Char Restaurant

Char Restaurant
431 S Highland Street,Suite 120
(901) 249-3533

I got invited to come to Char for brunch during their training last weekend. (They officially opened on Monday.) I planned to take both monkeys (Satchel, 14 and Jiro, 12), but Jiro skipped town on me. So, Satchel and I went with my friend, Joanna, who just happens to be BFF with one of the executive chefs.



When I picked Satchel up, he was semi-excited.

"Where is it?" he asked.

"Somewhere over by the University," I said.

"What kind of food do they have?" he asked.

"Uh, I don't know," I replied.

"What do you mean you don't know?"

"Uh, I don't think the menu is online, yet," I half lied. The truth was, they emailed me and invited me to come try it out in advance and free of charge so it didn't really matter!

"Oh, is this one of those come early and eat free things?" Satchel asked, now familiar with the drill after our visit to The Kitchen at Shelby Farms.

"Yep."

That seemed to satisfy him. I do know that there's one in Jackson and one in Nashville and that the owners are the same as Amerigo. I also saw that my beloved Jeff Frisby of Restaurant Iris fame is the manager.

I only drove past it once before locating it. Satchel is actually the one who figured out that it was probably attached to the new apartment building. We got there at 11:30am, a few minutes ahead of Joanna. We went ahead and got seated. Once inside, we were both like, "Holy shit, this place is fancy." It's gorgeous. Lots of dark wood and natural light.



Suddenly we both felt super underdressed. But, thankfully, they weren't officially open, and this is Memphis after all. Speaking of, this old map was bringing people in from all over the restaurant.



Our waiter, Josh, gave us menus, brought us drinks, and steered us to the crab claw appetizer all before Joanna arrived. Satchel and I were still trying to decide what to eat when she joined us. We had the very good problem of everything sounding super yummy. Joanna quickly went about asking questions about just about everything on the menu.



Then she asked if her friend was in the kitchen. Meanwhile we added some fried green tomatoes to our appetizer order, and soon we were in business.




Let me tell you something. Those crab claws were like crack. Holy moly. SOOOOOOOO good. Like dangerously good. Like eat them and you will be hooked forever good. Oh my!

In comparison, the fried green tomatoes were just ok. (One got eaten before I snapped the picture.)

The chef came out, Joanna finished up with her questions, and we put in our final order. Then we went about entertaining Satchel.

Entertaining might not be the right word. He'd probably say that "interrogation" was more fitting. I gotta say, I might need to bring Joanna along once a week or so because she found out all sorts of stuff that I didn't know!

Satchel was a good sport and answered her questions and even seemed to be enjoying himself. (Joanna is super fun, so it's pretty hard not to have a good time when she's around.)

We took a break from quizzing him to eat some more.

Satchel and I both had the gumbo.



I am super picky about gumbo because my sister truly makes the best gumbo ever, but this was really good.

Joanna had the wedge salad, which is what I had as my main course. We both agreed it was too big. A quarter cut would be just right.



Satchel got the mahi mahi for his main course. He rejected the (delicious) melon salsa, but happily and quickly ate everything else.



Joanna had the red fish which was the chef's suggestion. It was a hit.



Even though we were massively full, we couldn't resist free dessert. While we waited, I checked out the ladies room. It's awesome, and not just because of this sign.



(I didn't actually take my phone to the bathroom...until I saw that Joanna needed some more time debriefing Satchel in the absence of his mother.)



Not surprisingly, Satchel was relieved when dessert arrived and Joanna and I went back to stuffing our faces. We had a pecan crumble (?) and the brownie. We had a big fight about which was the best. (I say brownie.)





Now, I have no idea how much any of this cost. I'm guessing it's a little pricey just based on the food and the atmosphere. The menu isn't online yet, so someone who's been since they opened will have to let us know. I will say that the place is top notch and totally worth a visit, even if you gotta fork over a little more cash than usual.

GET THE CRAB CLAWS!

Pearl's Oyster House

Courtney Santo, in addition to being the mom to two adorable kidlets, is the editor of the LampLighter and recently started Kids in Memphis, a website for urban parents. It's full of reviews of kid-friendly city spots and comprehensive lists of free events and attractions in Memphis.

Pearl’s Oyster House
299 S Main St
522-9070

Pearl’s Oyster House is quickly emerging as a hot, hip lunch spot for urbanites in Memphis – how would it handle two toddlers for lunch on Saturday. I was a little nervous, but swayed by my husband’s yummy review of the oyster po’boy he’d had there earlier this month. Plus we were hosting my mother-in-law and I wanted to impress her with some Memphis good eats.

The restaurant gets good marks for easy parking and modern style. Too many of Memphis’ classic restaurants are clinging to that 1950s charm and worn atmosphere. Additionally, when we walked in, I noticed at least three other tables with children. The hostess cheerily greeted us and tried to get my son to give her a high-five. He is currently sporting a Mohawk and is irresistible to women between the ages of 19 and 25.

She set us up at a table for four with a highchair squeezed in between my husband and my mother-in-law (which was great because it removed any responsibility I might have in keeping him entertained). We also got a seat right next to the front window, which turned out to be a great trolley watching spot (entertaining for my four-year-old).

Our waitress popped right over and got our drink orders – bringing water in Styrofoam, lidded containers for the kidlets. There is a children’s menu with most of the classics – including fried shrimp. (I didn’t take notes, but I think the kids’ menu was $5.99). I was on the verge of ordering a kids meal to split when I saw that side dishes were only $2. The vegetable of the day was green beans with bacon, which seemed equal to French fries, so I went ahead and ordered a side of fries and a side of mac and cheese.

The adults got po’boys (oyster, catfish and half shrimp/half oyster). With sides of fries and hush puppies. Then we waited. To keep my four-year-old entertained, I produced a pen from my purse and told her it was okay to draw on the paper tablecloth. We took pictures with the camera. We talked about how much fun the Mud Island River Park was and listened to her say Mississippi over and over and over again.

Our waitress, sensing our distress offered to bring out the kids sides before the adult food. I nodded eagerly. She also took that moment to tell my husband that the kitchen was out of hushpuppies. Flummoxed, he ordered boiled potatoes.

The fries have a seasoned batter on them and at first I was worried the kidlets wouldn’t eat them, but they quickly devoured their respective portions. The mac and cheese was good, made from scratch and better than the mac and cheese at Central BBQ. I ate most of it.

The adult food arrived shortly and we ridiculed my husband for getting boiled potatoes, even though they came with a huge caldron of drawn butter. The sandwiches were excellent and huge. My fries were cold, but everything was still good.

It wasn’t a bargain – but it wasn’t a rip-off either. I think our check for three adults and two children was around $45. I was impressed by the service and friendly attitude of everyone toward the kidlets. I’m not sure I’m brave enough to try Pearl’s for dinner, but it is a great place to go if you are downtown for lunch. And for Stacey – the bathrooms were easy to get to, nearly spotless and had changing tables.

Joe's Crab Shack

Note: This restaurant is no longer open downtown. There is a franchise in Cordova near the Wolfchase Mall.

Kristy, who chided me for eating at the Spaghetti Warehouse, has submitted her review of a restaurant that I would chide her for eating at--Joe's Crab Shack!

(Actually, Warren and I did take Satchel to Joe's Crab Shack when he was an only monkey and we were naifs. I remember a very scary balloon maker, lots of leftover food, and us deciding to never return.)

Joe’s Crab Shack
263 Wagner Place
526-1966

One weekend this winter, when we were feeling boxed in by the crappy weather and bored with our usual Sunday dining routine, we decided to take the kids to Joe’s Crab Shack downtown on the river. I had been once a while back with two girlfriends and our collected progeny, so I knew they had a large indoor playground that we would be able to sort-of see from the table. So we went.

Joe’s is in the large space overlooking the river that was once inhabited by Landry’s Seafood. It’s the one you see from the trolley loop with all the fishing nets and crap hanging over the deck area. Since we went the day after a big, already-melting snow, we opted for indoor seating. The play area is in a large glass-encased room adjoining the deck. The ceiling is really high, and the room was either unheated or just really cold, so our kids weren’t quite as thrilled with it as we had hoped they’d be. They were more interested in the small, quarter-sucking arcade area outside the playroom. I had anticipated this and brought a baggie full of quarters, which I dispensed with the warning that THESE ARE ALL THE QUARTERS, AND THERE WILL BE NO MORE. We put the eight year old in charge of the quarters and let them loose.

The food at Joe’s can best be divided into two categories: A) fried and not too bad for fried seafood, and B) nasty. Stick with A. As soon as we sat down at the picnic-style table, our server brought out a mostly-iceburg-lettuce salad coated with a small amount of bottled Italian dressing and a plate bearing one biscuit and a corn muffin, which I thought was kind of weird. I was starving so I ate the corn muffin (not terrible) and some salad (like you probably ate growing up in the suburbs). For lunch I ordered a bowl of seafood gumbo and the crabcake appetizer. My husband, Richard, ordered the crab cake sandwich and fries. For the kids we got two shrimp baskets. Only two of our kids consume actual food on a predictable basis. The other one gets a few of their fries and is unlikely to even eat those.

Our food, such as it was, came out pretty quickly. Let’s start with the worst. The seafood gumbo looked like a bowl of mud and tasted like a bowl of wet salt. I like salty food, but this was so salty it was pretty much inedible. I had the impression that an inexperienced cook had misread the directions on the giant bag of “gumbo base” they undoubtedly had back in the kitchen, and forgotten to add the water. I picked a few shrimp out of it and called it quits. As for the crab cake appetizer, I looked at the plate and then checked the menu because I hadn’t realized that it was, in fact, “crab cake,” singular. For some reason I was expecting two. It wasn’t great, but better than the gumbo. Richard thought the sandwich version of the appetizer was bland but not the worst thing he’d ever eaten. The best thing on the table was the kids’ popcorn shrimp. It tasted like any other fried shrimp in any other restaurant. The kids’ menu also included other typical choices like pizza and chicken strips. One cute idea from the kids’ menu was the “Make Your Own Sundae,” which seemed to consist of two square ice cream sandwiches cut into triangles, with little bowls of sprinkles and other toppings that the kids can add themselves. We didn’t order dessert, but I thought the idea was kind of cool.

Our overall thoughts on the experience was that the food was somewhat crappy, but that we would likely come back in nicer weather to sit on the deck and have a beer or Bloody Marys looking out at the river, while the kids played in the playroom and on the deck. And we would stick with the fried fare.