Savannah Mall - Ruby Tuesday

Well, this will be my last evening in Savannah. I'll be heading back home to Tennessee tomorrow. I couldn't decide which sightseeing picture to post today. I had a few of some statues from some of the squares, and a few more of the fountain. I finally decided on another pic of the fountain because it's just about one of the prettiest things that I've ever seen. This pic shows you the long covered walkway leading up to the fountain. It gets even prettier (and spookier) as the sun starts going down and the streetlamps begin to illuminate. At any rate, Savannah is a beautiful city, just like everyone told me that it would be. I'd probably like to come back at some point in the future on my own, when work isn't involved, so I could enjoy myself a little bit more and not have to worry about getting up at a certain time every day and going to class. It's a little expensive down here though, especially if you want to stay right down on the river. I'll probably be back sometime though because there were so many things here that I didn't have time to do this time around.

Unfortunately, today I ended up eating at a chain restaurant that you've seen me eat at before on here. I originally went to the Savannah Mall to try and locate a new restaurant that a bartender told me about. I don't know what it is, but I just seem to attract other vegetarians and vegans to me. I was sitting in a bar the other night, chatting with the bartender when somehow, the issue of food came up and I mentioned that I was vegan and was surprised that there was not an exclusively vegetarian/vegan restaurant in Savannah. Well, come to find out, the bartender was a vegetarian who had actually been vegan for several years before going back to being a vegetarian. He said there was a new restaurant near the mall that had a huge sign outside that said VEGETARIAN or maybe even VEGAN on it. I went to the Savannah Mall and looked all around it, but could not find anything like that. There is more than one mall down here though, so it's possible he was talking about a different mall. I guess I didn't get enough details. DANG IT!

So anyway, I ended up just eating at Ruby Tuesday in the mall because I was short on time and needed to get lunch over with and get back. I really like Ruby Tuesday, it's a good vegan option when you're travelling. I just thought I was going to be able to find something else more local, but I couldn't. So in a way, I guess Ruby Tuesday came to the rescue and helped me eat a filling vegan lunch when I couldn't find any other options.

I started out by making a nice salad from their incredible Salad Bar. I think that they probably have the nicest and most diverse Salad Bar that I am aware of in the chain restaurant industry. It's less than $3 to add it to your meal too, and it's unlimited trips. Plus, they have so many ingredients. I just grabbed a little bit of everything and piled it up into a nice salad. One thing I did do, that I've never done before, was put a few Jalapenos on my salad. I like Jalapenos, but I just had never added them to a salad. It was really good. I'll add those little suckers every time now when I make a salad, if they're available.

I wasn't sure about their salad dressing choices. Even the Light Balsamic Vinegar dressing looked like it might be "creamy", and made me wonder if it might have dairy in it. So I just opted for the oil & vinegar that were sitting there at the end of the salad bar in their separate bottles. You can't go wrong there. My salad was delicious, and I really could have just made a meal out of the Salad Bar. In fact, I probably should have done that since I feel like I have eaten like a PIG this week. But I decided that I might as well enjoy their veggie burger too while I was there. It's the best vegan veggie burger that I know of in the whole chain restaurant industry, and it will DEFINITELY fill you up.

Once again, I asked the server before ordering if that particular restaurant was serving the Veggie Land Burger, because there are supposedly a few Ruby Tuesday locations that serve a different brand of veggie burger that is NOT vegan. She informed me that it was indeed the Veggie Land Burger and said that someone else had asked her about that last week. I guess there must have been another vegan through there, YIPEE! And yes, I got the french fries with it. Not healthy, I know. But hey, I'm pretending like I'm on vacation. I am SO not losing any weight this week. Oh well...

I, of course, also asked her to leave off the mayo and the cheese to make it vegan and then also said that I didn't want them to butter the bun when they grilled it. She looked worried and said she would see what they could do. This was the same look I got at the location at home when I mentioned no butter on the bun. Come to find out, they butter and grill the buns in advance, so there's no way to remove the butter from those buns. So, I just told her that I didn't need my bun grilled, and asked that they just give me a plain bun straight out of the plastic bag, which they did. So I was happy. I have found butter on the buns to be one of those sneaky things that you really have to watch out for when trying to eat out as a vegan. I got burned with it once, a long time ago on a Portobello Mushroom sandwich, and I have been on guard for it ever since. I guess some servers, who really don't understand what veganism is, must think that I am crazy being so worried about butter on the buns, I even had one tell me one time that "they don't use very much and you really can't taste it." But oh well, I eventually get my point across that I don't want any butter on my food, and I guess there's lots of people who think I'm crazy anyway, so there. ;o)

Well, I'm about to head out and cut up a little bit tonight. I guess I can enjoy myself a little bit more since I don't have to get up early for my class tomorrow. I'll just get up whenever I wake up and then start the drive back to Tennessee. It's really not that far. It only took me 5 1/2 hours to drive down here. Hopefully, traffic will be comparable to the drive down and I'll make it back in a similar time frame.

I'll probably stop in Asheville, NC again for lunch on the way home. This time though, I'll try to eat at one of the other vegetarian restaurants there. It really is amazing how many vegetarian dining options there are there, so it's kinda' dumb to just keep eating at the same place over and over. I am planning on FINALLY trying out a place called Rosetta's Kitchen. I don't know what time I'll finally make it home to enter my blog post, but I assume it will be a little later in the day.

So thanks for following the blog this week as I scoped out vegan food in Savannah. There weren't a whole lot of options here, but the ones that I did find were delicious. There were a few more places that were recommended that I didn't even get around to trying, but I guess I'll save those for when I come back and visit the town again on my own and won't be constrained on time because of a work related class.

I'm going out right now to find some ghosts and a great big Margarita!

See everybody tomorrow!