Ocean Isle Beach vacation - eating out

We were trying to be really good about not spending too much money while on vacation so we only ate out a handful of times, and that was for lunch too, so that Katherine could participate. She did great and ate like a big girl every time.

For my birthday lunch we went to a local restaurant called The Isles. It had a ton of good user reviews but most of them were from people who had their wedding there. Well we decided to try it anyway and it was awesome!! They were very accommodating about our munchkin. Made her a nice grilled cheese with cheddar (I prefer it to American cheese, she likes it too) and gave her a whole bowl of grapes instead of a regular fruit salad, since she doesn't like cantaloupe and can't really chew up stringy pineapple... She ate every last bit of it and had fun coloring a pirate picture. Our food was great too.

Tiny artiste hard at work...

Then another day we drove over to the town of Calabash to see what Calabash food is all about. Well it really is nothing that special. It is basically just lightly breaded fried food. We tried a little sampler there and it was really nice. But I'm glad we didn't make plans to go out to a special dinner for that. In any case, the place we ate at is supposedly THE BEST Calabash seafood place, which you would not think that if you saw this building from the street. It is a small, slightly run down building, squeaky door, two picnic tables outside for to go orders. But when I googled best places to eat Calabash food, this was the #1 on many food sites and, I think, on Tripadvisor. So if you're in the area, stop by.

We also had a nice lunch in Wilmington the day we went there for a day trip but unfortunately I didn't take any pictures of that. Oh well. We are at the Basics Café at the Cotton Exchange and it was awesome! If any of you are in Wilmington, looking for a place to eat, stop by there. Great food and great service.