Carolina Whirlwind
Talk about a whirlwind weekend and seeing and doing a ton of things in a new city and staying busy. PJ and I decided to go visit Charlotte, NC and Charleston, SC for a few days and see something new that we have not seen and did not know very much about. The original plan was fly to Charlotte and stay at my friends empty house but after about 15 minutes in the house we high tailed it out of there and checked into The Blake hotel which is a nice hotel in downtown Charlotte and way more our speed and liking. Staying at my friends house sounded like a nice idea but in hindsight I should have known better. The 1st night in Charlotte we headed down to the EpiCentre which is like a huge 4 story mall of bars and restaurants from Sushi to Wings to high end clubs to Howl At The Moon. We started at Whisky River which is owned by Dale Earnhardt Jr and had a couple drinks and people watched and enjoyed the scenery. We then moved on to Howl At The Moon and they were packed so we didn't stay long, we moved onto a very cool lounge type place called Kazba. All the places had half inside and some outside seating. We took a break and went to Enzo Sushi and it was really really good and we had some Sake and some sushi and then we continued on to more drinking at Suite which was very clubby and then we headed out to one more place and called it a night. Not to shabby for our 1st night and Charlotte was very cool and the people were friendly and the city was small and it was a great 1st night.
Saturday we slept in a bit and woke up and went back to the EpiCentre for lunch and enjoyed a couple double Kettle bloody mary's and some lunch. We decided to go back to the Blake and chill by the pool for a while and then we went to a movie. Now as most of my friends know that when PJ and I travel together we know we get looked at as Gay once in a while and especially at a nice restaurant etc... picture this one =) PJ and I went to see Letters From Juliet LMAO. After the movie we went and got ready for dinner and then went to an amazing dinner at Radcliffe On The Green and did a amazing tasting. After dinner we headed down to The Music Factory and hung for a while at Butter followed by a cruise to another place for drinks and a late night diner then we called it a night.
Sunday we woke up an hit the Waffle House and headed for a 3 1/2 hour drive to Charleston. The drive was nice and when we got to Charleston we checked into the Mills House Hotel which was very southern and nice and got a killer deal off hotwire. After we checked in we went to watch the Blackhawks game at a nice bar that served cool Thai food and we had some drinks and watched the Blackhawks win. We went to a very cool seafood restaurant on the ocean with a decent bar and a great view called The Fleet Landing and had a bunch of drinks and talked to some very cool people. We headed back to the hotel and got ready for dinner and we took someones recommendation from Charlotte that we had to eat at the Peninsula Grill. Holy shit was this place amazing and I will have reviews up for all the dining under my dining section, we had a couple of great Oregon Pinot's and the meal was really really great from the Duck to the Apps and they are famous for their coconut pie which is not my normal but we had it and it was crazy good. After dinner we walked to Henry's and hung out on the rooftop and chilled and then we walked to a very cool Cigar store with a nice bar and small dished upstairs called Club Habana and we loved it. We had some scotch and bourbon and a cheese plate with a couple of great cigars.
Monday was a good day also, started by playing a round of golf at Patriot Point over the bridge in Mt Pleasant, after golf we went to the Charleston Crab House for some good ole southern seafood and enjoyed Mussels and Tuna and some great crab. We went back to the Fleet Landing and enjoyed some more drinks and view and people there and they we kinda did a repeat of the night before and went to Henry's rooftop followed by Club Habana again. we spent more time at Club Habana and PJ was drinking scotch and I did a flight of 4 bourbons and we had some scallops and another cheese plate and a couple different cigars.
Tuesday we changed our flight to later and took our time getting up and drove back to Charlotte. We had some time to kill so we went and saw another gay movie(plan B) and headed to the airport. Couple small things to mention, PJ has a love for a couple restaurants from his baseball days so we stopped at the Golden Coral on the 1st day and CiCi's pizza on the last day so he got in all his desires. Well in all it was a perfect smooth easy trip and we had a great time and got to experience a couple places we had never been. sorry for the long winded post but we had a busy 4 days.
Tags: Charleston SC, Charlotte NC