Hoppin John and Hog-head stew! Charleston restaurants make a blind man see and a lame man walk!

If you’re planning a visit to Charleston, and especially if you’re a fan of lowcountry cuisine, make sure you stop in at Jestine’s Kitchen. I got lucky: it’s right across the street from the King Charles Inn, where I’m staying, and I more or less blundered into it.

It’s soul food, lowcountry style. The restaurant is named for a former laundress and housekeeper named Jestine Matthews, born in 1885, the daughter of a Native American. Her father was the son of a freed slave.

This being Charleston, epicenter of southern fried, you’ll find the sort of food all around the city you thought was extinct: Hoppin John, Frogmore stew, hog-head stew, deerburgers and porgy.

At Jestine’s, you can order the country-fried steak – a favorite of mine when I want to rev up the RPMs on the cholesterol tachometer – shrimp Creole over white rice, okra gumbo and fried oyster po’ boys. They have daily blue-plate specials.

I got the aforementioned shrimp Creole over white rice and I’d have yowled like a Rhesus monkey if I hadn’t been in polite company.

Then I got me a take-home fudge/brownie – a Southern favorite dating back to the no-good Snopes family – and I tell you, it like to give me the vapors.