Roastfish & Cornbread...Zoe Update

     Well, Zoe the pup has taken over our entire lives. She was 8 weeks old yesterday and she is sweet, lovable and exhausting. We don't seem to remember it quite this way from when our old Nike was this age, over 15 years ago. She goes out every 2 hours, which means I have been out in the rain more in the past week than I have been in the past 5 years. She is too little to "hold it" at night, so around 2:00 a.m. and 4:30 a.m., my husband is cleaning out the crate/kennel and walking around outside in his bathrobe. He is very much a person who requires/expects/demands his sleep, so he is looking at me like "why did I let you do this"! She chews on everything, so I'm picking up shoes, power cords and everything else that isn't glued down-all day long. She wants so badly for our old dog to play, that she chases her through the house, nipping at her ankles until she gets a warning snarl and then she does it all over again. If Nike could talk, she would be asking when this d*** puppy was going home.

     However, she snuggles up and sleeps in your lap for long periods of time. She looks at you with big, brown eyes that seem to say that she loves you more than anything in the world. She plays with her toys, rolling and jumping like a frog. She chases sunbeams (when we have them) on the carpet and she has certainly taken a home with 2 middle-aged boring people with a boring dog and turned us upside-down. We love her. We have no regrets at all, but we will certainly be glad when the accidents stop and she can sleep through the night!

     Now, on to other things...food! While vacationing on Hilton Head Island in October, we had wonderful southern food in a few very interesting places. Our first night, we went to a restaurant called Roastfish & Cornbread. It was the only restaurant that I had circled in the guidebook before leaving home and it was recommended to us by 2 different staff people at the hotel. 

      

     The restaurant isn't large, so I highly recommend going early. The mood was casual, funky and fun. Chef David Vincent Young has created a menu with so many wonderful choices, we didn't know what to do. He also has a delicious selection of vegetarian dishes which sounded wonderful. You can watch him stroll through the restaurant, keeping an eye on things. The staff was superb, the food was perfect.

     It was difficult to get interior pictures. You can see the artwork on the walls. You are looking at the back of a large church pew, which is the seating for a semi-private dining table.

We didn't have to wait for a table because we went early,

but when we left...people were waiting for tables.

     We started our meal with a delicious house salad. That is a yellow tomato, not an egg yolk on the plate. The house dressing was wonderful.

     I selected one of the evening's specials, Fried Softshell Crab (one of my favorites) with hushpuppies and a side of their special Sweet Potato Cornbread. The crab was cooked perfectly. The cornbread was interesting. It had the crumbly texture of cornbread, but tasted more like carrot cake.

     My husband loves Conch Fritters. He often orders them as an appetizer when we are in a southern state. This was the first time we have ever seen them served as a main dish. He said they were perfect, along with hushpuppies and fries. This was not a lowfat meal for us!

     I forgot to take a picture of our dessert. We shared a mini-tart. It was a Blueberry Key Lime Pie. I thought that it would be a tiny pie with blueberries on top, but actually they placed blueberries on the crust before pouring in the filling. So, each bite had blueberry in it as well as a few fresh berries on top with the whipped cream.

     This was a really interesting and fun place to visit and the food could not have been better. It would certainly be on my list to visit again when I'm back on Hilton Head.