Welcome back to Savannah Flavors, our weekly newsletter bringing you the latest delicious details from Savannah’s culinary scene every Thursday.

Here is what’s on the menu today:

• Flora + Fauna opens in former Back in the Day bakery location 🌸📍

• Where to find the finest potatoes from the chefs at HUSK? 🥔

• Skillet cheesy corn dip 🤤🔥

• E-TANG’s shrimp soup dumplings and stir fried string beans 🍶

THE MAIN DISH

Flora + Fauna becomes FARM Hospitality Group’s signature bakery at a familiar address 🥐🍓

No surprise, they have done it again.

The ‘they’ are the folks of FARM Hospitality Group, and the ‘it’ is Flora + Fauna, which softly opened last week in the longtime home of local legendary bakery Back in the Day.

That another baked goods-based eatery took over this space is no coincidence. This past Thanksgiving, the FARM folks hosted a ‘misfits’ feast’, and owner-chef Brandon Carter invited Cheryl and Griffith Day, who already had plans to end their twenty-two year run and sell the shop on the corner of Bull and West 40th Streets.

“They wanted to pass it on to somebody who would take care of it,” Carter said, recalling the Days’ telling him that they would love it if he and FHG would buy the building. 

The deal was not inked that day over a slice of pumpkin pie, but the oven was turned onto the idea, if you will.

Valentine’s Day 2024 marked Back in the Day’s last day in business, FHG closed on purchasing the property on March 1, and a mind-bogglingly short eleven weeks later, Flora + Fauna was serving customers in the redesigned and reopened space.

In a spot that begs to be a bakery now and forever, the Days’ legacy lives on in FHG’s fifth restaurant concept, this one under the direction of executive chef Annie Coleman, chef de cuisine Tyler Kenny, and FOH manager Declan Carter. 

CHEF’S CRAVINGS

HUSK - Jacob Hammer, Rebecca Elsishans, and Jessica Helft 🥂🍕

Each week, I ask the folks behind the phenomenal food at our favorite places around Savannah these same simple questions:

When you are not in your restaurant kitchen, where do you go out to eat and what do you order?

This week’s Chefs’ Cravings are the favorites of executive chef Jacob Hammer, pastry chef Rebecca Elsishans, and general manager Jessica Helft when they are not treating their own guests to amazing cuisine at Husk. 

Hammer, Elsishans, and Helft all became part of the leadership core at the brand’s Savannah outpost since the beginning of 2024, with Hammer returning to Husk to helm the kitchen. Next week’s ‘Main Dish’ column will be a conversation with the trio.

JHelft: I go to Late Air, but I get the whole menu. And it changes, but everything’s always good. They always have good, simple and natural wine.

JHammer: What about that potato pavé?

JHelft: Oh yeah, the potato pavé. I do like the potatoes.

JHammer: The potatoes there are great 🥔

JHelft: And they had some oysters with some nuoc cham.

JHammer: And they always have Natasha’s [Gaskill] bread.

JHelft: Just the bread and the butter, right? You have to get the bread.

JHammer: Speaking of bread and butter, the bread and pepperoni butter at Bar Julian

JHelft: I’ve never had that.

JHammer: It’s amazing. The bread’s the best thing. The funny story is, I think, that one of their sous chefs who primarily runs Bar Julian is chef Nick Carlisle, who used to be here.

JHelft: Pepperoni butter? I’m writing it down ✍🏼

JHammer: I’ve got a laundry list. Where to begin? I’ve lost weight recently because I haven’t been eating pepperoni pizza every day because I’m not at Graffito. If I go out to eat pizza, gotta go see Kyle [Jacovino] at Vittorio. Any pie on that menu is incredible. Where else?

RE: I go to Brochu’s. I always get the peel n’ eat shrimp, and I always get the entire dessert menu.

JHammer: I get the whole bird when I go there and have to stop myself from eating the entire thing, looking like a crazy person 🍗

JHelft: Their biscuits are good, too. I don’t know what’s going on there, but I love them.

JHammer: I like finding pop-ups that happen around the city. Common Thread has been doing a great job with pop-ups. I went to one recently with the chef from The Dabney in D.C., and that was really cool. And they’re about to start a pop-up series at Strange Bird with [chef] Juan [Stevenson]. His food at Late Air is amazing.

RE: My go-to for more casual is Nom Nom Poké 🍣 

JHammer: I went there the other day.

RE: I always get the Gochujang Tofu bowl. That’s one of my favorites.  

JHammer: I have to say, it’s a guilty pleasure, Crystal Beer Parlor. I used to live a block behind it, and I was there almost every day. Their BLTs are amazing, and that’s one of my favorite sandwiches. I’ve grown to know the staff, the ones that have been there forever. I take my dogs there.

And for a special occasion?

JHammer: My wife and I say that we try to celebrate regularly. On a Sunday, we’ll drink champagne in the morning just because. Try to celebrate life, even the ‘small’ days when it’s not really something special, we’ll still treat it as a celebration and go eat tacos or go to Crystal Beer Parlor. If I was really trying to go somewhere nice and fancy, I like going to Fleeting. I like going to Common Thread. I like going to Husk.

Do you ever come out of the kitchen and eat here?

RE: Yes.

JHelft: Oh yeah.

RE: I like coming to eat here. You get special treatment 🥂

JHelft: I go to the one in Nashville. I go to the one in Charleston. Yeah, why not?

JHammer: If I’m in another Husk city, I am absolutely there.

JHelft: I think it’s important for us to enjoy where we work.

RE: It’s a different experience. No stress when you’re on the other side.

JHammer: Something that’s really great about this company is that when you go to these other locations and the other sister restaurants, you’re treated like a celebrity. 

RE: It’s cool to get taken care of 🍷 The last time I had a nice dinner out, I went to St. Bibiana’s. One of my friends is the grill cook there, so he ran all of our food. That’s a good time. It’s nice knowing people.

-Neil Gabbey

TRIED, TASTED, TRUE

Skillet cheesy corn dip 🫑🧀

THE STORY BEHIND THE RECIPE

This is a strange one, but stay with me.

One night, the spring weather warming and our overflowing freezer in need of a clean out, I was looking for a side dish to accompany some leftover sliders. Dregs of bags of Alexia waffle cut sweet potato fries and KrogerTater Bites would go great but were not quite enough to fill our plates. 

Buried beneath unlabeled Rubbermaid containers, I found some frozen corn.

It is high time that I tied Triple D into Triple T, and this recipe’s inspiration comes from The Bun Shop, an erstwhile eatery in Los Angeles’s K-Town that was visited by Guy Fieri back in 2016.

I distinctly remember watching this episode when it first aired and sharing the spiky-haired host’s skepticism of this dish before he tucked into it.

For some savory reason, the corny combination works.

To go with its signature bao buns, The Bun Shop owner-chef concocted this strange side as a shareable, and I make it a few times a year to go with burgers or barbecue.

Probably thirty years ago now, my mom surprised me with one of the best Christmas gifts a boy could ever wish for: the pair of Puritan cast iron skillets that were her mother’s. The eight-incher works perfectly for every step of this recipe.

To start, crisp up the chopped-up bacon in the skillet itself and use a little of that bacon grease to sautée the veg.

My main modifications are to sub out the jalapeño in favor of our favorite, a roasted poblano, and to sautée a diced shallot with said pepper and a minced clove of garlic. In addition, a little shredded cheddar melds with the mozzarella to make for even cheesier mouthfuls, and use four strips of bacon because more bacon is always better.

The original recipe calls for two cups of canned corn, but thawed frozen kernels work just as well. When you add the starring starch to the skillet, go easy: the pile of corn will fill the little pan, so mix everything gingerly.

A quick broil chars the cheese and makes the dish look as great as it tastes, but let it rest for a few minutes unless you want a corn-cheese mouth burn.

-Neil Gabbey

THE RECIPE

HARD GOODS 

• 4 strips of bacon, chopped (plus reserved bacon grease) 🥓

• 1 small poblano, roasted, peeled, seeded, and diced 🫑

• 1 shallot, diced

• 1 clove of garlic, minced 🧄

• 2 c. sweet corn (canned and drained or frozen and thawed) 🌽

• 1 t. kosher salt 

• ½ t. Fresh-cracked black pepper

• 2 scallions, chopped and divided

• ½ c. shredded cheese, mozzarella and sharp cheddar 🧀

WET GOODS

• 1 T. reserved bacon grease

• 2 T. condensed milk 🥛

• 2 T. mayonnaise

DO THIS

1. Preheat a broiler

2. In the 8” skillet, cook the chopped bacon until it is crisp

   • Remove the bacon to a paper towel-lined plate

   • With clean paper towels, sop up all but 1 T. of the bacon grease 

3. Sautée the shallot and poblano until softened and slightly browned

4. Add the minced garlic and sautée for another minute

5. Add the corn and half of the scallions and mix well with the aromatics

6. Season with the salt and pepper

7. Sautée for five minutes or until the corn begins to char

8. Add the condensed milk, mayonnaise, and most of the cheese blend and mix 🥣

9. Keep on the burner until the cheese has fully melted

10. Top with the remaining cheese and scallions

11. Put the skillet under the preheated broiler until the surface chars slightly, approximately five minutes

12. Let the skillet rest for five minutes before serving

BEEN THERE. ATE THAT.

E-TANG 🍶🥠

Yeah, I do not get it.

Since the launch of Savannah Flavors, so many culinary professionals in town have gushed and drooled over E-TANG, duly chronicled in ‘Chefs’ Cravings’. A month ago, my wife and I tried to snag a table for two on a Saturday night and aborted the mission when faced with an hour-and-a-half wait ⏰

On a gorgeous Thursday evening a couple weeks later, we figured that midweek might be the best time to land a two-top. Good thing we walked in just before six: by half past, it was packed.

I could not be happier for owner David Xin and the team behind Savannah’s relatively new Sichuan standard, which opened roughly a year after its property predecessor, Bier Haus, closed following the tragic COVID-related death of its owner, Marshall Urstadt.

While I would never purport that my palate is as pinpoint as my punctuation, I know good food. Without question or apology, I like the Americanized Asian standards, far more than my wife does, so whenever she is out of town, my standby is a styro tray of pork fried rice from any place on the way home from work.

At the risk of being too Oscar Wilde, I have to quote myself here: “There is precious little that separates $15 sit-down Chinese from $5 takeaway boxes, and when I really yen for Chinese, I will always go for the dodgy stripmall greasy wok.”

In its ethos, E-TANG is decidedly the former. The service is top-notch, quick and smiley and solicitous. The atmosphere is certainly and understandably brighter than was Bier Haus, even if the bar is lined with the remnants of the bygone breweries’ bespoke mugs and steins and now dormant taps.

Our entrées’ portions were generous, as were the ones we saw pass by en route to other tables, and they ought to be because each is expensive. Not one is under $17, and many are north of $20, price-tag evidence that diners are paying for a given dish’s provenance. It was clear that all four items that we ordered were house-made from quality ingredients and not merely rolled off of a Sysco Asian Foods truck for a quick stir or flash fry.

The shrimp soup dumplings ($9.95) 🥟 were a fun starter, popping the supple pockets to release the salty, shrimpy broth into the tong gang for a quick slurp before gobbling up the dumpling itself in one big bite.

Probably our favorite shareable was the stir fried string beans ($15.95), a vibrant and verdant mountain of blistered haricots flecked with black garlic and dried chiles. Oily and al dente, they lived up to their reputation, though I could not help thinking that even a pound of these beans bought at Whole Foods would have come out to a four-hundred-percent mark-up from store to service. Sorry, sixteen bucks for beans is just steep.

Also delicious was the crispy spicy chicken ($17.95), even if we were lame and requested the removal of the middle word. What came to the table was a mound of the best chicken nuggets and nugglettes you could ever wish for, dry and crunchy courtesy of the cornstarch coating. Dipped in duck sauce, these made for nice alternating bites with the beans.

Rather disappointingly, the twice cooked pork ($18.95) fell far and away from related double sautée pork preparations I have loved at other Asian eateries. The slices of belly were anything but crisp and were each half fat, making for more gelatinous than meaty mouthfuls. Big hunks of still raw red and green pepper were pointless and overwhelmed the otherwise tender and tasty leeks, though the unctuous chile-infused dressing was delish 🌶

On purpose, we ordered enough food to have leftovers, the pork vastly improved by a blast-broil in my oven. Still, I have to go Wilde again and reprise my own writing: “Do yourself a favor: learn to make Asian cuisine at home. Most standards are cheap and quick to prepare.”

If we return to E-TANG, we will split the beans and the chicken and call it a meal. 

More likely still, I will sit down at Das Box and wolf down the fried rice ($12) or swing by Green Tea and drive home with a small order of boneless spare ribs and pork fried rice that will feed me for two nights: $10.37 for Asian fare just as tasty.

-Neil Gabbey