July Fourth Weekend in Charleston Continues
Our long weekend in Charleston over the Fourth of July had begun with dinner on a Tuesday and a full Wednesday. It continued with more restaurants and historic houses.
Thursday July 2nd began rather slowly for us. By lunchtime we were finally on the move. Our first destination was Kickin’ Chicken on King Street. Frankly, neither one of us was too impressed with this place. I know I had a chicken salad that wasn’t bad. But what I remember most is how the waiter kept re-filling our glasses of sweet tea well past the point where either one of us was thirsty. We fairly floated out of there.
Next up was a visit to the Joseph Manigault House. We arrived early for our guided tour, took a picture or two of the exterior (like the photo of the garden above – once again, no interior photos allowed). The Manigault House is administered by the Charleston Museum, so you can buy tickets there in advance if you like – it is just across the street from the Manigault House.
Joseph Manigault House
What I took away from this house was what an extraordinary feat it was for Manigault’s brother, Gilbert, to have designed it as an amateur architect. It was built in the then-new Federal or Adam style, which means symmetry and irregularly-shaped rooms and classicist interior decoration of the rooms (moldings, wainscoting, etc.).
The whole time we were in Charleston, it was oppressively hot, with intermittent explosive thunderstorms. The first one occurred that Thursday evening, when just as we left the hotel to walk around the corner to Coast Bar & Grill for dinner, it started to drizzle. Then, with the restaurant in sight, it started to pour! Neither one of us had thought to take an umbrella from the hotel. So we were soaked when we got there.
Coast is all about seafood – they even have lamps hanging in the bar area that are made out of blow fish. It was not our first time there – we had eaten there during our first trip to Charleston two Christmases ago – so we knew what to expect. I had seared tuna crusted with cashews and peanuts over noodles made black by a sweet pomegranante soy reduction (or maybe they were black even without the reduction – either way, I enjoyed it).
On Friday, we passed the morning in our room, and then went out to lunch at Verde, a salad joint on King Street that we quite enjoyed. I had what they call a “Cobb on King” salad, with turkey and bacon and avocado. They mix all the ingredients together in a large stainless steel bowl with the dressing, and then transfer it to a lidded bowl. They offer lots of sweet beverages for purchase, but also have some house-made unsweetened teas – I ordered the latter. After the rich meals I’d been eating in Charleston, it was nice to have something that felt healthy and not so heavy.
Cobb on King Lunch Salad from Verde
Our plan for the rest of the afternoon was to explore the Radcliffeborough neighborhood and its old houses a bit, and then loop back around and go to the Charleston Museum. However, nature intervened. As we were walking east on Calhoun Street, the heavens opened up. Luckily, this time we had thought to bring our umbrellas with us. Nevertheless, the rain and wind was so intense that umbrellas only helped so much. So we hunkered down in a Starbucks with a couple of cold caffeinated beverages and waited out the storm, chatting about Charleston and life in general.
By the time we felt ready to move on, it was rather late in the afternoon, so we decided to move our trip to the Charleston Museum to the next day. I called them to make sure they were open on July Fourth (they were). We decided to get some take-out from Nick’s BBQ and bring it back to the hotel room and have a quiet evening.
Ordering from Nick’s required a discussion about what of theirs may or may not be dairy free. To be safe, I got a half of smoked chicken. Their bbq sauce apparently has a tiny bit of butter in it, so they gave us sauce on the side – that way if I wanted to avoid it, I could just leave it off. Therese shared a spare rib with me, which was plenty meaty (again with no sauce on it).
This day may sound pretty quiet, even dull, but for us, after a couple of eventful days spent in pretty intense hot weather, a quiet day spent mostly in air conditioning didn’t seem too dull. Plus, as you will see in my next post, in which I conclude my story of our weekend in Charleston, we finished up our time in Charleston with a bang.
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