QOD: The “Best” place to Eat?

Question of the Day if you are scoring at home.

I had an interesting conversation with my wife over the weekend. At the same time, we announced our plans for our 2019 Eat It and Like It Foodie Awards this year. If you are not familiar with them, it is our “Best of” event, where we select 30-40 winners and present them with awards for a job well done the year previous.

The farther away from that chat I got, the more I chuckled and realized there was an opportunity to share a few words with you about the meaning of the word “Best.”

Long story short, my wife got an email over the weekend from an old friend whos family is visiting the area soon. It asked “What is the absolute best place to eat in Savannah these days?”

When I heard that, I chuckled and nodded, and yes I rolled my eyes. There’s a reason for that.

As you might well imagine, I get asked what my favorite restaurant is very often. More than very often. It is the most asked question on the landscape.  By a long shot. Which is amusing to me, because it is impossible to answer.

Initially, I spent years trying to dance around that question.  The last year or so, I just say “That’s impossible to answer.”

I mean, seriously. How do you narrow down everything you like to eat into one stock answer? You can’t. Not if you are being fair to your own palate at any rate.

If you are in the mood for Italian, you have one choice. If you want a burger, you have another. If you’d prefer Mexican this weekend, then you have a choice beyond that. All of those generally being casual meals.  If you want to get into fine dining, well that opens up a totally different can of worms.

How do you pick one? When you are as passionate about well-made food as I am, you cannot. Seriously, it is impossible to pick a ‘favorite’ or a ‘best.’ I can’t do it.

A gentleman in Bluffton recently asked me where my favorite steak is.  “Anywhere?” I asked.

Yes.

“Well, it’s probably Keen’s Steakhouse in New York.” I said. Knowing full well it probably wasn’t the answer he expected.

He laughed and said “No, down this way.” To which I responded “Oh, then it’s gotta be Hall’s Chophouse in Charleston.”

“Oh…well how about around here?”

By the time we were done, we had drilled down practically a 3 mile radius in South Carolina. Seemed like it at any rate. I know I am being silly, but as you can see I had a wide range of answers. I always do when I am asked for a favorite restaurant.   How hard is it to pick one?

That email my wife got over the weekend also went to a couple of different people.  By the time everyone was done responding with their list, there were probably 10-15 restaurants to choose from in Savannah. Not one restaurant got more than one recommendation. So much for choosing ‘The absolute best’ huh?

See? I’m not alone.

Do you have one? What is it and why?

See you on TV,

Jesse

To find out more about our Foodie Awards CLICK HERE

# # #