Chicago, IL

Hi Lovelies!

Josh and I took a quick weekend trip with our friends in October of 2021 and had such a great time! We drove up on Friday and had lunch at Taquizo because Umami Burger’s dining room was closed. Taquizo was fine, but nothing stood out to us. We had chips, queso and salsa but chips were a bit stale and queso had no flavor. The tacos were good, overall rating would be 5.5/10. From there we did some thrift store shopping and then went to Paradise park bar, and that place was SO cute! So many cool photo ops throughout the restaurant. We had drinks and a snack since it was happy hour. Then we went to Big Mini Putt Club and played putt putt - it was a good time! After that we went to Emporium Arcade bar and played some games and drank for a bit, also a fun time! We ended the evening by going to Kinton Ramen and it was really great - I had the spicy pork and Josh had the garlic ramen, we would rate 8.5/10.

Saturday we had brunch at Egg Harbor Cafe and I had the San Antonio skillet with a classic pumpkin spice latte while Josh had the Habenero hash and eggs, a great place! We would rate 7/10. We then shopped on Michigan Avenue and stopped for lunch at Timeout Market, it was a cool place I jus wished they had more stores and restaurants inside. I had Cleo’s fried chicken and Josh had Polombia, we would rate the experience a 6/10. We went back to the airbnb after to recharge for a bit and get ready for the evening. We went to Hampton Social for dinner and we split the tuna tartare for an appetizer, I had the ceasar salad and clam chowder and I was amazed at how good both the items were! Josh had linguini and clams. It was a cool place but very loud, very good food. Rating would be 8/10! After we had drinks and danced the night away at Beauty Bar, that place was really cool and not overly crowded! After we ended at Nick’s Beer Garden, also a cool place but I liked Beauty Bar a lot better.

Sunday we had a full day planned but unfortunately for me and my friend, we had too bad of a hangover to do anything, so we just drove back home that day. It was a great trip overall, I can’t wait to go back!

Charleston, SC

Hi Friends!

What a year 2020 has been for all of us, we had planned on going to Australia this year but the pandemic had other plans us. Josh and I love to travel each year so this has probably been the longest we had gone without traveling. It had been over a year! I was starting to get really antsy and fed up with being stuck in our home town for too long.

I wanted to plan a trip but didn’t know where, I knew it had to be drivable as we didn’t feel comfortable flying yet with the pandemic still in place. I was stuck on where we should go, Josh was actually the one to suggest Charleston. I researched it and picked a date for us to go!

Charleston is a really cute city, with endless great food options and quite a few beach spots to go to as well. We ended up staying in an Airbnb on the beach of Isle of Palms and it was very nice! We loved being right on the beach. It’s a 9-9.5 hour drive for us from southern Indiana, and we aren’t morning people so we got in around 8 pm.

We started with dinner at The Obstinate Daughter on night 1. We had their geechie frites, Pappardelle pasta, and Rutledge pizza. We thought their pizza was really good and the frites were good, we were a bit disappointed with the pasta, it just didn’t have a fantastic flavor profile. The space itself had a cool vibe, but it was a little difficult to find as it was in a space that had other stores and you had to walk upstairs to find it. Overall I’d rate it a 7/10.

Our first full day we started with seeing The Drayton Hall and Magnolia Plantation & Gardens. Both were cool places, I recommend seeing if you have time! The Drayton Hall is an 18th century estate that is the nation’s earliest example of Palladian architecture. Shown below are the original blue walls and ceiling that were hand crafted. At Magnolia Plantation & Gardens we toured the main grounds, I don’t believe you can enter their plantation currently. It was a pretty place, but I bet it is even prettier in the spring when the flowers are in bloom. I loved all the moss trees and they had a cool bush maze we went through too!

We ate lunch at the historic 82 Queen Street, it was my favorite restaurant of all the ones we went to! I had their Bloody Mary, and barbeque shrimp and grits. Josh had the crab cake benedict, and we split a bowl of their famous she crab soup (it was my favorite thing we had).

After lunch we had explored The Battery and shopped along King St. The Battery is an extensive row of really pretty mansions, below are a few shots of my favorites. King St is a really cool area of local boutiques and restaurants, I will talk more in depth about what shops I enjoyed and bought stuff at here!

For dinner we went to the award winning Rodney Scott BBQ and split their whole hog, hush puppies, and mac n cheese. Rodney Scott BBQ is known for smoking it whole hog and serving Carolina style. Josh was looking forward to this so much, we were both a tad disappointed. I guess you can call us BBQ snobs, it just wasn’t that exciting but it was good! I’d rate it a 6/10. After we ate dinner we explored some of Charleston’s breweries and they did not disappoint! We went to Palmetto Brewery, Revelry Brewing, and finished at Holy City Brewing. Revelry had super cute balcony seating and Holy City had the best loaded fries I’ve had in a long time! I guess Josh and I were so hungry that we forgot to snap a photo of said fries.

Monday we hung out on Isle of Palms Beach which is where we stayed. It was nice and sunny, Josh and I stayed there until lunch time. For lunch we just went somewhere we could walk to and that would also not take much time as we had a sunset sail tour to go to at 4. We ate at Acme Kitchen and I had their whistle top shrimp and grits with fried green tomatoes, and Josh had their fish catch of the day sandwich. Place was okay, about what we expected. I’d rate it a 5/10.

The sailing tour we did through Charleston Harbor Tours and it was amazing! It was actually REALLY windy at the time so it worked out perfectly for the sails. We had time to kill before our dinner reservations so we checked out Edmund’s Oast Brewing Co and they had a really cool outdoor seating area and great beer! Highly recommend! We ended the night with dinner at Husk. At Husk we started with their house cured meats charcuterie board and then split their catfish and ended with apple pie. Husk was good, we would go back for sure! My personal favorite was the apple pie. I’d rate them a 7/10.

Tuesday we visited Folly Beach as it was one of the highest rated beaches on the internet in Charleston but honestly we preferred Isle of Palms beach. Folly felt too touristy for us, it definitely had all the souvenir shops and family friendly restaurants. We did find a light house on Folly Beach though! For lunch we ended up going to Lewis BBQ. When I was doing my initial restaurant research the highest rated were Lewis and Rodney Scott, I didn’t want to eat at 2 BBQ places in a few days time so Josh and I had narrowed it down to Rodney Scott because of the Carolina style BBQ for something different. Well we talked to the locals in passing at shops and other restaurants and they all told us to try Lewis, so we did and we are SO glad we did! It had such a cool indoor and outdoor space and was hands down the best BBQ we have ever had!! We had time to spare before our dinner reservations so we killed time at Wine and Company and happened to walk into their special wine tasting night and got to taste 5 wines for the SUPER cheap price of $10 a person! It was such a fun experience. We ended our final night in Charleston at Darling Oyster Bar and we both tried raw oysters for the first time and definitely understand what all the hype of oysters are now! They are SO delicious! We also had their blue crab tagliatelle.

Well ya’ll, that concludes our trip to Charleston. We absolutely loved every second of it and all that Charleston has to offer. We will for sure be back! Have you ever been to Charleston? What did you love?

Weekend in Indianapolis

Hey Darlings!

The hubs and I decided to get a way for a weekend trip to Indianapolis, because why not? Indy has a really great food scene going, so we spent most of our time checking out different restaurants. A lot of our plans didn’t go as planned on the items that were not food focused, we tried to go to the Indy food market and they were ‘open’ but most things were closed after lunch time so we didn't get to explore in there. We also went to the Fashion Mall so I could mainly go look at the Chanel purses inside of Saks 5th Avenue, only to realize they took out the Chanel mini store. I was quite bummed! We did get to explore one of Indy’s downtown malls and around the fountain square area and had fun doing that!

The places we ate were: Tinker Street, Milktooth, Bru Burger Bar, Sun King Brewery, Salt on Mass, King Dough Pizza. I’ll be talking about each of them in more detail below.

TInker Street

Tinker St was our first restaurant of the bunch, we went on a Friday night and they had the perfect outdoor space. The food was great too, their food offerings were kind of random, but we enjoyed what we got! We started with the chicken and waffles and they were good, the waffle was a little soggy but it was still good. We had their beet-walnut pesto spaghetti and it was super yummy!! We ended the evening with a suggestion from our waitress, their ricotta doughnuts and they did not disappoint! We would go again if we are in the area. Overall I’d rate them a 8/10.

Milktooth

We tried out Milktooth for brunch on Saturday, and they do not take reservations so we were a little leery of how crowded it would be because Milktooth has been getting fantastic reviews! The wait wasn’t bad, we probably waited about 20 minutes. I of course had to try their bloody mary and it was quite expensive and disappointing to be honest. It did not come with any toppings or olives, what is the fun in that? And the actual bloody mary wasn’t all that great or flavorful. I got their sourdough pearl sugar waffle that had
sweet cherry compote, salted honey corn butter, graham cracker crumble, and powdered sugar. Josh got their fried swiss cheese polenta cake with sunny egg horseradish sauce, celery, pickled knotweed, cashew, and pesto. The food was great, but the cocktail was not worth the money. All in all, I’d rate them a 6/10.

Bru Burger Bar

We honestly were not planning on going to Bru Burger Bar, but we were hungry and had 3-4 hours before our dinner reservation so we needed to eat something and wanted something close to Sun King Brewery (it was our next destination). Bru Burger Bar is a regional chain, and they had decent food but I don’t think I’d go out of my way to eat there again. We had their beer cheese and pretzel to start, and then we split their signature Bru Burger, it was good but nothing really stood out. Burgers can also be hard on my stomach (go figure).

Sun King Brewery

When we got to Sun King, we were super bummed to discover that they partner with a salumi, cheese, and sausage restaurant. We had thought they didn’t have food, which is why we ate at Bru Burger. Sun King was a pretty cool place, and we opted to do a flight of beers and really enjoyed their beer!

Salt on Mass

We had originally intended on trying a different restaurant, but they had called to tell us they were closed for a private event on the day we wanted so we had to pick something different. We needed a place that took reservations because we had an event to go to after our meal so I opted for Salt on Mass. They had a super pretty restaurant inside, I loved the beach house vibes and decor. The food wasn’t all that great, especially given the price range. They are all about fresh seafood, and make it known that they do not have any freezers in their restaurant, which is cool and all, but if you want to specialize in only seafood, you need to have some great seafood! We started with a sashimi course and the fish was cut way too big, perhaps Japan spoiled us in this category because no one can do Sashimi as well as Japan. We had a wedge salad to follow, and it was good, but wedge salads are not difficult to make. We had their special that night which was red snapper and we paired it with their parmesan risotto. The fish was merely grilled and seared, no sauce no seasoning, nothing! The risotto was good but the fish was bland and we paid $32 for it. Josh had a mezcal cocktail and it was pretty decent. All in all, I’d probably rate it a 4/10. The best thing there was the decor and the atmosphere. The pricing and the food we got was way off.

King Dough Pizza

On Sunday we opted to go to this pizza place that was super close to our AirBnb, and it was pretty good! We got their bread and butter as an appetizer and it was pretty good, the bread was good and the butter was nice and easy to dip with good flavor. We tried their destroyer pizza which contained red sauce, mozzarella, rosemary, basil, garlic, goat cheese, sausage, and hot honey. The pizza itself was way overly greasy and very floppy, but the flavor was good. I’m guessing because of how greasy it was, it messed with my stomach but I genuinely did enjoy the flavor it gave. I would go back to it, if we are in the area. I’d rate King Dough a 6/10.

Overall we had a good time in Indy, and we left feeling well rested and I’m glad we took the trip.