Magnolia

With the lab having it's first, for some time, potential post-doc candidate visiting, you can imagine that a lot of us were interesed in taking the opportunity to go out for dinner or lunch on work - a chance to try some of the nicer restaurants in town and not worry overtly about the cost. Fortunately for me, I was given the opportunity to go out to dinner and had selected a restaurant in downtown Charleston that has a reputation as being one of the nicer places in Charleston to eat whilst not being ridiculously extortionate. The place is called Magnolia and is one of three restaurants owned by the same people - they have one that is slightly cheaper and one that is more expensive. Now, having said that the prices aren't too bad, it can also be said that it would be extremely easy to drop a large amount of money there - a glance at the wine list reveals a good number of bottles of over $100 and much much more. Fortunately for us, our tastes aren't THAT expensive, so the main concern was whether the reputation afforded the restaurant was accurate or not.

I'm happy to report that the food certainly did live up to the word of mouth. The style of cooking is something of a Southern cooking that has been given some upscale dressing - basically, it's high class Southern food (even with the grits, i might add) that works very well I think. I'm not sure if i would rush back to the place again, given that there are also a couple of other places in the vicinity that do a similar style of cooking for a slightly more reasonable price (it was no surprise to any of us that we were right at the limit of our budget). However, overall, i'm happy that i have had the chance to eat here, and would certainly go back. Provided someone else is offering to pay!!!