seafood Of Savannah

By Leonard Moody

As much as I might want say about this restau­rant, it might still be too lit­tle.  I had just arrived in Savan­nah at lunch time this past Mon­day and I was hungry. 

I wan­dered briefly in and out of the inter­est­ing shops on River Street, before set­tling on River House Seafood & Bak­ery of Savan­nah for lunch. For­give me, but I am from the South, and I do love fried shrimp.  I know broiled is bet­ter for me. 

I guess that is the clos­est I will come to an apol­ogy for lov­ing fried food. You guessed it, I ordered the  local wild caught fried shrimp.  It came lightly breaded, and and I am declar­ing here and now, that it was the best tast­ing fried shrimp I have ever eaten.  I’m not just being nice, it really was. 

I grew up on the coast of Florida, which allows me to have a height­ened appre­ci­a­tion for fresh seafood, because I was raised on it.  This was as good as it gets. You may want to take a break from the boiled, broiled and baked rou­tine just long enough to expe­ri­ence this for your­self.  Also the Savan­nah red rice was very tasty. Round it out with a  Ceasar salad and warm, fresh, in house baked bread, and this was a lunch to be remem­ber and talked about.

The restau­rant is located in a old brick build­ing that dates back to a time when cot­ton was king, I can’t say River House of Savan­nah is a well kept secret, how­ever, because it is known far and wide for serv­ing some of the fresh­est local seafood avail­able.

Also try the Pecan Encrusted Tilapia or Shrimp and Low-Country Grits with Tasso Gravy.  These are just a few of the dishes they take great pride in.  They have sea food Po-Boys, Pizzettas and Low Coun­try Boil.

Your trip to Savan­nah wouldn’t be com­plete with­out try­ing some of their famous Choco­late Cheese­cake, a Savan­nah orig­i­nal, or their pecan pie. I’m sure these will sat­isfy anyone’s sweet tooth. Can’t hold it all? They offer mail-order ser­vice on many of their clas­sic pies, cakes and breads. The next time you are in Savan­nah, stop in and give this place a try. I’m sure you will like it.  But what do I know?  I know what I like…enjoy!

Restau­rant: River House Seafood

Loca­tion: 125 W. River­street Savan­nah Ga 31401

Phone: 800 317‑1912

Web: www.riverhouseseafood.com 

Mediterranean Cafe with a Sophisticated Touch

Red Brick Oven

By Leonard Moody

I had the plea­sure of eat­ing lunch at this restau­rant all the way out in Suwa­nee, Geor­gia just this past week. I had heard about it from a friend of mine who had eaten there and told me how dif­fer­ent and good the food was. I’ve heard that before, but I went there. After I left, I could imag­ine a small Mediter­ranean fish­ing boat crew of times past eking out their liv­ing in a sym­bolic sea, sur­rounded by giant cor­po­rately owned fast food fry shacks that loomed like giant waves. Yet, this lit­tle restau­rant thrives.

In the name of increased prof­its in most cases, and in oth­ers a des­per­ate attempt to sur­vive the econ­omy, many restau­rants today pre­pare food that is just good enough to sell. It tastes ok, but not great, good enough to sell, but not to tell. These kinds of places are on every cor­ner. Given that, when I walked into Red Brick Oven, I wasn’t expect­ing much.

The longer I was there, the more this place grew on me. The sur­round­ings are sim­ple, clean, with a feel of a Mediter­ranean cafe and cof­fee bar, with seat­ing both inside and out. When you enter the restau­rant, look for the chef in his trade mark red beret. He is Mar­cel Bagh­dadi, owner and oper­a­tor of Red Brick Oven, and is of Mediter­ranean decent. He has worked with chefs from all over the world since his youth. Some of you will remem­ber him from other restau­rants he has owned in Buck­head, such as Le Ren­dez Vous and Le Midi.

The food is decid­edly Mediter­ranean, with a touch of sophis­ti­ca­tion. The fare ranges from sal­ads and soups to sand­wiches and pizza. I ordered the Paris Sand­wich, made from sauteed beef ten­der­loin strips (that were actu­ally ten­der), onions, mush­rooms, bell pep­per, and melted cheese. You could think of it as an upscale cheese steak. As I watched this chef pre­pare my food in full view, I could tell he was a man with a pas­sion for cook­ing. After a cou­ple of bites, it was clear to me that he also has a pas­sion for great taste and qual­ity. It was deli­cious! Every­thing was pre­pared fresh. Every­thing. Even the flat bread was baked fresh. They make their own bread dough on the premises. Mar­cel later told me that “qual­ity” was every­thing to him and to his fam­ily. “I want to con­trol qual­ity” he said. “It has to come from the heart.”.

I was espe­cially happy to find a restau­rant of this type and qual­ity here in the sub­urbs because let’s face it, for the most part the sub­urbs have become a vast culi­nary waste­land of bot­tom line focused fast food drive thru’s, and “so so, me too” qual­ity cor­po­rate owned bar and grills. Red Brick Oven does it right, the old way, fresh, slow and good. But what do I know? I know what I like… enjoy.

Red Brick Oven is located at 415 Peachtree Indus­trial Blvd. Ste 500 Suwa­nee, GA 30024 Phone: (678) 546‑4848. Check out their entire menu and hours of oper­a­tion online at www.redbrickoven.us.

Visit to Orlando Area and Disney Hollywood Studios

Upon arriv­ing in Down­town Orlando we booked a room at The Embassy Suites in City Plaza where we would stay the first night of our trip. Acco­mo­da­tions at this hotel were very pleas­ant and on top of that there were free drinks at the bar for happy hour (5–7:30pm) in their beau­ti­ful atrium. This was just what the doc­tor ordered after our 7 hour drive from Atlanta, Ga. After that we headed off to our favorite spot to visit in Orlando, the Mar­riott Cypress Har­bour Resort.

From there it was off to Hol­ly­wood Stu­dios in Walt Dis­ney World and the tim­ing couldn’t be bet­ter as Star Wars Week­ends was the main event. My son just can’t get enough of Luke and Anikin Sky­walker and the rest of the Star Wars gang. It was very enter­tain­ing watch­ing my boy go through the Jedi Train­ing Acad­emy and fight Darth Vader with a light saber and become a Jedi Padawan. We also got to take some great pic­tures of him with Darth Vader, Anikin, Darth Maul, Princess Leia and R2D2. It was a close call between the adults and kids as to whom would get their pic­tures taken with their favorite char­ac­ters. If you do stop by Hol­ly­wood Stu­dios and want to see the Star Wars char­ac­ters make sure to get there early because there’s no reces­sion at Dis­ney World and lines aver­age 30 to 45 min­utes long.

Star Wars Jedi Train­ing Acad­emy at Dis­ney Hol­ly­wood Stu­dios

Ever won­der why May 4th is one of the most searched days on Google? I could never fig­ure this out and even searched for hol­i­days in dif­fer­ent coun­tries. Alas, I found the answer and here’s a hint, may the fourth be with you!

A must when vis­it­ing Dis­ney Hol­ly­wood Stu­dios is Aerosmith’s Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster. It’s an indoor roller coaster so it’s not real big and no 100 foot drops to worry about. How­ever the take­off is a blast as you travel from 0–60 miles per hour in a lit­tle over 2 sec­onds and the twists and turns are total may­hem. I sug­gest tak­ing advan­tage of the speed passes (no pun intended) when avail­able as this allows you to bypass those stand­ing in the long lines and get on the ride imme­di­ately. Another must see is the Tower of Ter­ror where you plum­met 13 sto­rys in an elevator.

Amer­i­can Idol Expe­ri­ence at Hol­ly­wood Stu­dios in Walt Dis­ney World

A new favorite attrac­tion here is the Amer­i­can Idol Expe­ri­ence where guests are invited to sing before a live audi­ence. The audi­ence then judges and votes on those that want to be stars and the daily win­ners get a shot at a live audi­tion for the real Amer­i­can Idol TV Show. Pretty cool, huh?

After that we made our way to Fun Spot USA on High­way 192 in Kissim­mee. Here they have the worlds tallest Sky­coaster where they pull you up 300 feet and let you soar. Not my cup of tea, how­ever the extreme go-karts tracks were tons of fun. There are four tracks to chose from, my two favorites are the multi level tracks Vor­tex and Chaos.

Last stop for us in Orlando was Down­town Dis­ney. This area is always vibrant and has enter­tain­ment, shop­ping and restau­rants with live acts per­form­ing non­stop in the streets. Pop­u­lar restau­rants include Planet Hol­ly­wood and the Glo­ria Estafan inspired Bongo’s Cuban Cafe. For the kids make sure to drop by the inter­ac­tive Lego store.

These are just a cou­ple of the travel des­ti­na­tions we vis­ited recently in Florida. Metro Orlando meets our day-trip cri­te­ria since we can drive to it in eight hours or less from Down­town Atlanta. As such, Atlanta­Ga­To­day highly rec­om­mends the Orlando Area and Dis­ney Hol­ly­wood Stu­dios and also ranks it as one of our favorite day-trip destinations.

Next Page »