Savannah Grille's spring time boards

No real story here or article, just some food porn.  Two weeks ago my wife's family and mine were going on a road trip to Branson via Lake of the Ozarks.  So, we had one afternoon of driving and then dinner at the Savannah Grille.  I asked Chef Robert, on the phone earlier that day, if he had anything special and he told me that he had some fresh tomatoes and would make something special for us.  He also had finished breaking a pig down, earlier in the week and wanted to make a better meat plate.  So, we ordered and it came, these are the boards:








































Look at how delicious everything on this board looks. He gave us headcheese, some terrine, some fresh sausages as well as prosciutto.  Then covered the board in all of these random vegetables, which he pickled.  Each pickle was a completely different spice or flavoring agent to complement the meat items.

Then, the tomato plate come out:

The board has some toasted bread on it and then these perfectly red tomatoes and a drizzle of some balsamic vinegar and sauce and these were just extraordinary.  The bite of these tomatoes tasted like that first day of summer.  

Chef Robert always makes great use of the items that he can get, always looking for fresh and seasonal.  My advice to you, is to go there, order these boards and try one of their new burgers.

Back to Savannah Grille

Here is the thing with the Ozarks: there are a lot of restaurants.  However, the number of okay restaurants far outnumber the amount of really good restaurants.  And the number of expensive and really good restaurants outnumber the amount of affordable and really good restaurants.  So, while there are some other great places like Baxter's or Bentley's, they just seem to be the quality of foodie-ness that my wife and I look for in cities. We have never been to the Blue Heron, so I cannot comment on that.  However, online reviews and sources suggest that it is quite expensive and the food and service are just okay.  Anyway, fate happened that on a recent Friday night, my wife and I were found with babysitting and through the stormy and cool evening, we happened upon some great late-night reservations at Savannah Grille.

I know you are probably wondering if a restaurant which had garnered great reviews from me, the first time, can do it again.  And you CAN wonder that, but don't doubt that possibility, for this second time for dinner, the food was perfect.

So, it is a rainy and cool Friday night and my wife and I are there at 8:00 for dinner.  This is what we started with:

My wife ordered the beef and vegetable soup.

So, the soup of the day, was this super rich beef stock and some great vegetables in there with chunks of beef.  It was so good that it made me go home and make some beef stock of my own.  I'd say the soup was an easy 4 out of 5 stars.

Because my entree' came with a soup or salad and my wife ordered a soup, I decided to order a salad.  The picture above is the salad and it came with perhaps the largest croutons I have ever seen.  Bonus.  Still simple salad is good and tasty: 3 out of 5 stars.

As an appetizer, we got the fried green tomatoes and this is what they looked like:

These were crunchy, tasty and tender.  Perfectly sweet and tart at the same time.  A small pepper and onion relish and the topping tasted of seasoned panko crumbs.  The chef did a great job remaking this classic dish of fried green tomatoes.  These were great and worth ordering.  An easy 4 out of 5.

Now, my wife ordered the tuna tartare and this is it:  

It was delivered to us on a board and as you can see, there is a lot going on.  I am not a seafood or fish person and I have to say that even if I wanted to try it, my wife enjoyed it so much that I couldn't get a chance to try it.  It was gone in seconds.  I am sure that my wife would agree that a 4 out of 5 stars for that one would be enough.

Now, what I think is perhaps the best thing I have eaten there yet, is the rabbit.  I'll be honest, I'm not a huge fan of rabbit.  Wherever I have eaten it, it has been still a bit gamy and not very tender, like eating rubber that tastes like a wet and dirty dog smells.  I've passed it up whenever I can and wherever I am.  But, I trust the chef here and thought I would give it a try.  Now, what chef Robert says, is that they took some rabbit, then cleaned every morsel of meat off of it and made a sausage with some of it, wrapped it up with the rest of it and then some bacon and finished it off.  This is it: cooked and plated.  Now, along with these perfectly cooked carrots and everything worked so well that it was new, interesting, innovative and delicious: which are all the requirements for an easy 5 out of 5 stars.

We never really get dessert when we go out and that is mostly because we fill up on the other food.  So, we ordered both of the dessert options: some home made ice creams and then some chocolate cake with some champagne foam.  The chocolate cake and foam came out and chef Robert came to explain and dish the foam on top of the cake and pieces.

I have actually never tasted so many different tastes on one plate.  There was the strawberries, the banana pieces which were singed with a flame and had the sugar on them like a creme' brulee or Bananas Foster. Then there is the rich and gooey chocolate cake.  Nice and small pieces of mint leaves.  Then some caramel drizzled around.  The white blobs, are the champagne foam, which quickly melted into the cake.  This was a very good dessert.  I'd give a 4 out of 5 stars.

The other dessert was 3 flavors of ice cream.  Chef Robert told us that he has two ice cream machines, which means that he can create a lot of flavors, every day and experiment and have fun.  So, this night, we had the flavors of Bananas Foster, Strawberry Plum and Green Peppercorn.

So, the Bananas Foster ice cream tastes just like the dish, except cold.  The Strawberry Plum was delicious and perfectly balanced so you could taste both flavors, even at the same time.  The last one, the Green Peppercorn, was the strange one.  It was good, but just strange.  We never thought of having green peppercorns as a sweet flavor enhancer; but it worked.

So, for second visit at Savannah Grille, it was a perfect and romantic evening.  I really do suggest this place for anyone going to the Ozarks.

Savannah Grille in the Ozarks

Hidden away, on Horseshoe Bend Parkway, on the way to the resorts in the Ozarks hills of Missouri, is a nice little restaurant named Savannah Grille.  While this nice cottage-looking restaurant look quaint on the outside it is the exact opposite on the inside, with Chef Robert Sills using modern techniques to perfect traditional food and dishes.  Chef Robert grew up in New York, then moved to South Carolina where he learned and gathered more culinary intelligence.  Finally moving to Missouri, he decided to partner up with the local farmers and the Farmer's Market, in the Ozarks, to create deliciously fresh, seasonal and sustainable dishes, that help show off the great and wonderful foods that can be found nearby.  Now, while not everything is found within a 10 mile radius or close to that, I think he said the eggs came from Tennessee, but everything did come from a farm and is fresh and doesn't use any GMO's or anything bad.

The restaurant is nice on the inside and has a wonderful view, from the side of a bluff, of the Lake of the Ozarks as well as some of the resorts.  The menu is incredible, everything is organic and the place is very friendly and great for kids.

So, here is what we had ordered:

First we had ordered the House Charcutrie Board, which was a board filled with house-made pickles and sausages.  It is huge and is well worth ordering for your party at your table while you wait for the main courses.  We ordered enough on here for 3 people and this was a large board filled with food.  Chef Robert told us that he had purchased a book on pickling and just started to play around with it, making almost anything into a pickle.  There were sweet pickles and sour pickles and the sausages and meats were just as tasty.  If you need a good board to calm your table down, get this.  I'd give the board a 4 out of 5.

Now, the next thing we had ordered was for me.  It isn't on the menu now, but that is because the menu changes daily, due to what is available and fresh.  I ordered a house made sausage, with greens and mashed potatoes.  Can you say "delicious"?  The sausage was tender and juicy and the mashed potatoes were creamy, buttery and full of flavor.  There was a bit of a micro green salad with a very rich and tasty gravy. This was the kind of dish that you could just sit there, relax, enjoy the view and eat.  I'd give this one a 4 out of 5 as well.

While these helped make the meal enjoyable, these were given to us, just like bread and butter is given to guests at other restaurants.  What is it, you may ask?  What these are, are sweet cornbread muffins, with chunks of andouille sausage in them.  With each bite you can taste the corn bread and a bite of spicy sausage or pork fat.  These are so awesome and even better with some of the herbed compound butter.  I'd give these things alone a 4 out of 5 stars.

Now, just when you think you can only get great dinner and lunch food here at the Savannah Grille, they also offer a brunch menu on Sunday.  The delicious menu has all types of great things, including this omelet filled with meat.

I was one of 6 adults and we had two children with us and none of us, had any issues or problems with any of the food we had ordered.  Usually BBQ is a must-have while we go to the Ozarks and now, we will have to stop in and check to see what else is new and fresh and delicious.

Savannah Grille
1622 Horseshoe Bend Pkwy
Lake Ozark, MO 65049
http://savannahgrillerestaurant.com/